By Tom Brennan

Any day now Kamala Harris will announce her choice for vice president. It will probably be Josh Shapiro. It should be Mark Kelly.

Politics junkies everywhere have been playing this game. The people who know these things are not saying. The people who talk about it know least. But it is fun. So let’s dig in.

First there is the question of who she will pick.  A consensus of know-it-alls has emerged in recent days. It goes like this. Harris needs to take the edge off being perceived as a “San Francisco Liberal.”  She has to win back enough old timey shot and a beer Dems to hold the Rust Belt, in which case Trump’s path back to an electoral college majority is  blocked. She also needs somebody she has chemistry with, someone whose skills and presentation compliment her own, and someone she could govern with comfortably and confidently.

There is no bigger, or more essential Rust Belt prize than Pennsylvania. Josh Shapiro was elected governor of Pennsylvania in a landslide, against a very Trumpy opponent, and has an approval rating over 60%, which is unheard of in times as polarized as these. He has a moderate reputation, he gets high marks for reaching across the partisan divide, navigating a narrowly divided legislature, with each party controlling one house.

Shapiro was part of a posse of state attorneys general from the early twenty teens which included Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Roy Cooper of North Carolina (both later governors) , the late Beau Biden of Delaware — and Kamala Harris of California. From such associations chemistry sometimes derives. With the possible exception of Mayor Pete, Shapiro is possibly the slickest interviewee under consideration. He is also effective in front of large crowds, with a speaking style interestingly similar to Obama’s. He is also said to have a more moderate image, which would broaden the Dem coalition.

But mostly, it comes back to Pennsylvania. If you trust polls, PA has been the most stubborn in its resistance to supporting Biden or Harris this year, of all the Rust Belt states still in play. And PA is the prize Harris can least afford to lose.

A leak out of Philadelphia City Hall seemed to confirm Shapiro was the choice. Harris will kick off her campaign, with whomever the VP choice is, at a rally in Philly. People have also read meaning into schedule changes of the various VP prospects.

Arcane instructions to donors lead some to conclude a governor will be chosen. Cooper has gravitas but can’t leave his state because his Lt Governor is insane. Beshear has tried to position himself as the “real Appalachian” in contrast with J.D. Vance, or whatever he is calling himself these days. But Andy lacks is very young, and probably could not even deliver Kentucky. The Sandernitas like Governor Walz of Minnesota, but Harris’ problem is not her left flank, and a Dem who can’t win Minnesota will not be viable nationally.

So, The Word is it’s Shapiro. The tea leaves say so, the importance of Pennsylvania says so, and his own manifest talents say so.

But not so fast. It is not unusual for people under consideration for VP to adjust scheduling for any eventualities.  VP choices have only rarely been announced in their home states. The leak  from City Hall could hurt as much as help. Fetterman is said to be warning warning against a Shapiro pick. Interestingly, the Senator’s concern is not ideological, but Shapiro’s possible excess of personal ambition, which is always a factor in the choice of an understudy.  Shapiro is popular in one state. Lloyd Bentsen was beloved in Texas, and had personally defeated George HW Bush for the senate. Ask Mike Dukakis how that worked out. Simplistic calculations about what state a running mate can lock down have limits.

But let us allow the proposition that it looks like Shapiro will be chosen.

Should he be chosen?

Let’s stipulate that all who have been under serious consideration are quality prospects. Let’s focus on who is best situated to help win.

I think there is a stronger case to be made for Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona.

Shapiro, who is Jewish, was raised upper middle class, and took his undergraduate degree from the University of Rochester. I am from Rochester, NY. The city is aptly nicknamed Smugtown.  Shapiro went from there to law school, and then promptly and deftly positioned himself to run statewide by mastering competitive county level politics in the Philly suburbs. He is exceptionally talented. Fetterman may owe his election to the senate to Shapiro’s coattails.

Kelly is the son of a New Jersey cop. He flew combat missions in the first Gulf War. He commanded the Space Shuttle. His twin brother was an astronaut. He became political activist after his congresswoman wife, with whom he made an autumnal marriage, was nearly killed by an unhinged right winger with too easy access to guns.

In weighing which voters Harris most needs to shore herself up with, in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, whose persona, whose style, whose biography best situates them to do this?  The challenge is not the Philly suburbs, it’s Beaver County PA, and places like it. It’s not just Pennsylvania, it’s Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, and perhaps even Virginia and Florida that we need to consider.

Both VP front runners bring a more moderate coloration which compliments Harris. On vouchers, on some labor issues, on the Middle East, this is the case,  but every Democrat, as well as every democrat, knows the stakes and knows their duty this year. A successful anti-fascist coalition is going to require true diversity, true tolerance, and some maturity and compromise.

What awaits the Dem ticket this fall is well understood. Anyone paying any attention at all knows all about MAGA, and their crybaby criminal standard bearer. Their contempt for the truth, for decency, for democracy itself is manifest. They will falsely try to depict democrats as weak, like the Putin shills they have become, and they will evade the long established bipartisan responsibility for the crisis at the border, while blocking a solution, on orders from the Orange Menace. People who invent stories that depict themselves as victims will stoop to any indecency to exploit the ear scratching in Butler, Pennsylvania last month, a mishap courtesy of an unhinged boy, a registered Republican who also too easily got a gun. And perhaps courtesy of a climate their words and actions created.

We have to be ready for this. In selecting a VP candidate, there is a key question. Who best answers all of this? More than words, whose life, whose example, best reaches the people of good will in America who belong with us? We could do worse than Mark Kelly.

(and probably will)