Kamala Harris Explains Why She Ditched Josh Shapiro for Vice President
Plus, the poorly-named Midtown Village cancels its big fall festival.
Josh Shapiro and Kamala Harris at Reading Terminal Market in 2024. Harris just shared her thoughts about Shapiro in her new book, 107 Days. (Getty Images)
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Kamala Harris Explains Why She Ditched Josh Shapiro for Vice President
When then-Vice President and presidential candidate Kamala Harris picked some Midwesterner named Tim Walz as her running mate last year, kicking Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro to the curb, a lot of people wondered why. After all, this was the guy who singlehandedly reopened I-95 after just twelve days. Now that Harris has released her new book, 107 Days, we have some answers. Don’t worry. I’ll save you the 30 bucks.
Harris describes Shapiro as “poised, polished, and personable,” all perfectly apt adjectives for him. But she claims that Shapiro told her that he wanted to be in the room for each and every decision that she made. “I told him bluntly that was an unrealistic expectation,” Harris writes in 107 Days. “A vice president is not a co-president. I had a nagging concern that he would be unable to settle for a role as number two and that it would wear on our partnership… I had to be able to completely trust the person in that role.”
But I did enjoy this particular tidbit: Harris also shared that before she even had the chance to sit down with Shapiro, he asked the manager of the official vice presidential residence how many bedrooms there were in the compound and whether the Smithsonian would loan him art from its collection to decorate the place.
So what does Shapiro think about all this? During an interview on Sunday, he told Meet the Press host Kristen Welker that he hasn’t read the book. And it doesn’t sound like he has any plans to.
One Less PBS
Remember when the feds cut funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting? Well, it sounds like Philadelphia’s WHYY is safe for now. But the same cannot be said for PBS in New Jersey. Word has it that PBS New Jersey will cease operations in July. State officials also cut funding to NJ PBS.
One Less Fall Festival
If you’re a fan of the Midtown Village Fall Festival, you will be unhappy to know that it’s not happening this year.
A scene from a previous Midtown Village Fall Festival (photo courtesy the Midtown Village Merchants Association)
The Midtown Village Merchants Association just announced that it has canceled the festival due to rising costs and a decline in corporate sponsorships. The group claims that the festival will return after they “take a year off to restructure/reimagine the festival…”
As an aside, I still don’t understand why they felt the need to attempt to change the name of the neighborhood from the Gayborhood to Midtown Village. Everybody I know still calls it the Gayborhood.
Coming to KOP…
By the Numbers
1: Driving lanes that we’re losing for most of the roadway that goes around City Hall, in favor of a bike lane. This will definitely improve the dreadful traffic situation.
$10,000: Tab just picked up by Villanova grads and New York Knicks stars Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart for a bunch of Villanova students at Kelly’s Taproom in Bryn Mawr. No word on who paid for the students’ fake IDs.
71.2 degrees: The ocean water temperature in Atlantic City. I spent Tuesday on the beach and it was glorious. Get downashore while you still can. If you’re a fan of Sebastian Maniscalco, he’s performing at Ocean Thursday through Sunday.
Local Talent
If you are free on Thursday night (Seahawks/Cardinals, in case you’re wondering), you definitely need to get to the Kimmel Center, where the Philadelphia Orchestra hosts its opening night concert. The centerpiece for the program is Ravel’s “Piano Concerto in G Major”, perhaps the composer’s most difficult work to perform.
Yuja Wang (photo courtesy Kimmel Center/Philadelphia Orchestra)
Fortunately, they’re bringing in the wildly talented and wildly animated pianist Yuja Wang for the gig. Speaking of Wang, she just landed a job at her alma mater, Rittenhouse Square’s Curtis Institute of Music.
