The LAST thing Kamala Harris needs–and Barack Obama proved this clearly–is to be saddled with the double albatrosses of Bill & Hillary Clinton around her neck and HER story.

On the eve of the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week, I cannot stop thinking of Mario Cuomo, especially considering the DNC’s tone-deaf decision to put the spotlight back on Hillary and Bill Clinton as keynote convention speakers. I thought the Harris/Walz ticket was pointing forward, to the future, not going back and getting mired in the exhausting Clintonian quagmires of the past.

If there’s an Achilles Heel in this moment—which should be all about Kamala Harris and our future—it is dregging up the ghosts of Clintons’ past, which, I suppose, was inevitable with the presence of John Podesta and Neera Tandem, lurking among Biden’s team, and the Zelig-like, power-sniffing appearance of Gene Sperling on the new Harris crew.

I’m sure some of the old Clintonistas on the DNC and involved with the convention planning who cannot escape the narrow-box thinking that gave us Donald Trump, argued that Bill “must” be featured as a former President, and Hillary must also speak because she almost broke the glass ceiling 8 years ago—although the visual of Podesta delivering Hillary’s campaign eulogy under the still-intact glass roof of NYC’s Javits Center still gives me night terrors.

I’d rather hear from Liz Cheney instead of Hillary—who ran an abominable campaign for President in 2016, utterly ignoring the Midwest, and enabling Trump to get elected—and from Laura or George W. Bush on the night when Bill Clinton is slated to bring his wax-museum presence to the podium. A double-dose of the Clintons is hardly the way to appeal to undecided voters in 2024 who only voted for Trump eight years earlier because they found the alternative not “like-able enough” as Barack Obama hoped Hillary would be.

I’ve been thinking of Mario Cuomo, not just because so many of my former Cuomo Administration colleagues are in Chicago at the DNC this week, all-in for Kamala, and representing the very best public service has to offer. I was with Cuomo at the 1992 Democratic National Convention when he delivered the nominating speech for Bill Clinton.

Admittedly, I was never a Bill Clinton fan, from his days of leading the Neo-Con wing of the Democratic Party against progressive initiatives and ideas, to his ethnic slur against Mario Cuomo’s, and my, Italian-heritage when he was campaigning for the Democratic Nomination in early 1992. My distaste for Clinton grew even stronger during his Presidency when he caved in to stigmatize the LBGTQ community with “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” pushed and signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which banned same-sex marriages, sabotaged genuine Welfare Reform to appear more conservative, and vetoed the Needle-Exchange Program, costing hundreds of thousands of Americans with HIV/AIDS their lives. But, I digress.

Only five weeks after Mario Cuomo announced in December, 1991, that he would not seek the Democratic Nomination for the presidency for 1992, he was the subject of a widely publicized, tape-recorded conversation between Democratic Presidential candidate Bill Clinton and Gennifer Flowers, a cabaret singer from Arkansas who claimed to be one of Clinton’s mistresses.  The transcript of the Bill Clinton/Jennifer Flowers exchange was faxed to Fabian Palomino—a top aide and long time friend of Mario Cuomo’s— from Jimmy Breslin on January 27, 1992, the day Flowers held a press conference in New York City.  The conversations between the two were taped before Cuomo withdrew his name as a potential candidate in the Democratic Party’s New Hampshire Presidential primary:

CLINTON:  Well, no…Most people think, you know, that except for Cuomo, I’m doing the best right now, and uh…we’re leading in the polls in Florida, without Cuomo in there, but Cuomo’s at 87% name recognition, and I have 54%, so, I mean, I ‘m at a terrible disadvantage in name recognition still, but, we’re coming up, and well…so I…we’re moving pretty well; I’m really pleased about it…”

FLOWERS: Well, I don’t particularly care for Cuomo’s, uh, demeanor…

CLINTON: Boy, he is so aggressive.

FLOWERS: Well, he seems like he could get real mean (laughs).

CLINTON:  (garbled)

FLOWERS: Yeah…I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t have some Mafioso major connections.

CLINTON: Well, he acts like one (laughs).

FLOWERS: Yeah.

The revelation of the Bill Clinton/Gennifer Flowers’ “Love Tapes,” exploded on the front pages of newspapers around the nation and topped all major television network newscasts.   I flew into a rage when I heard the Governor’s name and the word “Mafioso” spoken in the same sentence.  Cuomo went ballistic, as was accurately reported, and immediately phoned reporters at the New York Post, New York Daily News, New York Newsday, and the New York Times.   Clinton’s attempt at an apology, as Cuomo described to Mike McAlary, of the New York Post, was “worse than the original insult.”  Clinton’s apology read:

            “If the remarks on the tape left anyone with the impression that I was disrespectful to either Governor Cuomo or Italian-Americans, then I deeply regret it.  At the time the conversation was held, there had been some political give and take between myself and the Governor and I meant simply to imply that Governor Cuomo is a tough and worthy competitor.” 

New York’s tabloids feasted on the clash of the two Democratic titans.  The New York Post stacked photos of Cuomo and Clinton on its front page with the bold headline:  “ CUOMO SAYS CLINTON TALKS LIKE BIGOT.”  The New York Daily News ran a photo of Cuomo dominating the front page, with the banner headline:  “CUOMO TO CLINTON:  SHAME ON YOU.”   The News Frank Lombardi’s story (“Cuomo Scalds Clinton, January 29, 1992), pulled no punches, reflecting Cuomo’s anger:

            “A fuming Gov. Cuomo yesterday slammed Bill Clinton as insensitive to ethnic stereotyping for saying Cuomo “acts like” a Mafioso.

            “If you say it this casually about Italian-Americans,” Cuomo bristled, “what do you say about blacks, what do you say about Jews, what do you say about women, what do you say about poor people, what do you say about all the other groups who traditionally become the scapegoats?…

            “Cuomo was clearly seething, particularly when first told that Clinton expressed regrets “if the remarks left anyone with the impression that I was disrespectful to either Governor Cuomo or Italian-Americans.”

            “What do you mean “IF?” Cuomo snapped to reporters in Albany.  ‘If you’re not capable of understanding what was said, than don’t try to apologize.”

As a member of the Governor’s staff who did have Mob connections, and was working with Mario Cuomo because he didn’t, and he revered the rule of law, I was furious over Clinton’s defamatory slur and negative group stereotype.

I pounded out an Op-Ed piece for either the New York Times or Newsday, and was emboldened to submit under my own name. I wrote:

“Bill Clinton simply doesn’t get it.  His flippant comparison of Mario Cuomo to a ‘Mafioso’ demonstrates that he understands neither what the most prominent Italian-American politician in the nation’s history means to us, nor how his acceptance of the word ‘Mafioso’ in connection with Cuomo’s name is like a dagger thrust into our chest.”

I immediately sent my draft to Cuomo, and within the hour he sent it back with his comments written across the top in dark, felt-tip marker:  “Steve—I am concerned people will think this is something I influenced because of our relationship.  What do you think?  M—“.

Of course, Mario Cuomo was correct. I re-tooled my tirade and sent it over to the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF) for them to use anyway they wanted to express maximum outrage on behalf of our entire community.  Still, I wanted to scream from the stoops and rooftops of New York telling the press that I grew up with real life ‘Mafioso’, and that Cuomo was as far from them as anyone could be.

But Cuomo had a vowel at the end of his name, and that was all the tabloids needed as truth, particularly since it was casually accepted by the soon-to-be Democratic nominee for President.

A few months later, in April, 1992, Bill Clinton won the New York State Democratic Presidential Primary with 41% of the vote, beating Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas (29%) and California’s Jerry Brown (26%).  Only 27% of New York’s registered Democrats bothered to vote in the Primary, and one-third of those who did, said they would have preferred to vote for Mario Cuomo. 

That was no consolation at all for Mario Cuomo, who called me the morning after the primary to discuss Bill Clinton’s victory.  Cuomo knew I held a grudge against Clinton for using the “Mafioso” slur against him.

I told Cuomo I cast my vote for Jerry Brown, and did not know if I could ever forgive Clinton, even if he became the Democratic nominee.

“A superficial candidate for a superficial age,” Mario Cuomo said to me about Clinton.   Struck by the power of the Governor’s condemnation of Clinton, I wrote it down.

His caustic comment about Clinton made it all the more remarkable how Cuomo, three short months later, was able to keep his feelings contained and accept the responsibility of nominating Bill Clinton at the Democratic National Convention in New York in mid-July.  The issues at stake in the national election mattered more to Mario Cuomo than the insults made by Bill Clinton at his expense months earlier.

I accompanied Mario Cuomo to Madison Square Garden on the morning of July 15, 1992, one month after his 60^th birthday.  Cuomo was scheduled to deliver a practice presentation of his nominating speech before a room full of members of Clinton’s campaign team, including Gene Sperling, who worked for Cuomo briefly in hopes of riding him into the White House, and Robert Boorstin, the nephew of historian Danial Boorstin.  Mario Cuomo was relaxed, dressed casually, with a sport jacket over a dark, open-neck sport shirt.  He was in good spirits, teaching all of us by example how to overlook personal slights to achieve a larger purpose.

We entered the small practice room at the Garden and Luciano Siracusano, one of the Governor’s speechwriters, handed a copy of Cuomo’s draft speech to Clinton’s staff for insertion into the teleprompter.  Cuomo made it clear to Boorstin, who was in charge of the practice session, he did not want to see any of the speech released ahead of time.  It was simply the way Mario Cuomo operated with his speeches, since he often improvised as he went along.  Boorstin acknowledged and agreed to the Governor’s request.

Cuomo mounted a makeshift platform which simulated the platform out on the main stage of Madison Square Garden, and read through the speech using the practice teleprompters available and stopping occasionally, when he thought changes needed to be made.  Following the first run-through, a handful of Cuomo and Clinton staff members, retreated into a small room to review the speech, making suggestions for changes.  Cuomo agreed to include a few more explicit references to Bill Clinton and to draw a stronger analogy between growing up poor in New York, and growing up in poverty in Arkansas.

We left the Garden and walked to the Sheraton Hotel on West 53^rd Street and 7^th Avenue, where the New York State Delegation was staying.  Mario Cuomo’s nominating speech for Bill Clinton would be reworked there.  Less than an hour after arriving at the Sheraton, I received a message from the New York Post’s Fred Dicker:  Cuomo’s nominating speech for Clinton was already on the newswires.  Not trusting Dicker nor the Post to tell us the truth, I reached out to Newsday’s Albany Bureau Chief Nick Goldberg (now, with the Los Angeles Times) who was supervising my son as a high school intern covering the convention for Long Island Newsday’s  “Student Briefing Page.”  Goldberg confirmed that the speech—Cuomo’s first draft which we specifically told Clinton’s people not to release—was already out on the Convention wire.

Mario Cuomo let his displeasure be known later that afternoon, when we came back into the Madison Square Garden practice room for a final 4:00 pm rehearsal, before the main event that evening.  We invited Daily News sportswriter Mike Lupica and columnist Mike McAlary to join us for the speech rehearsal.  Both watched as Cuomo mounted the makeshift podium and pointed straight at Clinton’s staff member, Boorstin.

“You broke your word to me on the speech, “ Cuomo said, glowering at him.

Boorstin began to stammer in response, but Cuomo ignored him, going right to the speech, reading it straight through without a pause and abruptly exiting the room the moment he was finished.  Mario Cuomo had put up with the last indignity he would tolerate from Clinton and his people, and wanted them to be nervous about what he might say when he spoke before millions of Americans that night, placing Bill Clinton’s name into nomination for President of the United States, something, Lupica later wrote, someone should have been doing for Cuomo. 

Despite the insults and slights from Clinton and his team, Mario Cuomo was brilliant that evening, as I knew he would be. His voice rang out with emotion when he spoke about the “quiet catastophes that every day oppress the lives of thousands,” and how some children were “more familiar with the sound of gunfire before they’ve even heard an orchestra.”

His passionate indictment of the Reagan and Bush Administrations and their war against working people and the poor, rallied Progressives and the country, behind Bill Clinton, making the fascinating backstory of the 1992 Democratic Convention how Mario Cuomo buried his personal and political differences with the Democratic nominee for the good of the country. 

I trust the Clintons will do the same thing to elect Kamala Harris as the first woman President of the United States.

Despite being singled out for double-standard treatment as a Vice-Presidential prospect because of his Jewish faith, the Pennsylvania Governor takes the high road.

(Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro takes the stage at Temple University in Philadelphia to endorse and campaign for the 2024 Democratic Ticket of Kamala Harris & Tim Walz.)

Josh Shapiro saved the Democratic Party from committing suicide this week and few people noticed.

No, they were busy basking in the smile and warmth and contagious joy of Kamala Harris, history’s child, destined to become the first female President of the United States.  Harris had announced on social media earlier that day her choice of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate.

But, all of that celebratory mood could have changed instantly before a huge Philadelphia hometown crowd that was his, had Shapiro—Pennsylvania’s Governor with a 61% approval rating– been a smaller man prone to grudges, or not “the kind of guy you want in a foxhole with you,” as some of his backstabbers whispered to willing grave-diggers from The Nation Magazine and The New Republic, and to some political bomb throwers, hell bent on sabotaging Shapiro’s chances to be chosen as Harris’ Vice-Presidential running mate

The New York Times’  Katie Glueck was one person who did notice, and she captured the full import of Shapiro’s monumental moment in an August 6, 2024 story headlined:  “I Am Proud Of My Faith:  Shapiro’s Fiery Speech Ends on a Personal Note.”  Her opening paragraph perfectly framed the issue: 

                                      “For years, Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania has said that his Jewish faith drives his commitment to public service.”

Glueck carefully observed that, “as he wrapped up a fiery speech in Philadelphia, after the conclusion of a vice-presidential search process that prompted intense public scrutiny of his views on Israel, Mr. Shapiro’s familiar references to his religious background took on a raw new resonance. And he seemed to sound a note of defiance.”

Those of us watching closely on television, listening to every word he spoke, and noting every nuance of his body language or facial expressions, were mesmerized by what came next.  Shapiro slowed his ministerial cadence and turned and looked directly into the camera:

                                    “I am proud of my faith.”

Glueck masterfully described the scene as 10,000 + people sucked in air, some shouting “PREACH,” not knowing what would come next, but clearly heard “his voice rising and speaking deliberately to sustained applause.”

                                    “I lean on my family, and I lean on my faith, which calls me to serve,” Shapiro bellowed.

Many in the packed hall at Temple University knew exactly what powerful meaning there was behind those words, coming after what the New York Times described as an “ugly final phase of Ms. Harris’ search” for a Vice-Presidential running mate.  What they didn’t know was how Shapiro would respond on the national stage after weeks of relentless anti-Semitic attacks against him, his faith, and his qualified support of Israel.

The slurs were leaked through specific stories, ugly social media campaigns and blatantly biased websites like NoGenocideJosh.com , which commanded its users to “say no to Genocide Josh Shapiro for Vice President.” 

Chris Lehmann in a Nation Magazine (August 2, 2024) story headlined “Josh Shapiro is a Bad VP Pick Anyway You Look At It,” scrawled that “The strongest argument against picking Shapiro is rooted in his hardline stance against both the Gaza protests on Pennsylvania university campuses…and the BDS movement (boycott, divestment and sanctions” against Israel.  Only later did Lehmann note that Mark Kelly and Tim Walz—the other two “finalists” for VP– held similar policy positions.  However, neither one was Jewish.

One week earlier, The New Republic (7/24/24) slimed Shapiro as : “The One Vice-Presidential Pick Who Could Ruin the Democratic Party.” Written by David Klion, a self-proclaimed “progressive millennial”, the anti-Semitism shouted off the page:

                        “Shapiro is an observant Jew with personal ties to Israel…”

As evidence of those “ personal ties to Israel,” Klion cited an October 7^th tweet from Shapiro—the day when Hamas massacred 1200 innocent Israeli citizens—which said:

                        “Our family has shared many special moments in Israel and our hearts break for those living this horror now.”

The statement was virtually identical to those issued by nearly every single public official in the United States, including Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

In another fabrication masquerading as a fact, Klion claimed that “unfortunately, Shapiro also stands out among the current field (of VP candidates) for being egregiously bad on Palestine.”  Klion intentionally ignored that Shapiro has called Netanyahu “ one of the worst leaders of all time,” and that the Biden/Harris administration, Senator Mark Kelly, and Tim Walz have similar policy positions on Israel and the War in Gaza.  Further, Senator Mark Kelly attended Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s address before Congress—which Kamala Harris opted to skip– and stood and applauded when Netanyahu spoke.   Neither Biden, Harris, Kelly nor Walz are Jewish.

In a searing article in The Atlantic Magazine (7/31/24), entitled “Who’s Afraid of Josh Shapiro,” author Yair Rosenberg writes:

                        “…as its name implies, the “Genocide Josh” campaign is not about applying a single standard on Palestine to all VP contenders; it’s about applying them to one person, who just so happens to be the only Jew on the shortlist. And to make matters more absurd, Shapiro’s positions on Israel don’t come close to fitting the epithet.

“I personally believe Benjamin Netanyahu is one of the worst leaders of all time,” Shapiro told reporters in January, months before Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called for the Israeli leader to resign. At the time, Shapiro also pressed for an “immediate two-state solution,” something Netanyahu and his hard-right government stridently oppose.”

Rosenberg also quotes CNN’s John King about how Shapiro’s Jewishness, could pose a risk to the Democrats:  “He’s Jewish,” King noted, “so there could be some risk putting him on the ticket.”

In a brilliant piece of analysis, Rosenberg points out how the anti-Shapiro forces on the Left may have undermined their own calls for an end to the War in Gaza by sabotaging the Vice-Presidential candidacy of the most prominent Jewish American public official:

“The truth is that whatever Shapiro’s views, a Jewish vice president would function in precisely the opposite manner from what these critics fear. Far from a sinister Semitic Svengali suborning the president to an Israeli agenda, a Jewish veep would be trotted out to defend Harris in her inevitable conflicts with Israel’s right-wing government, and to insulate the boss from charges of anti-Semitism. As one Republican Senate staffer put it to the Jewish Insider last week, if Shapiro is picked, “forget about claiming we’re the only party standing against anti-Semitism.”

That Republican claim is laughable on its face when put up against the Charlottesville, Virginia, 2017 White Supremacist rally where extreme Right Wing protestors marched with Tiki-torches shouting “Jews will not replace us,” and their actions were later embraced by Donald Trump.   Additionally, the MAGA-maimed party continues to traffic with a vast network of Far Right, anti-Semitic extremists  from the American Nazis, to White Supremacists, to conspiracy theorists who believe that a Jewish cabal of bankers, internationalists and media rule the world.

Of equal importance was Shapiro’s 2022 campaign for Governor where he faced the nation’s first full-frontal assault of the extreme Right Wing fundamentalist Christian Nationalist Movement, which advocates for a nation devoid of Jews, gays and women’s rights, and influenced the authoritarian philosophy behind the Heritage Foundations’ Project 2025.  Shapiro, then, the darling of the progressive left within the Democratic Party, was eloquent and electrifying in standing strong for protecting individual and human rights—including Freedom of Religion—and he crushed his Trump-loving opponent by some 15%, an unheard of margin of victory for a Democrat in the pivotal swing state of Pennsylvania.

Shapiro’s presence on the ticket, as a religious Jew and champion of individual liberties & human rights, would have, in short given a President Harris the perfect cover and opportunity to end the War in Gaza, reduce the sale of weapons to Israel, and hold ultra-extremist Israeli government officials accountable for the deaths of nearly 40,000 innocent Palestinians. 

But despite being defamed in print and online as plotting and disloyal (a common charge hurled at Jews throughout history), egomaniacal and not a team player, Josh Shapiro made a conscious decision not to expose –before 10,000 of his fellow Pennsylvanians and a national television audience–how virulently he had been singularly targeted–among all of the other serious Vice Presidential possibilities—because he is a Jew.

Instead of elaborating on how much his faith meant to him, and how only he—among all the other Democrats on the Vice-Presidential short list–had been held to a faith-based standard on Israel—strikingly similar to how JFK was discriminated against for his Catholicism in 1960—Shapiro gave a rip-roaring speech in support of the Harris/Walz ticket.

Had Shapiro used that precious moment in time when 10,000 Pennsylvanians held their collective breaths, and he held the nation’s attention in his hands, to reveal the details of  the “ugly final phase” of the Vice Presidential search—aimed only at him–Kamala Harris’ historic candidacy and the Democratic chances to win the House and Senate in 2024, would have had a fiery ending.

In keeping with his character and great personal integrity—despite being “othered” because of his Jewish faith by a segment of the Democratic Party and some elements of the media–Josh Shapiro took the high road, the only one he knows, and that made all the difference.  What remains to be seen is whether that path will be available to him, or any other national Jewish Democrat, to take in the future.  And, if not, what the consequences will be.

Four years ago this month, I rewrote “Camelot” when Joe Biden picked Kamala Harris to be his running mate. Now, we await the history-making Harris’ choice for VP to help her sweep the nation.

A law was passed 100 years ago, dear —

All women now could vote how ‘ere they saw.

No more a limit on how far they’d go here —

It’s Kamala! Kamala!

Kamala! Kamala!

She loves to hear the liars fall…

…hear the liars fall.

Kamala! Kamala!

Knocked Big Bill Barr off his wall…

…Big Bill Barr off his wall.

She’s Black and Indian and even Jewish,

Charismatic as well as so damn smart.

Makes Trump and Pence appear so very shrewish —

It’s Kamala! Kamala!

Kamala! Kamala!

I love to see her make slime squirm…

… see her make slime squirm!

Kamala! Kamala!

Turned Kavanaugh to worm…

…Kavanaugh to worm!

The winner may be hidden ’til December;

The loser exits swiftly, like it or not.

Trump’s lies and cheats and crimes will be dismembered —

By Kamala! Kamala!

Kamala! Kamala!

I love the team of her and Joe…

…team of her and Joe!

Kamala! Kamala!

It’s time for Trump to go…

…Time for Trump to go!

His hate-filled flailing, wailing, has now ended.

Trump’s scheme to steal the mail was one last fail.

Now jail awaits with criminals he friended —

It’s Kharma time! Kharma time!

Kamala! Kamala!

I love the patter of her name…

…the patter of her name!

To Kamala! Kamala!

Lives matter all the same…

…matter all the same!

Humanity will once again be sacred,

Love & science rule in every spot.

In short, we all will know —

To Kamala & Joe,

Our Dignity and Lives…

All Matter quite-a-lot.

KAMALA!

(Dolly Parton, a real native of Appalachia, who loves cats and claims all the children of the world to be worthy of her love, might just have some new lyrics of “Jolene” for JD Vance.”

(Satirical adaptation by Steve Villano, July 28, 2024, from Dolly Parton’s original song “Jolene,” from her Album “Coate of Many Colours,” October 15, 1973).

[Chorus) 

JD, JD, JD, JDeeee
I’m beggin’ of you please,

Don’t kill my cat.
Just Dumb, Just Dumb, Just Dumb, JDeeee

Please don’t’ treat me mean,

‘Cause you’re a man.

[Verse 1]

Misogyny beyond compare,

Your scraggly beard of pubic hair

Hides your disdain for every mare.

Your sneer is made O’ Mountain Do,

Children just a prop to you,
But, I’ll not let you shame me, JD.

(Chorus)

 JD, JD, JD, JDEEEE,                                                                       

 I’m telling you now, please                                                                       

Just shut your trap.                                                          

Just Dumb, Just Dumb, Just Dumb, JDEEE 

Don’t Mansplain me                                                                                                      

“Cause you think you can.

[Verse 2]

You talk of Trump, Thiel in your sleep,

There’s nothing I can do to keep
From screamin’ when you holler out their names, JD.

And I cannot understand,

Why you’re enslaved to such weird men,

Or how much Freedom means to us, JD.

[Chorus]
 JD, JD, JD, JDEEEEE,

We’re organizing strong

Against you, Vance.

JD, JD,JD, JDEEEEE

You and Trump don’t have a                                                                                

5 o’clock shadow of a chance.

                                                                                    

[Verse 3]

You’ve sold yourself so many times,

Forgotten love that makes life rhyme
You’ll never be the one for me, JD.

I had to have this talk with you—

About our futures you’ve no clue,
And yours, we’re flushing down the loo, JD.

[Chorus]
JD, JD, JD, JDEEEE

We’re marching to the polls enmasse,

To kick your weasely little ass, JD.

Just Dumb, Just Dumb, Just Dumb, JDEEEEE

Women’ll write your eulogy, JD.

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.