Politics is not life and death, despite the effort of political junkies to make it seem so. Nevertheless, the Republican presidential nominee narrowly escaped a life-threatening political assassination.
By the grace of almighty God, Donald J. Trump is still alive. The sharpshooter who tried to murder him on July 13 struck his ear.
Had Mr. Trump not turned his head at the last moment, the bullet would have hit him in the face. Bloodied but unbowed, Trump defiantly pumped his fist in the air in a photo for the ages.
On Aug. 6, Trump dodged a political bullet. While far less serious than an assassination attempt, a legitimate political threat was eliminated.
Vice President Kamala Harris, then the presumptive Democrat presidential nominee, had a chance to do serious damage to the Trump campaign. Instead, she blundered badly.
Harris had whittled her choice for her vice presidential nominee down to Govs. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Tim Walz of Minnesota. This was an easy decision that only someone as politically tone-deaf as Harris could foul up.
Gov. Shapiro has over 60% approval in the Keystone State. Pennsylvania is the largest and, therefore, most important swing state in America.
Whoever wins Pennsylvania most likely wins the White House.
Pennsylvania is the biggest brick in the blue wall that Trump cracked in 2016 but lost in 2020. Had Harris chosen Shapiro, Pennsylvania probably would have been locked up for Harris, narrowing Trump's 2024 path to an Electoral College victory.
Instead, Harris chose Gov. Walz. This makes perfect sense ideologically and zero sense strategically.
Ideologically, Mr. Walz is as far left as Ms. Harris. He shares political beliefs with her that can, should, and will easily be exploited in Republican attack ads.
When the violent George Floyd riots were peaking, Walz allowed Minneapolis to burn. Trump offered to send in the National Guard, and Walz repeatedly refused.
Trump wanted law and order. Walz opted for crime, anarchy, and chaos.
Cities, business, and neighborhoods suffered because Walz sympathized with the rioters.
So did Harris. She donated to the Minnesota Freedom Fund that bailed out violent rioters, at least one of whom upon his release was accused of a subsequent murder.
From an ad standpoint, this has Willie Horton written all over it.
Walz also represents a very liberal state that has not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 1972. While Trump was hoping to flip the state, Minnesota is not vital to his election strategy.
The selection of Walz further exposes her to the charge of being devoted to her left-leaning political orthodoxy. Rather than balance the ticket, Harris doubled down on hard-left policies that a majority of Americans intensely dislike.
Domestically, the worst of these are the job-killing Green New Deal, a ban on fracking, and a blatantly unconstitutional tax on unrealized gains.
On the foreign policy front, Walz supported the Iran deal that funded Iran's catastrophic Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. Walz agrees with forcing a Gaza cease-fire and two-state solution down Israel's throat.
Labeling Walz as soft on crime and terrorism is an easy sell.
Worse than the selection of Walz is the rejection of Mr. Shapiro. Harris can protest until her face is blue, but Shapiro lost out because he is Jewish.
The anti-Israel wing of the Democratic Party howled at his past support for Israel. Although he meekly walked back his accurate criticism of Arab rejectionism, that was not good enough.
Harris is not an antisemite, but she needs the antisemitic vote to survive and win the White House. Selecting a proud Jew would hurt her with the large Arab population of Michigan and the antisemitic rioters on college campuses.
Harris had a chance to show strength. Instead, she buckled and showed extreme weakness.
She rejected a Jewish person to placate those with a hostility toward Jews. This is no different from her creating distance between America and Israel to appease Iran.
These positions are bad from a policy standpoint, as well as morally abhorrent.
Instead of possibly putting a dagger in the Trump campaign, Harris' devotion to her rigid leftist ideology instead forced her to throw a boomerang.
Shapiro could have been a threat. Walz is a gift to the Trump campaign.
Harris just had her first big test as a presidential nominee, and she flunked.
A big-government leftist who dislikes coal miners will not play well in Pennsylvania. A popular home state governor would have.
Trump just dodged another Pennsylvania bullet.
Eric Golub is a comedian, author and retired stockbrokerage and oil professional living in Los Angeles. His interests include football, politics, Judaism, the stock market, and Angela Lansbury's "Murder, She Wrote." He has written for the Jewish Journal, The Daily Caller, and Breitbart's Big Hollywood. Read more of Eric Golub's reports — here.