Josh Shapiro will be a good governor

Josh Shapiro, the incumbent attorney general of Pennsylvania, is running for governor. It’s probably a sad commentary on the state of our politics that being able to say “he hasn’t done anything to threaten democracy” is enough of a reason to support him enthusiastically. It is a shame that his opponent, state senator Doug Mastriano, is a totalitarian madman because it makes it too easy to make the case for Shapiro. “Vote for Shapiro. He’s not a white supremacist. He won’t destroy democracy. He won’t promote insurrection. Thank you.”

Soooo, let’s do a thought experiment. Let’s pretend that Shapiro is running against the kind of candidate the Pennsylvania Republican party used to run, way back 15 years ago, before the whole party went insane, candidates like Dick Thornburgh, Tom Ridge, heck, even Tom Corbett. Let’s pretend we actually have to consider the character and policy positions of the candidates.

Josh Shapiro has been a strong attorney general. Perhaps his greatest service was fighting off the blizzard of fake lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign trying to overthrow the results of the 2020 election, including an all-important case at the Supreme Court. As a result of his legal work, Pennsylvania voters were not disenfranchised in 2020. (The security of their 2024 ballots largely depends on Shapiro’s election as governor as well.)

Shapiro also pursued an investigation of the long-term cover-up of child sexual abuse by the Catholic Church, identifying over 300 predator priests and thousands of victims. The Pennsylvania investigation prompted investigations of similar cover-ups in other states.

Shapiro took on several Trump Administration plans, including the so-called Muslim travel ban and efforts to deny women access to no-cost contraception and essential health care services through Planned Parenthood. He frequently worked in cooperation with bipartisan groups of state attorneys general.

In one such case, he led a bipartisan group of Attorneys General to take on major American pharmaceutical manufacturers and CEOs like the Sackler Family of Purdue Pharma for their role in perpetuating this crisis.

Shapiro has not been afraid to go after political corruption, launching several prosecutions of official misconduct by public officials.

Shapiro is a self-described progressive Democrat and is running on a platform of protecting voting rights, reproductive rights, and raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. He has come out in favor of legalizing the recreational use of marijuana. He has promised to veto any legislation to limit abortion access in Pennsylvania. Because Pennsylvania legislature seats are so gerrymandered, it is extremely unlikely the Democrats will control either House, so it’s vital that Pennsylvanians elect a governor who will resist the legislature’s efforts to turn Pennsylvania into Texas.

Shapiro did show questionable judgment and angered some Democrats when he prepared a primary ad that was thought to show support for Republican candidate Doug Mastriano on the assumption that Mastriano is so extreme that he would be easier to defeat. This is a tried-and-true practice of Democrats and it has usually worked. However, as the Republican party has descended into insanity, it is probably no longer a safe assumption that there is any such thing as “too insane for Trump’s base to support,” and Democrats should probably retire this strategy.

In recent weeks, Shapiro has been endorsed for governor by a handful of prominent Republicans who find Mastriano’s band of politics too extreme, at least in part validating the Shapiro campaign’s assumption about Mastriano’s vulnerability as a candidate. However, in a race that should be a 25-point lead, the most recent fivethirtyeight.com poll showed Shapiro with only a four-point lead, far too close for anyone to relax.