Suddenly, it’s all about who will make the best running mate for Kamala Harris.

Since the moment Joe Biden announced that he would “stand down” as the Democratic Presidential Candidate for 2024—and within minutes, endorsed incumbent Vice President Kamala Harris to succeed him at the top of the ticket—a power hitters’ line-up of strong potential running mates has emerged from the Democrats deep bench of seasoned public officials.

I’ve written several columns about outstanding Vice-Presidential possibilities to run with Harris, including Pennsylvania’s Governor Josh Shapiro (https://open.substack.com/pub/villano/p/harrisshapiro-ticket-will-sweep-the?r=cveu&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web), and Arizona’s Senator Mark Kelly (https://open.substack.com/pub/villano/p/are-gabby-and-the-astronaut-ready?r=cveu&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web).

While Shapiro and Kelly have long been my two leading choices, there are other names which have surfaced that compel comparison.  After listing, and briefly commenting on each potential VP candidate—and coming off my exact prediction on which date Biden would withdraw from the race—I’ll make my recommendation for which candidate, in my judgement, will bring the most to the Democratic 2024 ticket.

I’m saving Kelly and Shapiro for the final few paragraphs, and ranking the others in alphabetical order:

1.     Michael Bennet, Age 60, Colorado, (10 electoral votes):  In his third term as Senator from Colorado, Bennet brings experience and ideological balance, but little else.   Bennet is a good debater, and well-spoken on the issues, but the Dems can win Colorado without him on the ticket, and he wouldn’t have coattails in any other state;

2.     Andy Beshear, Age 46, Kentucky (8 electoral votes):  In his first-term as Governor in a deep Red state, Beshear won a commanding victory over a hand-picked candidate of Mitch McConnell’s, and was uncompromising on the issue of Reproductive Rights.  In addition to his youth, and record of winning in a heavily Republican Southern State, Beshear would bring ideological and regional balance to the national Democratic ticket.  While it’s unlikely he could deliver Kentucky’s 8 electoral votes for the Democrats, his presence on the ticket could appeal to independent voters across the South, and perhaps help Democrats do better in surrounding states.  Beshear would also puncture J.D. Vance’s phony aggrandizing of his “Hillbilly” Kentucky roots.

3.     Cory Booker, Age 55, New Jersey (14 electoral votes):  Running for re-election to his third term, Booker is an extraordinarily gifted and eloquent campaigner.  However, the Democrats don’t need Booker on the ticket to carry New Jersey, even though he could galvanize more young voters, and black voters to come to the polls nationwide.  It’s important to remember that past DNC Chair Donna Brazile considered putting Cory Booker on a national ticket with Joe Biden in 2016, when Hillary Clinton was physically—and politically— faltering in her campaign, as a way to diversify and balance the Democratic ticket.  While a large number of voters would support a national ticket with two highly qualified Black candidates, there are other candidates who would deepen and broaden the strength of the Harris campaign.

4.     Pete Buttigieg, Age 42, Indiana, (11 electoral votes):  As Biden’s Secretary of Transportation, Buttigieg has been given an extraordinary portfolio of Infrastructure Projects to bring to fruition.  Brilliant and articulate, Buttigieg is a terrific advocate, and would bring his competence, communications skills, and youth—but little else—to a ticket headed by Kamala Harris, who has built a solid constituency herself among the nation’s LGBTQ community, and among younger voters.  Additionally, Buttigieg has never won a statewide campaign, and could not be counted upon to deliver any Midwestern states, despite his Indiana roots.

5.     Roy Cooper, Age 67, North Carolina (16 electoral votes):  Cooper served at North Carolina’s Attorney General during the same time period Harris served as California’s AG, and went on to serve two terms as North Carolina’s Governor. While he was elected repeatedly in a state which National Democrats only won once (Obama, 2008), Cooper’s coattails didn’t even extend to Democrats running for US Senate or Members of Congress from his own state.  A lackluster and boring candidate, Cooper’s presence on the Democratic National ticket wouldn’t necessarily deliver North Carolina’s 16-electoral votes, as much, perhaps, as the present candidacy for NC Governor of a far-right extreme MAGA candidate, Mark Robinson, will drive voters into the Democratic camp.   Like Beshear, Cooper would offer ideological and regional balance, but he’s unlikely to have any coattails at all, and, at 67 years old, is 21 years older than Beshear.

6.     Wes Moore, Age 45, Maryland (10 electoral votes):  Elected Governor of Maryland in 2022, Moore is a “rising star” in the Democratic Party, based upon his intelligence, eloquence, military service, and leadership of the Robin Hood Foundation.  However, Maryland is a dependably Democratic state, so Moore’s presence on a Harris ticket adds little during this election cycle.

7.     JB Pritzker, Age 59, Illinois (19 electoral votes): In his second term as the Governor of Illinois, Pritzker has easily beaten his GOP opponents, and been a powerful advocate for Reproductive Rights, the right to read books of choice, and fiscal responsibility.  One of the wealthiest public officials in the nation with a net worth of $3.6 billion, Pritzker would bring regional and administrative diversity to the Democratic ticket, but little else.  Yet, again, the National Dems don’t need Pritzker on the ticket to carry Illinois, and his appeal beyond his own Stateline is questionable.

8.     Gretchen Whitmer, Age 52, Michigan (15 electoral votes):  Despite her relative youth, Whitmer has had a remarkable public career, serving 15 yeas in the Michigan State Legislature, before being elected Governor for the first time in 2018.  During Whitmer’s two-term tenure as Governor she has transformed Michigan into a Democratic stronghold for Statewide elections.  Whitmer first came to national attention when she revealed she had been sexually assaulted.  She was also the target of an Extreme Right Wing Militia Group’s kidnapping plot, thwarted by the FBI.  Brilliant, eloquent, courageous and unflappable, Whitmer will help the Democrats carry Michigan and perhaps Wisconsin, whether she is on the Harris ticket or not.  While there are large numbers of voters who would support a national ticket headed by two women, Whitmer, a progressive like Harris, would be a strong running mate if their weren’t other even stronger potential candidates like Josh Shapiro and Mark Kelly, who bring more ideological diversity  and a broader appeal to independents.

9.     Josh Shapiro, Age 51, Pennsylvania (19 electoral votes):  The newly elected Governor (2022) and twice-elected State’s Attorney General of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro would be an incredibly strong running mate for Kamala Harris, as I’ve written before (see earlier link).  Shapiro won his gubernatorial race by nearly 20 points over a well-funded fanatical right wing Christian Nationalist who pushed an extremist agenda, not unlike the GOP’s Project 2025. In that campaign, Shapiro’s strong Jewish faith, his impeccable career in enforcing the law, his solid commitment to Reproductive Rights and fundamental human rights, and his steady competence, contributed to his landslide victory.  Shapiro, a consummate public servant with great integrity, would help Harris in key swing states with independent voters who backed him in large numbers in Pennsylvania, and his presence on the ticket would help swing Pennsylvania, and perhaps Michigan. The only question remaining with Shapiro is, in comparison to Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, which one would bring more to the National Democratic ticket to ensure a victory over Donald Trump and MAGA?

10. Mark Kelly, Age 60, Arizona (11 electoral votes):  As I’ve written before, Kelly, in his second term in the US Senate, defeated a heavily funded puppet of Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel in 2022, who also purchased the Ohio Senate seat for JD Vance.  Despite Thiel trying to crush Kelly by dumping more than $15 million into Arizona against him, Kelly—a naval captain and former Astronaut—raised four times as much money for his winning campaign.  Representing both a swing state and a border state, Kelly has been articulate on the issue of immigration, and, a key surrogate speaker for 2024 Democratic Senatorial candidate Ruben Gallego, one of the most prominent Latino candidates in the country.  Kelly’s appeal crosses party lines in Arizona, where independent voters and McCain Republicans gave him strong support.  Married to former Arizona Congressmember Gabby Giffords, shot in the brain while campaigning 14 years ago, Kelly is an indefatigable campaigner against gun violence, and strong supporter of an assault weapons ban.  He and Gabby have worked closely with Kamala Harris and President Biden on issues of gun violence.

In a recent fund-raising letters to supporters of GiffordsPAC, the anti-gun violence organization founded by Gabby Giffords, Kelly’s life-long partner,  Giffords wrote eloquently about Harris:

“During her time as vice president, Kamala Harris has aided President Joe Biden in every one of his historic and lifesaving actions to make our country safer from gun violence.

In 2022, she worked alongside President Biden to help pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act—the most significant gun safety legislation in nearly 30 years. Then in 2023, she worked with President Biden to establish the first-ever federal Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which she now oversees.”

In fact, GiffordsPAC has already started to split donations between the anti-gun violence organization and the Harris campaign.  I know, because I just split a contribution to each.

David Miles Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland HS mass shooting and a leading advocate fighting gun violence, has already started using his extensive social media presence with younger voters and activists to begin raising money for the Harris campaign.  And, as emotionally as the graphic picture of Kamala Harris advancing the shadow of Ruby Bridges has hit many of us, Gabby Giffords has an equally powerful and galvanizing effect on young voters, outraged by gun violence.

With the availability of two national heroes to join her team  like Mark Kelly and Gabby Giffords, why would Kamala Harris not choose Mark Kelly as her running mate?

Kelly has proven he can carry Arizona and its’ 11 electoral votes, regardless of how much money the GOP pours into the state.  His presence as the Vice Presidential candidate on the Harris ticket may also be enough to pull Ruben Gallego to victory, over the MAGA princess, Kari Lake.

Additionally, Kelly’s appeal—as an authentic American hero—is nationwide, and may be especially helpful in turning out more votes for incumbent Democratic Senatorial candidates up for re-election in the neighboring States of Nevada and New Mexico, as well as helping Colin Allred beat Ted Cruz in Texas, where Mark Kelly lived while he worked at NASA.

I love and admire Josh Shapiro.  He has been kind and gracious to the matriarch of our family, who was a member of the same Synagogue as Shapiro.  He is the first public official I have ever met who reminds me of the brilliant, compassionate and spiritual Mario Cuomo, with whom I worked for nearly a decade, and about whom I wrote a book.

So, for me, it’s a very close call, and Kamala Harris—and all of us—are fortunate to have such an abundance of talented, high-integrity and dedicated pubic servants to select as our new leaders and to serve—and preserve— this democracy.

The opportunity to have such extraordinary candidates like Kamala Harris and Mark Kelly on the same Democratic National ticket—with the added value of elevating Gabby Giffords and the life and death issue of gun violence into the national spotlight of a Presidential campaign—must be seized now with vigor, and turned into a landslide victory for decency, the rule of law, fundamental human rights, and democracy.

(My book “Tightrope: Balancing A Life Between Mario Cuomo & My Brother” Heliotrope Books, N.Y.—available on Amazon—and my brother Michael Villano, as I remember him.)

I can’t believe that’s it’s been 10 years since my brother, Michael, died.

The confluence of what would have been his 84^th birthday this weekend, and the death, also by pancreatic cancer, also at 74 years old, of Congress Member Sheila Jackson Lee has brought my brother back to the front of my thoughts.

My brother Michael was my first hero, a calm gentle presence in my chaotic early life, the opposite of my father whose temper could explode as quickly as the steam boilers he worked on in the bowels of the basement of a rich man’s office tower in mid-town Manhattan.   Gifted with patience, my brother would assemble all of my toys that my father had no patience, or time, for putting together.

I always saw my brother through my mother’s eyes, and that view was rose-colored, gentle and perfect, even when my brother’s life veered into a far different direction in later years. To my mother, to me, my brother was always there, ready to help, to calm the waters.

He could build anything—a four-poster bed, a bicycle, a house. I once watched him cook a meal from scratch for two dozen people, each ingredient carefully chosen, each choice delicately considered, each course, better than the one before. I was mesmerized by his short, stubby fingers and how much they looked like our mother’s.

My brother’s life and mine, diverged sharply over the last several decades of his life. As I detailed in my book “Tightrope: Balancing A Life Between Mario Cuomo & My Brother,” (Heliotrope Books, N.Y., 2017) Michael began working with the Gambino Crime family and John Gotti as a “bagman,” during the same time I was working with New York State Governor, Mario M. Cuomo—the most prominent Italian-American public official in the United States, a model of integrity who revered the Rule of Law.  

I knew, first-hand, that Mario Cuomo had no connections to the Mob, because I did.  And my brother and his organized crime associates talked openly how “Mario Cuomo was unreachable,” and how Donald Trump—who relied upon them in New York’s construction industry– was a cash-cow they loved to bully, because he would do anything they demanded.

My idolization of my brother Michael turned into sadness, anger, sorrow and then, in the end, love again. He had lost his way, made a cascade of mistakes, and got sucked into a whirlpool of debt and obligation and personal loyalty he could not, or didn’t want to, escape. 

On my brother’s 70^th birthday, in 2010, we met for lunch at a waterside restaurant in Northport, Long Island, facing Crab Meadow beach.  I told him I was working on my book, and had been since 1988, when he was sentenced to 90 days in prison for income tax invasion.

“Just like Al Capone,” he would joke, referring to the tax evasion convictions, which I didn’t find too funny because of the pain it put so many of us through. 

Each time Donald Trump compares his 34 Felony convictions to the 23 that Capone had, as if to prove he was tougher and more of a criminal outlaw than Capone, I am reminded of my brother’s braggadocio, and my blood boils.

I told Michael I was the only one who could tell this story, and the only one who would do justice to it.   He agreed, and was very supportive, even enthused about it.

“Just don’t rat anybody out,” he said to me, in typical New York mob fashion.

I smiled at him.

“That would be kind of hard, Michael, since everyone is dead,” I said.

John Gotti was dead 8 years already, at age 61, and my brother was no longer involved with the Gambino Crime family.  It was 17 years since I worked for Mario Cuomo, and I was now running a non-profit organization and living with my family in Northern California.

In early Spring, 2014, I learned that my brother was battling pancreatic cancer.  I no longer had an unlimited amount of time, nor did he.  I wanted to finish this story I had been working on for nearly 30 years, so he could read it before he died. 

I could not write fast enough.  In November, 2014, my brother Michael lost his 9-month long battle with pancreatic cancer.  My manuscript now had an added purpose:  to give new life and meaning to the memories of my brother, complicated as they were, and to our relationship.

Then, within 60 days of my brother’s death, Mario Cuomo died. I had run out of excuses for not finishing my book.   All of the principal characters were dead, but me.  And no one else had written the story to give me a final reprieve, so the only option left was for me to tell it; to excise this growth from inside me.

Ironically, after my book was published in the summer of 2017, there were a number of people who wished it had never been written.  Sure, as Pete Hamill noted when he wrote “A Drinking Life,” family members hate when “one of their own,” tells the stories everyone was trying to hide.

My family was no different than Hamill’s.  My mother died 10 years earlier so I didn’t have to worry about her being upset about “airing our dirty laundry.”  In fact, I postponed telling the story as non-fiction for 14 full years before my mother died. 

In 1992, I had lunch with the great writer Gay Talese, at one of his favorite restaurants around the corner from his E. 61^st townhouse in Manhattan.  Talese had asked Mario Cuomo to write a book-jacket blurb for his autobiography Unto the Sons, and the Governor delegated the task to me since he knew I loved Talese’s writing and his journalistic courage.

Talese and I talked a bit about his book, his family, and about the difficulty Italian-American writers experienced in revealing family secrets.  As a probing journalist, Talese wanted to know what my family secrets were. I proceeded to tell him that I had written two fictionalized versions of the story—each one, approximately 500 pages.

Talese looked straight at me and told me that such a powerful and unique story begged to be told as non-fiction, a form or writing he favored.  He challenged me to do a 10-page outline for a non-fiction book over the next few weeks. 

When I got back to him, my “10-page outline” had grown to a 154-page annotated and detailed outline, complete with quotes, contemporaneous notes and sources.  Talese took one look at the tome and told me:  “You’ve got the book right here.”

“There’s only one problem with it, “ Gay, I said. “I won’t publish this story in non-fiction form while my mother is alive, and while Mario Cuomo is still Governor.  It would kill my mother, and it could be distorted to be used against Cuomo.” 

So, I sat on the story for years, work-shopping it as fiction, as a stage play, or as a screenplay. My brother Michael may have been fine with the non-fiction story of our lives—even a little titillated by it– but his surviving family was not, despite my painstakingly portraying my brother as my life-long hero, and as a good man, who simply lost his way.

The Cuomo family hated it, and expressed to me through confidants that “the book should have never been written.”  They were not happy with  having Mario Cuomo’s name in the same book as someone affiliated with “the Mob.” 

“Why,” I responded, “Only Cuomos are supposed to write books? Only their versions of stories are to be told?

It did not matter how much I explained that the book was written as an eye-witness account of how Cuomo had NO mob connections; that I wanted to definitively dispel the vicious, ethnically prejudiced rumors that because Cuomo was Italian he must be “mobbed up.”  Nothing could have been further from the truth, and I wrote the book to give first-hand evidence to that.

To the Cuomo’s none of that mattered.  They were worried about the headlines linking the name “Cuomo” with any mention of the Mob, even if it was to prove those rumors were all lies. Astounding.

In settling on “Tightrope’s” full title, I rebuffed the suggestion from marketing people to put “The Mob” in the book’s title, to sell many more books.   I rejected that suggestion, not just to protect Mario Cuomo from malevolent screen shots, but because my life was not torn between me and The Mob, but between me and my brother, who happened to work for the Mob.

In the end, it was my story; nurtured inside me for more than three decades; told over years in parts to therapists, friends and colleagues; recorded in dozens of notebooks, memos and papers kept contemporaneously from my years of working with Mario Cuomo; and from my endless days of witnessing my brother’s criminal record unfold in Federal court, and, finally, watching him  get sentenced to prison.

My brother is dead 10 years now, and each time I go back and re-read a portion of my book about him, he is still alive, and, I’d like to think, wishing his life had been more in tune with the kind, good person I loved.

(Former Member of Congress Gabby Giffords, and her husband and life-partner, Astronaut, Navy Captain and Senator from Arizona, Mark Kelly)

I thought I knew pretty much everything about the 2011 attempted assassination of former Arizona Member of Congress, Gabby Giffords, and her remarkable and arduous recovery from being shot in the head. 

Then I watched an eye-opening CNN documentary about her entitled Won’t Back Down, and was inspired anew.  As the son of a strong woman who fought polio for 92 years, few things move me like the daily, determined struggle to overcome disability.

Giffords’ story is astonishing, as is the unshakeable love story between her and Mark Kelly, an astronaut and genuine American hero—whose bald head and broad smile remind me of a modern day Dwight D. Eisenhower. 

I love watching how Kelly still takes her hand and gently guides her through crowds each time she speaks.  I love Gabby’s inspiring story for all of us, to never give up; I love how much Mark Kelly loves her.  This is the essence of life, and love, and hope, and the right stuff we like to see in our leaders, and ourselves.

Every member of the Democratic National Committee, as well as Joe and Jill Biden, should watch “Won’t Back Down,” this weekend, while they are contemplating how to supercharge the Democratic Presidential ticket for 2024.

After a tumultuous week in American politics, with included an alleged attempted assassination of Donald Trump which left him with a tiny bruise and tea-bag like bandage on his right ear, it’s time for the Democrats to shake things up, and field a national ticket of true courage, grace, genuine patriotism, reverence for Democracy, and a determination to end gun violence in this country.

I hope that when leading Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries & Chuck Schumer, and others, have met with Biden and informed him of the increasingly dire prospects in the 2024 election, they were thinking of how best to add great value to a national ticket which should be headed by former sex-crimes prosecutor Kamala Harris, history’s candidate against the most anti-women, anti-human rights, anti-democracy GOP ticket of all times. All they need to do is watch “Won’t Back Down,” to get their answer. The inherent heroism and courage of Arizona’s Senator Mark Kelly, and Gabby Giffords leaps off the screen.

I’ve floated Kelly’s name before as a possible running mate for Harris, and put him at the very top of powerful political partners along with Governors Josh Shapiro (Pa.), and Andy Beshear (KY). But a series of unforeseen events over the past week have altered the Democrats political landscape entirely.

With the shot heard around Trump’s ear being fired in Pennsylvania last weekend, and his cult members convinced that, somehow, a Deity would choose to push an AK-15 killer bullet away from Trump’s head and into the body of a retired firefighter, it’s urgent to remind the country what true courage looks like, in addition to that exhibited by the firefighter who covered his family with his own body to protect them from harm.

Gabby Giffords actually did take a bullet to the head. In fact, the bullet didn’t buzz past her ear, but, instead, tore through the entire length of the left hemisphere of her brain. Six other human beings were killed and 18 injured at close range by the gunman that day in January, 2011, in that Tucson shopping center parking lot. Gabby needed multiple operations, and within 15 days of the shooting, was moved into a rehabilitation facility, because of her remarkable progress.

Incredibly, one-month later she was already walking with the assistance of a shopping cart. Over the coming months, she underwent still more surgery to repair her cranium, and yet, by June 15—just 5 months after she was shot in the head—Gabby Giffords returned home to her husband Mark Kelly and their family. At no time during her long recovery did she go out to play a round of golf.

Instead, Gabby, and Mark Kelly, devoted their lives to helping others, crusading to end gun violence, in every form—including pushing for new bans on Assault Weapons, and strict controls on who could purchase guns and where. The following year, in July 2012, following another mass shooting in Colorado, the GOP(Guns Over People) Senators, again killed an attempt to reinstate the Assault Weapon Ban, originally passed in 1994. Less than 6 months later, in December, 2012, 20 children—mostly 7 and 8 years old—and 6 adults—had their bodies torn to shreds and some decapitated by another gunman using an Assault Weapon, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

That’s the kind of powerful message Gabby Giffords can articulate for the Democrats, campaigning across the country, along side her life partner, Senator Mark Kelly, who has been by Gabby’s side every step of the way during her continuing rehabilitation and her devotion to ending gun violence in this country. That’s how the Democrats counter the make-believe martydom of Donald Trump, and reveal that behind his made-for-television white gauze pad on Trump’s right ear, the Emperor has barely a scratch.

Still, another new development this past week—the selection of billionaire Peter Theil’s newest playtoy, JD Vance, as the GOP’s candidate for Vice-President—has also pushed Mark Kelly to the front of the Democrats who would be strong additions to their national ticket. Kelly has already beaten Thiel badly once.

Thiel—who doesn’t believe in democracy and has advanced the wacky notion that the United States began to fall apart when women got the right to vote—poured $15 million dollars into Vance’s 2022 Ohio Senate campaign, to get his paid-for protege elected. That very same election cycle, a Thiel funded PAC spent $13 million pushing the candidacy of Blake Masters, another one of his underling lackeys, in a GOP Primary, for the Arizona Senate seat held by Mark Kelly.

In the general election, Thiel’s PAC pumped another $8.3 million in the campaign attacking Kelly. Not only did Mark Kelly hold onto his Arizona Senate seat by beating Masters by 5% points, he raised $62 million for his re-election campaign, beating Thiel and his spoiled billionaire friends at their own game.

Kelly, an astronaut who has not only flown actual space missions— something which Silicon Valley’s boy billionaires only fantasize of doing— he also raised more campaign capital than the Venture Capitol Valley boys did. What better national public figure, and authentic American hero, to go up against the unpatriotic billionaires, and Thiel’s paid-puppet JD Vance, for Vice-President?

The benefit of adding Mark Kelly—who won in a swing state with broad bipartisan appeal— to the national Democratic ticket, is that the Dems than get two national celebrities added to their team, instead of one: Kelly AND Gabby Giffords, who can campaign in tandem around the nation, and redirect the campaign narrative.

Even the new ticket name flows nicely: “Kamala & Kelly.”

Such a bold, visionary move by the Democratic Party—as evidenced by Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly in the movie “Won’t Back Down,” and in real life—would clearly show American voters that they are unafraid of passing the torch of public service to a new generation of authentic leaders, and eager to vigorously continue the struggle for decency, democracy, human & civil rights, economic and environmental justice, and a more humane society.

They were always there, right in front of me: Harry Chapin, and John F. Kennedy, Jr., linked in death on the same exact date — July 16.

They died 18 years apart, their age difference, when they were both killed in terrible accidents at 38 years old.

Chapin’s brief, shooting-star-of-a-life ended in the fiery crash of a small car on the Long Island Expressway; JFK, Jr.’s, in the crash of a small aircraft, somewhere off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard.

They were brothers in death, but their families — guided by strong women — and their mutual lust for life were intertwined in ways that one of Harry Chapin’s five children, Jason, would come to experience first-hand, in his work directly with JFK, Jr. and his “Reaching Up” non-profit organization.

The son of President John F. Kennedy founded “Reaching Up” in 1989 — eight years after Harry Chapin died — to give greater access to higher education and training to healthcare givers working with individuals with disabilities.

The organization’s work not only enlarged the scope of the Special Olympics founded by JFK, Jr’s Aunt Eunice Shriver, but it also shared the compassion and common sense of the life-enhancing work done by a national non-profit co-founded by singer/songwriter Harry Chapin at the peak of his fame — WhyHunger (WhyHunger.org) — still tackling food insecurity in local communities 49 years after it was formed, as well as providing job skills to lift people out of poverty. Chapin and Kennedy were answering similar calls to serve others, lessons left to them by their famous fathers.

Jason Chapin, who worked with Governor Mario M. Cuomo and was elected to two, four-year terms on the New Castle Town Council in Westchester, County, NY, has, along with his four siblings — Jono, Jaime, Jen and Josh, and their mother Sandy — carried on Harry Chapin’s work for WhyHunger and local food banks since 1975. He is the only Chapin to know JFK, Jr., and work with the “Reaching Up” organization and its City University of New York partner (CUNY) from 1995 to 2001.

“John was extremely passionate and dedicated to the organization, “ Jason Chapin said. “ I will always remember our Board Meetings which John chaired. He politely greeted everyone in the room when he arrived. He attended all of the annual Reaching Up Kennedy Fellows Convocations and was very friendly with the Fellows.”

It was precisely the same way JFK, Jr., greeted me at an 1996 non-profit breakfast at New York’s Plaza Hotel which I attended, representing Brooklyn’s Downstate Medical Center. I proudly wore a “We Believe in Brooklyn” button to boost working-class Brooklyn’s visibility among the Manhattan political and media elite.

JFK, Jr., sitting only a few seats away from me at the circular table along with George Stephanopoulos, spotted my button as soon as we got seated. He leaned over to me and whispered.

“My family believes in Brooklyn, too,” JFK, Jr. said.

“We believe deeply in the Bed Stuy Redevelopment Project,” an important initiative started during the too short Senate term of his uncle, Robert F. Kennedy, when he was NY’s U.S. Senator, from 1965–68. Bed Stuy was right in the heart of our patient service area for Downstate, the only public Academic Medical Center serving 2.5 million people in Brooklyn.

What JFK, Jr. may not have known then, was how important Jason Chapin’s grandfather, John Cashmore, was to his own father’s election as President of the United States in 1960. Cashmore, Brooklyn Borough President from 1940–1961, delivered 66% of Kings County’s vote to JFK, helping him beat Nixon in New York State by five percent, and win NY’s 45 electoral votes, giving Kennedy the 303 Electoral votes he needed to win the Presidency.

I told JFK, Jr. how important the Bed Stuy project was to the lifeblood of Central Brooklyn and how important his own father’s example of public service was to me in guiding my life’s work.

“You probably get tired of hearing that from so many people of my generation,” I said to JFK, Jr.

“I never get tired of hearing it,” he said. “It makes me proud to see how many people my father inspired.”

It’s the same line I’ve heard the Chapins say over many decades, with unending politeness and grace, when people tell them that Harry Chapin inspired them to commit their lives to fighting poverty, or improving public health, or helping refugees find access to food or shelter.

“I’m always amazed by how many people my father reached, how many lives he touched,” Jason says.

Harry Chapin, like JFK, Jr. was not content to sit still, and determined to use his celebrity to do good, performing 2000 concerts during his 10-year music career, with half of them as benefits, raising more than $6 million to fight hunger. Harry raised millions more on his radio “Hungerthons” with WhyHunger co-founder Bill Ayres, a former radio DJ and Catholic priest who Marched on Washington with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1963 — to pressure JFK, Jr’s father to enact Civil Rights and Voting Rights legislation.

As with JFK, Jr., Chapin was encouraged to take his activism, courage and compassion full-time to Washington, and run for the U.S. Senate from New York, which neither man lived long enough to do.

Harry recognized, as JFK, Jr., did with the creation of “Reaching Up” in 1989, that his name attached to any project could attract politicians, the media, the public and funding to the cause.

Chapin’s crusade against hunger and poverty, and his successful campaign to create the country’s first and only Presidential Hunger Commission with the help of Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT.) and President Jimmy Carter, exhibited the same instincts that propelled JFK, Jr., to launch “Reaching Up” and George Magazine: they both knew that politics and pop culture had merged, and that those in a position to use their fame to improve human existence, and to demonstrate their love for life, had a responsibility to do so. It’s a model of being a compassionate, activist, public citizen carried on today by Wilson Cruz, Bono, Cyndi Lauper, Bruce Springsteen, Ashley Judd, George Clooney, Dolly Parton, Sean Penn, and many, many more.

Now, 43 years after Harry Chapin’s death and 25 years after JFK, Jr’s — both on July 16 — their lessons of lending their celebrity, and giving their lives, to improving the lives of others, are more crucial than ever before, especially in 2024, with the basic tenets of democracy, human and civil rights, economic and environmental justice all at great risk.

Despite fighting often daunting odds, Harry and JFK, Jr. never surrendered to despair, defeat, or negativity. Relentlessly, and with great joy and a zest for life, they took their celebrity and fame, and transformed it into inspiration and action, in pursuit of repairing a broken world.

We need their lessons of organizing for good, and serving others, today, perhaps more than we’ve ever needed them before.

Several close friends of mine in their mid-to-late 80’s — of great vigor and intelligence — have squarely faced their own naturally diminishing skills and made some extraordinarily brave, and painful, decisions.

One, a financial genius who understands every nuance of economics and can discuss the intricacies of the Torah with any Rabbi, has decided to stop driving. This, as many of us know, who no longer live in cities, is no small thing.

All his life, he has been an active driver, who enjoyed the activity enormously. For more than 20 years, he, singlehandedly, tended a 100 acre piece of property — clearing brush, chopping wood, tending a lush garden. Although he is nearly 15 years older than I, to me, he has always been my contemporary and equal in physical abilities and mental prowess.

Yet, recently, he came to the difficult realization that he just didn’t feel comfortable or as confident as he used to behind the wheel of a car. He told me of his extraordinary decision matter-of-factly, as it was a rational recognition of a natural part of aging. An extraordinary sacrifice, and a courageous recognition of how we need to be alert — and honest — about the passage of time, and the decline — sometimes barely perceptible to us and others — of our own abilities.

I shared with him that even though I was only 75, I understood how tough it was to recognize it was time to give up something you love. Five years earlier, following my third serious bicycle accident in 40 years of bike-riding — a sport I loved — I voluntarily gave up bicycling, recognizing that my balance just wasn’t what it was anymore, and that anxiety had replaced pleasure as my overwhelming feeling each time I saddled up.

Another friend, whose partner is nearing 90 and been subject to some falling spells, straightforwardly came to a similar decision. They both adored their independence, traveled the world, and immersed themselves in music, literature and learning about the cultures of other countries.

Yet, without hesitation, when it became obvious to both and those who loved them that it might not be the wisest decision to pretend that life would go on as it always has, they were clear-eyed in what they had to do. They found a continuous care community in which they could be comfortable, and met their needs from independent to, potentially, assisted living. They immediately put their stylish suburban condo up for sale which they loved and nurtured for years.

Such decisions — to stop driving and to sacrifice complete independence — are extraordinarily difficult for people who have lived active, engaged lives, and are still at the top of their game cognitively and in social interactions.

They are acts of sheer courage, love, and selflessness, with a clear-eyed view of where they’ve been, where they currently are, and how best to deal with the challenges life has ahead.

Joe Biden, Jill, their family, friends and close staff members and supporters could learn a good deal from my friends, neither of whom holds the future of democracy in their hands.

I’ve written several articles about Kamala Harris over the past 5 years, and another few about Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.  But not until this week had I connected the two as, potentially, the most powerful Democratic ticket for 2024, which could win in a national landslide.

Long before Biden showed the world that he, in the words of his former COVID Advisory Board Member Dr. Zeke Emanuel writing this week in The Atlantic (“There Are Exceptionally Sharp Octogenarians.  Biden Isn’t One.), that President Biden has “clearly deteriorated” since as recently as his State of the Union address earlier this year, I was hoping he’d live up to his 2020 promise of being a “bridge to the next generation,” and gracefully pass the torch of leadership, as Nancy Pelosi did.  Before it was too late.

For months I’ve been telling friends that Kamala Harris at the head of the 2024 Democratic National Ticket would be a far better candidate than Biden, since few are as passionate and articulate as she is on the essential issue of reproductive rights, and the Supreme Court’s repeal of Roe v. Wade.  Harris’ sweet spots on the issue of reproductive rights, Voting Rights, and her tough questioning of Trump’s Extreme Right Wing Supreme Court nominees, from 2017 to 2020, have made her history’s hand-picked candidate this year, as all of those powerful waterfalls of justice and individual rights have collided this year.

Biden certainly was not as articulate as Harris would have been, when he staggered through an incomprehensible answer on abortion, during the Trump debate, demonstrating to many of his supporters, “a staggering failure of fluid intelligence,” as Dr. Emanuel phrased it in The Atlantic.  Few people are as loyal to Biden as Dr. Emanuel, whose brother, Rahm, was appointed by Biden as Ambassador to Japan. 

Bright red “danger” signs began flashing in the homes of Democrats, Independents and voters across the country, who care about personal freedoms and democracy’s future.  If Biden couldn’t hit it out of the park on such a softball question against the person most responsible for the Repeal of Roe, it was time for Joe to go.

 Not an early Kamala Harris fan when I moved to California 15 years ago, she won me over with her tenacious, fearless and seering cross-examination of  Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett—and of the bulbous, bloviating Bill Barr—during the Senate Judiciary Committee Hearings.  Harris was a skilled prosecutor, at the top of her game and was excoriating Right Wing extremists on an enormously important national stage.  Of course, she could prosecute the case against Trump better than an incoherent Biden could.

I argued with friends that Kamala—as the first mixed-race female candidate, and daughter of immigrants, to head a national ticket—would electrify the electorate.  Despite poor press since she was elected Vice-President, a Democratic party that owes it’s success to woman, and in particular, women of color, could never, ever hopscotch over Harris, especially when reproductive rights, and an overreaching, extremist Supreme Court, are as central to this year’s campaign as the Convicted Felon and sex abuser heading the GOP ticket.  For added value, as a local prosecutor, Harris has put away her share of felons, and is not easily intimidated by criminals, whether they committed sex crimes or white collar fraud—both of which Trump has done.

When Biden withdraws as a candidate for re-election (by any number of methods), the only productive exercise for Democrats, or anyone serious about saving democracy from Christian Nationalist extremists peddling an updated 2025 version of Mein Kampf and the Felon Trump, would be to focus on a Vice-Presidential running-mate for Harris, who would bring the most to national ticket, and sweep in a Democratically controlled Senate and House. 

Much of my early attention went to Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona as the perfect running mate for Kamala Harris.  A Navy Captain and former astronaut and genuine American hero, married to Gabby Giffords, another American hero, from a key swing state, Kelly, beat multimillionaire and Trump stooge Blake Masters in 2022, carried moderate Arizona voters by 30%, and independent voters by a margin of 55-39%.   

My thought was that his moderate appeal would balance ideologically with Harris’ progressive record, and Kelly’s partner, Giffords, would help galvanize young voters passionate about gun violence.  However, one mitigating factor against Kelly might be that if the Ike-look alike were tapped to run with Kamala, the Democratic Governor of Arizona, Katie Hobbs, would have the opportunity to fill his Senate seat temporarily with another Democratic, until a special election could be held to fill out the balance of his term through 2028, and another Democrat might not be able to keep that seat.  Additionally, having the US Senator from Arizona—a border state– on the Dems National Ticket would elevate border control and immigration to the same level as Roe, Christian Nationalism, and the Fourth Reich Project 2025. Plus, that ticket would lack regional balance.

Which is why a Harris/Shapiro ticket has become far more appealing to me. 

The growing threat against women, the LGBTQ community, people of color, and non-Christians, from Christian Nationalists—on the Supreme Court, in Congress, and the Totalitarian blueprint for a Christian Nation—will require an all out campaign against those dire threats to democracy by every Democrat and independent voter in the nation.  Two skilled prosecutors—like Harris and former Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro—can effectively and relentlessly bring that case home.

 In fact, Shapiro already has, when he trounced the Ultra Right Wing Extremist Christian Nationalist and Trump apologist Doug Mastriano by 15% points in the 2022 Gubernatorial race in Pennsylvania, a crucial battleground state in the national election.

I wrote about that election in my piece entitled “From Here to Harrisburg: Josh Shapiro is Frank Sinatra & Mastriano is the Bully Borgnine,” in May, 2022. My article on Josh Shapiro was one of my top half-dozen most widely read pieces on social media, putting it up in the thousands of readers category with stories about Billy Joel, Mario Cuomo, E. Jean Carroll, John Gotti, and Trump’s Relationship with Organized Crime. Maybe it was the comparison of Shapiro to Frank Sinatra that pushed it into such rarified readership company.

In it, I compared the madman Mastriano—a gnarly mix of Donald Trump and the Heritage Foundation’s (and Pat Buchanan’s acolyte) Kevin Roberts—to Ernest Borgnine’s bullying character “Fatso Judson,” in From Here to Eternity, who kills Sinatra’s truth-telling character “Maggio,” because Fatso doesn’t like “wops.”

I researched Mastriano’s Christian Nationaist fanatical diatribes—a precursor to the Fourth Reich Project 2025—and they reminded me of the other-world screeching of Savonarola, the puritanical Dominican friar of 15th Century Italy who headed “bonfires of the vanities,” to destroy of all things condemned by religious authorities.

Throughout the pages of his parade of prejudices—a 65-page Masters thesis at a Military college– Mastriano expressed his “disgust with anyone who doesn’t hold his view that homosexuality is a form of ‘aberrant sexual conduct,” said former George W. Bush Administration White House official Peter Feaver, who was horrified by what Mastriano wrote.

The Christian Nationalist’s fevered fetishes over “homosexuals in the military, “ and a “morally depraved and relativistic populace”, gushes from his pen, like a crayon-scrawled edict nailed to a church door, rather than a “research” paper.   His apocalyptic vision of a decaying world and military is obsessed with “moral anarchy,”  “worship of Hedonism,” and the consistent theme that the “assault started with the insertion of homosexuality in the military.

Foreshadowing the forthcoming fury of the Fourth Reich’s Project 2025, declaring war on “Awokeness” (sic), Mastriano railed against “homosexuality sensitivity training.”

“The political correctness of the 1990’s established moral relativism as the norm, “ Mastriano wrote.  Ironically, Mastriano, much like the Fourth Reich Project 2025,  blusters about the “duty to uphold the Constitution,” as opposed to “overzealous loyalty to one person,”—the exact opposite of what he, MAGAites, and his fellow  “Stop the Steal” sycophants did for Trump on January 6, ^, and in campaigning for high office, despite the evidence of 60+ court decisions debunking claims of election fraud.

That’s the kind of untethered-to-reality extremism and bigotry, Shapiro, a devout practicing Jew, was up against when he made mincemeat of Mastriano in Pennsylvania in 2022, carrying many key counties by 14 to 20% more than Biden/Harris did in 2020.

Shapiro’s impeccable record of integrity and accomplishments as Pennsylvania’s Attorney General for two terms—and his unyielding campaign in defense of the rule of law, constitutional rights, reproductive rights, voting rights, and racial and religious equality, has won praise from all parts of the political spectrum.

 Even progressive writer and founder of The Lever News David Sirota wrote a glowing piece about Shapiro entitled “The Democrat Who Picks Fights with Bad Guys,” ((https://www.levernews.com/the-democrat-standing-between-america-and-fascism/), calling Shapiro “the cheery mensch your Jewish grandmother wanted you to be.”

Many of my fellow Jews have expressed concern about having a prominent Jewish elected official on the national ticket, teamed up with a bi-racial woman, and running against Trump and his crazed Christian Nationalist supporters. They worry that it will increase anti-Semitic attacks against all Jews, by fanatical Trump supporters known for threatening peoples lives, and committing acts of violence.

That’s precisely why its so important that, Shapiro, who has never backed away from a fight, will be the perfect addition to a Kamala Harris ticket.  Just as he did in his campaign for Pennsylvania Governor, Shapiro, has stood forcefully for the protection of personal liberties, like religious freedom, LGBTQ rights, and a women’s right to make her own health care decisions.  He is, in every way, the Anti-Trump, with a reverence for the Rule of Law, and a track record for enforcing it, and protecting the public.

Not only is a Harris/Shapiro ticket geographically, racially, religiously and gender balanced, but there is an added advantage among Democrats this year: the split among American Jews concerning Israel and the War in Gaza, will be mitigated as a factor in this election with a prominent, and proud, Jew on the national ticket.  Jewish grandmothers from Boynton Beach, Borough Park or Beverly Hills, will find it hard to resist wanting to pinch the cheeks of Shapiro, the “cheery mensch,” and wish him well.

Coupled with fellow prosecutor and former California Attorney General Kamala Harris, the very existence of a Harris/Shapiro ticket makes several bold statements:

First, that no one is above the law, especially the President, regardless of what a jaundiced Supreme Court might think, and that two tough prosecutors are determined to make sure of that;

Secondly, that defending the rule of law, the Constitution and Democracy, fighting for human and civil rights, and individual personal freedoms has been their life work, and will be the priority of a Harris/Shapiro Administration;

And, third, that the United States is not a Christian nation, but a nation where Christians and all faiths, or people of no faith, are free to practice their beliefs.

The very presence of a non-Christian on the Democratic National ticket makes the declaration of Religious Freedom, loud and clear; the very presence of a woman of color at the top of the ticket, lifts every voice to acknowledge the equality and justice for all races, genders, faiths and people—in direct defiance of the Fourth Reich’s Project 2025 explicit efforts to erase them.

I’m reminded of the Academy Award winning short film from 1945, The House I Live In, made during this country’s last life-and-death struggle with Fascism.  In it, Frank Sinatra sings the song “What is America to me?”a powerful anthem against discrimination of all types. 

It ought to be the Harris/Shapiro campaign’s theme song.