Posts Tagged → candidate
Pitfalls and pratfalls of primary elections for candidates and volunteers alike
While digging through old stuff in my office recently, I encountered a bag in a corner with a bunch of campaign tee shirts made for volunteers who had helped me run in the 2010 primary race for congress here in central PA. Seeing the pinned-on names on each shirt, I felt embarrassed that somehow I had neglected to get these tokens of appreciation into the hands of those dedicated volunteers. They had donated their time to me, to a campaign they believed in, and it is absolutely incumbent upon all candidates to express appreciation, and show it if they can, to their volunteers, win or lose. Here was evidence that I had failed to do that fully with these several people whose names appeared on the tee shirts, and it made me feel badly.
Fast forward fourteen years, and I have just learned by doing an internet search that a political candidate I had contributed real time and effort to had dropped out of the race last Thursday. This person and I had exchanged many emails and texts for the past month, I had drafted a press release for her, and gotten her about forty ballot petition signatures to help get her on the April 23 ballot. Despite all my time and effort on her behalf, I did not qualify for the email the media says she sent to her supporters, announcing her bowing out of the race. I felt like all my time and effort dedicated to this person was not appreciated or valued, which makes one feel badly.
Dear political candidates, you have to express your appreciation to your volunteers! Volunteers are how every campaign runs, whether it succeeds or fails, and showing your appreciation to the people who make up the campaign is your duty to those people who take time away from their families, their businesses, jobs, etc to help you get ahead. Failing to express appreciation hurts not just your own reputation, but it also leaves your volunteers wondering if they should ever volunteer on a campaign again for anyone else.
I have seen other candidates cold-drop their volunteers when the campaign ends, and even drop their campaign staff. This is usually due to the exhaustion a candidate feels at the end of the race. Campaigns are all brutal exercises, all-out sprints over a relatively short amount of time, and at their end usually everyone involved is feeling tapped out and emotionally drained. It is tough to sustain that high energy after the race ends, but again, dear candidates, you absolutely owe it to your volunteers to say Thank You. An email, some text messages, some cards to the people who put in the most work and hours. Tee shirts if you made them.
What took out this latest candidate I was helping was Pennsylvania’s archaic ballot petition process. Depending upon the office sought (state house, dog catcher, US senate, congress etc) candidates for office in Pennsylvania are required to collect hundreds or even thousands of registered voter signatures on complicated forms where the slightest mistake, mis-spelling, or poorly written word can result in a disqualification. There is an entire arcane process surrounding the screening, challenging, and defending of the ballot petition signatures. The only people who benefit from this are the attorneys who specialize in this arcana, and the two main political parties.
If enough of the candidate’s ballot signatures get disqualified, then the candidate does not achieve the minimal threshold of signatures, and does not qualify to be on the ballot. A lot of hard work and volunteer hours can get flushed down the drain if insufficient signatures are obtained to keep the candidate on the ballot.
PA’s complicated ballot petition process is designed by and for the political parties, which have the experienced volunteers, lawyers, and updated voter lists necessary to get far more signatures than are needed. It is designed to keep political outsiders out of office, and political insiders in.
According to this now un-candidate’s statement in the news article, the attorney who challenged her ballot petition signatures had also threatened to bury her campaign in a pile of legal costs if she tried to fight her way through all the nit-picky challenges. All indications are that US Senate candidate David McCormick is behind this challenge and threat. This is really about a billionaire bully booting pesky candidates out of his way on his path to self-serving elected office.
Yuck.
Pennsylvania voters want choice, and we do not benefit from the current ballot petition process, which was once described to me by a Dauphin County Republican Committee Woman as a necessary precaution to prevent “unqualified people” from running for office.
Said I, “Why don’t we just let anyone run who wants to run? Shouldn’t all citizens have a right to run, aren’t we all qualified? Isn’t that the heart and soul of the democratic process, to keep it as open and accessible to The People as possible?”
Said she, “That sounds like too much democracy to me.”
And so we see yet another victim of this ridiculous gatekeeper process, which both political parties can agree must be kept intact so they can retain maximum control of who gets to run, and who does not. It is really about control, not democracy.
Yuck.
These are some of the pitfalls of running for political office here in Pennsylvania, and while some are unavoidable, it is best to work hard to avoid the pratfalls: Campaign volunteers and supporters will always appreciate and fondly remember a kind word, a nice email or text message saying thanks. And also will they remember that their hard work went unnoticed and unremarked in the end, and so they will feel used.
Double yuck.
Why Court Candidate Josh Prince Must Win
Josh Prince is a candidate for Commonwealth Court here in Pennsylvania, and his day of reckoning is coming up fast: May 16th is Primary Day, where registered Republicans vote for Republican Party candidates and registered Democrats vote for Democrat Party candidates. This form of selecting partisan candidates to then square off against each other in the Fall general election may be imperfect, but it is far superior to ranked voting. And Spring time primary elections are actually as important as Fall general elections.
Josh Prince has to win this election because, like much of America, Pennsylvania is turning into a lawless single-party uniparty state where political party does not matter, nor does the rule of law. We citizens need strong people of high character to resist this evil tide. Josh Prince’s legal mind and his ironclad principles are needed now more than they have been since the 1850s, and I hope you will vote for him. I have known Josh Prince for many years, and I respect him very highly. I am excited to be able to vote for him.
Both the Republican Party establishment and the Democrat Party establishment have much more in common with each other than they do with their respective voting bases, although it is crucial to point out that the Democrat Party is also completely responsive to and loyal to its voters, while the PAGOP doesn’t care much about its voters. The Pennsylvania Republican Party only cares about its voters a little bit, and briefly, when it needs them in the Fall election. And even then it is a dismissive kind of caring; they take Republican voters for granted…
…because the PAGOP business model and culture is to be perfectly happy with minority status, so long as the pre-selected and party boss-anointed Republican Party insiders are in the existing official slots and holding power, protecting their small inner circle’s narrow interests. As soon as someone from “the outside” (like Josh Prince) tries to take up one of those slots, the entire PAGOP goes into action, defending their castle from the marauding barbarian.
Prince is running against Megan Martin, who was endorsed by the PAGOP (this is hardly a vote of confidence for the average citizen!), and who has never stepped foot in a courtroom – not a trial court nor an appellate court. Rather, lawyer Megan Martin has spent around 30 years in the government as a functionary, a bureaucrat, a politician’s lawyer. Nothing necessarily wrong with this history, but is this what you want sitting in judgment of you?
Megan Martin has a legally unimpressive resume that she now wants to bring to the Commonwealth Court, where we citizens can rest assured she will look to what Republican Party bosses want most. As opposed to attorney Josh Prince, who has quintessential, unbending, uncorruptible, traditional American principles, as well as an incredible and fearless track record in court, including representing me and Firearms Owners Against Crime against brazenly illegal and unconstitutional anti-gun ordinances here in Harrisburg.
Josh Prince is not the political establishment’s pick because he will only uphold the law as it is written, and he will only uphold the US and PA constitutions as they were originally intended. Josh is not and will not be a judicial activist who uses the court as a private legislature. And of course, that’s not what the PAGOP wants…they want people like Megan Martin, who will be all bendy and malleable like Gumby and do the bidding of the party bosses, as they quietly horse trade for private financial benefit with America’s sworn enemies.
You and I need a judge like Josh Prince on the Commonwealth Court. You and I cannot afford another spineless jellyfish PAGOP RINO insider political hack who has been hand-picked and endorsed by political bosses.
Please vote for Josh Prince for Commonwealth Court on May 16th, and please pass this around, so that other loyal, patriotic, America-loving Pennsylvania voters know that they have a great candidate they can be happy voting for.
My body, my….self…?
My sense is that abortion was the issue of this week’s mid-term election. After all, all of the digital online advertising I received about Fetterman, Shapiro, and Mastriano was about that one issue. And Democrat Party poll workers confirmed their own belief that abortion would galvanize their voters. It seems to have worked, and fended off what was touted as a “red wave” of conservative response to failed governance in Washington DC.
My mind wanders back to 1972 or 1973, when I was a young kid, but old enough to become self aware. My hippie parents had the Our Bodies, Our Selves book laying out in the living room. When no adults were around I would look at this book and marvel at the array of hairy women parading their naked bodies in it. At an early age, then, I determined that naked woman was good, hairy was not good. One idea that sticks in my mind (having long ago eradicated the book’s “natural” images from my memory banks) is the novel concept that a person’s body is their own.
I think freedom-loving Americans can emphatically agree on this, that a person’s body is their own and nobody else’s. Where Americans diverge from one another is what is our body? Is it just the living, walking adult body, or does that also include young humans growing inside of it?
Reasonable people can and should debate this subject, and if pro-Life advocates want to make headway politically and culturally, then they have got to do a much better job explaining their perspective on when human life begins, why it is sacred, and how abortion-on-demand is not a my body, my self policy issue, but rather an “our bodies intertwined together” humanity issue. They must do a much better job, as this week’s election results demonstrate (assuming no election fraud occurred, which in some states is once again already obvious and in-your-face to the point of training voters to regularly accept it from one political party).
To be fair to the pro-Life anti-abortion voters, advocates, and candidates like Doug Mastriano, a lot of Americans felt like the two-year Covid1984 plandemic was one gigantic official assault on the idea of Our Bodies, Our Selves. A lot of voters this week showed up to vote against the unconstitutional government overreach, official lies, official illegalities, and government personnel self-enrichment that characterized the past two years of Covid1984. They thought other Americans felt the same.
Draconian lockdowns to the point of absurdity (lone sea kayakers being surrounded by heavily armed police boats and arrested for violating a “public health code,” sunbathers sitting totally alone on a beach, and married couples sitting alone in their car at scenic overlooks being similarly mistreated by aggressive police officers etc.), pointless and highly damaging school closures, useless mask requirements, and dangerous fake vaccine requirements that are now yielding an enormous number of vaccine-caused injuries and deaths, all and every aspect of the Covid1984 experience was one huge pile of Our Bodies, Our Selves books being symbolically burned by government staffers and leftist political activists in a joyous ceremony to mark the end of the idea that your body is yours and yours alone, and to emphasize that the government, their government, can do to you whatever it wants whenever it wants.
Conservative voters and candidates mistakenly thought that leftists would be consistent in their body sovereignty thinking, that everyone else felt the same (logically consistent) as conservatives about this disaster, and that they would vote accordingly.
And this is the confusing part of this my body, my self as a public policy issue and debate subject. On the one hand we have a lot of Americans who were and still are being severely damaged by the government’s purposefully bad handling of Covid1984, and they are pushing back. (Despite the Biden DOJ’s designation of them as “domestic terrorists” for merely speaking out in official taxpayer-funded venues.)
And on the other hand we have a lot of Americans who think that not only is the government’s brutal and useless Covid1984 overreach into your body and your body choices great public policy, but that the use of crushing government coercive force to implement it and force you to comply or be destroyed was just great, too. And yet a lot of these same people are the pro abortion Our Bodies, Our Selves believers who were animated enough to show up to vote this week.
This is confusing because it is inconsistent. Choice should be choice…right?
If you spend time reading this blog, then you already know I am not enamored of liberal/ leftist thinking, because I cannot make it make sense. And to be fair, most leftists and liberals I speak with about this are quite honest about it: They don’t care about logic, reason, or being consistent. They want their political issues the way they want them, and to hell with your criticisms.
In a democratic nation and in a Western Civilization based on logic, reason, debate, and persuasion, we have a conundrum here. Americans are talking right past each other, and not just about our bodies being sovereign from outside forces. Americans are failing to communicate with each other on a whole array of political and cultural topics. I am firmly on the side of reason, logic, and reasoned debate being at the center of our governance process, and so I stand firmly with the dreaded “conservatives.”
But I will say this to the conservatives, like governor candidate Doug Mastriano: If you are going to make the elimination or regulation of abortion your main public policy goal, then you had damned well better explain it to the public very carefully, frame it in context of the 2020-2022 Covid1984 government assault on Americans’ bodies, and you had better not do any interviews where snippets of your public statements can be used to paint you into a corner. At least half of America is not able or willing to discuss this subject, and to them only the axe-murdering abortion of a helpless and sacred child is their singular and joyous right; what the government does to their bodies the other 99% of the time is the business of the government and none of their own. They are not thinking clearly about this, and candidates must work hard to connect the abortion dot to the Covid1984 dot for future voters. Or don’t work on it, and shut the hell up about it.
And I will also say this to the liberals/ leftists: Your apparent worshiping of abortion as an act, to the point of killing the living, viable child at birth, makes you look like a primitive bloodthirsty death cult. This is not civilized behavior by people who advocate for myriad other intrusive government policies “if it saves just one child.” So long as you inhabit this childish shadowland of disconnected and strongly contrasting public policies, your fellow Americans will understandably deride you as foolish children who actually hate children.
Does this book also apply to the victims of bad government policies on Covid? If not, then there is no body sovereignty for anyone
Election Day referendum on Joe Biden disaster
It is last minute now, November 8th Election Day approaches. This election is a referendum on the failed policies of radical extremist Joe Biden (unnecessarily high gas prices, so-called “transgender” children raping little children in school bathrooms without any repercussions, school teachers and administrators at war with school children and their parents, a DOJ and FBI spying on and violently arresting and illegally jailing Joe Biden’s political opponents, record high inflation etc the list of deliberate malfeasance and corrupt abuse of government resources to benefit one political party is a long one).
Sadly, voting for every single Democrat Party candidate is also voting for Joe Biden’s catastrophic policies.
Either the American People save America from the purposeful destruction of America by the corrupt Biden Admin, or whatever shreds of freedom and liberty remaining to us each will be ripped from our hands by government force. So it is worth donating ten bucks to each of your favorite candidates.
Here in Pennsylvania it is Doug Mastriano and Dr. Oz. In New York it is Lee Zeldin for governor and Lauren Boebert for congress. Elsewhere, elections matter, too: Arizona, where several important elections are under way (Kari Lake for governor is running against America-hating Katie Hobbs and the entire mainstream media complex), Georgia, where football great Herschel Walker is also facing not just his openly Marxist opponent Warlock, but also the entire mainstream Big Media and Big Tech.
The list of worthy candidates who need your help goes on, but surely, each of us can afford to donate just ten bucks to one of them. If you can afford a few such donations to different candidates, right now is the time to make them. Because money is needed for last minute advertising. Something has to offset the unfair and patently illegal off-the-books donations advantage the Democrat Big Media give to every Democrat Party candidate in America.
You say you want an audit of the PA 2020 election?
Lots of Pennsylvania voters are saying they want an audit of the obviously fraudulent 2020 election. A big petition is circulating, digitally. Groups of citizens in almost every county are personally demanding their elected officials get up off their butts and do the audit. Several go-getter PA state legislators traveled to Arizona and toured the election audit taking place there.
OK, so you, too, want an audit of Pennsylvania’s 2020 election? Well OK, here is what you must do to get it.
The biggest hurdle to a genuine audit of the PA 2020 election is the GOPe itself (GOPe means the establishment GOP, not conservatives, not patriots, but careerists who look out for their careers first and foremost, not for their constituents). In particular, Republican PA legislators Jake Corman, Kerry Benninghoff, Brian Cutler and Seth Grove are stonewalling an election audit. State senator Dave Argall may be on board with an audit, or he may not be. He’s all over the place, which is no surprise for such a crafty old political survivor.
So, dear reader, while I admire your enthusiasm and optimism for the possible audit process that is right in front of us, the best path to getting an audit is finding serious primary contenders for these above GOPe RINOs in the near future. Getting primary challengers has the effect of scaring the GOPe into action now while possibly removing them later.
Off and on for five years, I’ve been trying to get someone to primary Corman. It’s tough. Three years ago I bombarded the super voters in his district with absolutely brutal emails detailing Corman’s nepotism, laziness, lack of care for his constituents, insider dealings etc. Feedback from super voters there was overwhelmingly positive, but I was unable to recruit an actual primary challenger.
However, the effects of that email carpet bombing showed clearly when Corman was challenged in the general election that Fall by a liberal Jewish kid from out of town who openly disliked PSU and guns. Which is sacrilege in Centre County. Nonetheless, Corman hardly had a big win. There was just single digit separation between this so-called “Republican leader” and the liberal idiot flatlander. For someone so tough and important, Corman should have had a huge lead over the kid.
One can only imagine how that race would have gone with a serious contender. Even more so a serious primary challenger before we have to let some leftist fool take a Republican seat. Corman among all of these RINOs listed above is vulnerable. No one likes him. He has no allies, outside of a few PAGOP staffers and “leaders.” Getting a solid primary challenger to face Corman next spring could really help Corman find a way to do the 2020 election audit.
This is my considered response to those voters who say they want an audit. You are going to have to work on tangentially related things – personnel changes in the Pennsylvania legislature – to come back around to getting what you really want. This approach prevents us audit advocates from relying on others to do the audit, and particularly unreliable and disinterested others. It keeps the heat on those who can do the audit right now, while giving us the possibility of removing them from elected office entirely not too far from now.
So, if you live in one of these political districts (seats held by Corman – Centre County, Benninghoff – Centre County, Cutler – Lancaster County, Argall – Schuylkill County, and Seth Grove – York County), then start talking to good candidates who can effectively challenge one of these failed elected officials. Set up an election committee, get your candidate on the ballot, and then get them more votes in the primary election than the failed incumbent we need to remove from office. You might just get two birds with one stone.
Sometimes a threesome just sucks
Welp. Primary Election Day is now behind us. Thank God.
Yesterday’s bright moment was Andrew Lewis running and winning against a large part of the GOP establishment in the 105th State House District.
It lies around out through Harrisburg’s eastern suburbs and could easily swing “RINO,” but yesterday it did not. Proving the power of staying positive and of doing door-to-door, Lewis impressed so many voters that many of them eagerly relayed to us volunteer poll workers their happy experiences meeting him at their home’s front door.
That said, much of yesterday’s political outcomes were unfortunate, for those of us who trust and hope in We, The People and who have learned not to trust the GOP establishment.
Woody Allen once quipped “I believe in relationships. Love between two people is a beautiful thing. Between three, it’s fantastic.”
Well, sometimes that truism just doesn’t hold water, and nowhere was this observation more evident than the results from yesterday’s political threesomes in Pennsylvania.
As we political watchers and participants have seen repeatedly, and as I myself have experienced as a candidate for office, three-way races can and often do allow liberal Republicans to prevail. And in fact, it now seems that the threesome approach is a significant strategy for GOPe candidates.
Yesterday, Dan Meuser won the PA 9th congressional district election (he lives in the 8th District) through the benefit of the two grass roots candidates (Halcovage and Uehlinger) each siphoning off sufficient votes to allow the establishment candidate to get the plurality. There is some question out there about whether Uehlinger was, in fact, a conservative, or even a Republican; despite getting in the race first, his campaign seemed the least organized. Halcovage was not terribly organized, either, and did not respond to important questionnaires from interest groups. Firearms Owners Against Crime advised voters to select only Meuser of the three candidates.
Actually, Meuser may have obtained more than 50% of the vote, which is an indication that he might have won on his own merits (e.g. he was the only candidate deemed acceptable on Second Amendment rights to FOAC). All his negatives notwithstanding.
One lesson for sure comes out of that particular three-way race: If you cannot present yourself as an organized, credible candidate, then please spare everyone the drama and do not run.
People who wake up on some Thursday morning and say “What the heck, I am gonna run for office” have every right to do so, but recognize that there are consequences to this. Better to have a one-on-one clear choice for the voters. We will almost always have an establishment candidate, so pick the one best grass roots candidate as The People’s champion, and chase off the rest.
In the PA governor’s race, liberal dark horse Laura Ellsworth knew she had no chance of winning. I mean, with liberal policy positions like hers, she should run as a Democrat (she said she would not accept money from the NRA). But run she did, and though she obtained less than 20% of the vote, she siphoned off sufficient votes (especially in Western PA) from true conservative and US Army veteran Paul Mango to get Scott Wagner the plurality.
Mango is from western PA and would have otherwise obtained most of Ellsworth’s votes.
Yesterday I was a volunteer poll worker from 7:00 AM until 7:35PM in the Harrisburg area.
What I heard from GOP voters (and mostly from women over 50 years old) at several different polls was that they were angry at both Mango and Wagner for all the negative ads. They knew Ellsworth was liberal, but they were voting for her as an alternative to the two boys engaged in distasteful roughhousing.
Wasn’t this a variable we were picking up from women voters weeks ago? Yes.
Did someone pay Ellsworth to run? One asks, because she knew her chances were very low to nil, that her liberal ideas and policy positions are way out of synch with the vast majority of Republican voters.
Ellsworth the Spoiler has now burned her bridges with about 40% of the state’s Republican super voters, which even the most obtuse political nerds would expect as a logical outcome.
So why else was she in it? One cannot help but wonder if she was paid to play the spoiler. It was done in the last race I ran in….by someone involved in the race she ran in…so…
When we look at Idaho’s primary yesterday, a similar scene unfolded. The unlikely liberal GOPe candidate beat the conservative, by way of siphoning of votes by a third candidate who himself had no hope of winning.
Folks, the only way these third candidates can run is if they are independently wealthy and just yee-haw running for office; or, they are willing to sacrifice their name in one race by trying to build it up for a future run at some other office; or, most likely, they have “other” sources of income or promises made to reward them for playing the spoiler in the current race.
So, as we move into a more experienced and savvy grass roots political landscape, begun just ten years ago as the “tea party,” we are learning that our own strength can be used against us judo-like by the same corrupt political establishment we are trying to defeat.
Threesome races may look democratic, and it is true that every American has the right to run for office. But sometimes appearances can be deceiving. Sometimes those threesomes are designed to undermine the conservative grass roots candidate, and to help the plain vanilla milquetoast establishment candidate win.
Sometimes political threesomes just plain suck. And not in a good way. They can be designed to exploit the big-hearted nature of so many grass roots activists, so that their enemy, the GOPe, can win.
Lesson learned.
Why I am voting for Paul Mango for governor, and not for Scott Wagner
When I stood out for twelve hours in the freezing weather four years ago, handing out Scott Wagner for Senate brochures at a polling place in York County, I was helping Pennsylvania elect someone to state government who promised to remain independent of political party leaders and the insider dealings that are the despicable hallmark of Pennsylvania Republican party politics.
Within a few months of Wagner’s historic upset win over a creaky establishment, I began to regret his obvious character flaws. And then six months later I had the unfortunate experience of having Wagner lie through omission to my face.
“Yeah, I know John DiSanto,” said Wagner.
What Wagner did not say was that he was aggressively promoting DiSanto as a would-be candidate for state senate. Fast forward another six months, and DiSanto was on track to be the state senator for the 15th district. He has been a huge improvement over the former senator, Rob Teplitz, a political radical out of place here in this region who was also dedicated to his constituents. I have no real hard feelings about DiSanto now bearing the burden of serving in state government, as it comes with big personal costs that I realize I would not want.
But I saw then that Scott Wagner was not the straight-up guy a lot of us believed he was when we worked hard to get him elected.
Wagner has this habit of ascribing to himself full responsibility for his material and political successes. As a capitalist I applaud anyone who can and does leave to their son or nephew a running business and millions of dollars. And I also applaud those people who are strong enough to take those inheritances and build on them, instead of squandering them, as so many Americans do.
But it upsets me to hear Wagner take credit for these things when he was simply the beneficiary of other people’s hard work.
No, Mr. Wagner, you did not win that special election in York County all by yourself.
Rather, we, the hard working campaign volunteers won it for you, by getting fired up people out to every polling place in the district and demonstrating to the voters that we, the people, wanted you to be elected. Voters saw our passion and responded by handing the GOPe a tough and well-deserved loss.
No, you did not create that trucking business as you constantly claim, you inherited a good portion of it.
Two days ago at a dog-and-pony show press event, Scott Wagner released a phony “internal” poll result saying that he already leads in this primary race by 50.2% to Paul Mango’s 20-something percent.
Flanking Wagner was the chairman and the vice-chair of the Pennsylvania Republican Party, the same GOPe that Wagner once opposed but which he has now shamelessly joined. Wagner’s willingness to trade his political independence for political gain with the same old political insiders is another indication that he is not a straight-up guy. Rather, Wagner is just another aggressive political opportunist willing to sell his grandma and his former supporters to get ahead.
The message of having the two GOP political bosses next to him at the event is simple: “Vote for our insider stooge here.”
But if Wagner is already so far ahead in the polls, then why does he need the personal presence of political bosses at his press event? The whole thing is phony – the supposed poll (two other recent polls show a statistical dead heat between Mango and Wagner, with also-ran Laura Ellsworth in the single digits), the fake political endorsement, his supposed political independence. One thing is for sure, Scott Wagner is now yet just another political insider, trying to use every object around him to gain power and prestige. Just like he used and then discarded us campaign volunteers to get into the state senate.
Wagner’s political views have spanned the full spectrum, from great to crazy left, like his transvestite bathroom bill sponsorship.
Will the real Scott Wagner please stand up? Without screaming at anyone, please.
Contrast this chaotic mess to his primary opponent Paul Mango.
Paul Mango is about as exciting as watching the grass grow.
He is soft-spoken, measured, very smart and articulate on policy, and to me, mostly boring. Though he has gotten better at public presentations as time has gone on.
Is Mango the fiery revolutionary that Scott Wagner was four years ago? Nope.
Neither is Scott Wagner.
Is Mango the political trench warfare conservative that Wagner used to be, and which many of us wish for more each day? Nope.
Neither is Scott Wagner.
Mango is a work horse, not a show horse.
Instead of having all of Wagner’s drama and duplicity, Mango is a simple guy with true blue collar working class roots, who put himself through West Point and became a real-deal warrior in the US Army 101st Rangers, and who went on to build a career for himself that put him at the financial top of American society. Not to mention his all-American family. He is a US Army veteran who served our nation, thank you very much.
Mango is the all-American rags-to-riches story every American politician wishes to be, and which Wagner has tried to falsely claim he is.
This is why I am voting for Paul Mango and not for Scott Wagner.
You make up your own mind on this race, and you should also know I made up my mind through direct experience with both candidates. Sometimes it isn’t just how great a candidate is, but also how awful the other guy is.
Mango is good enough, Wagner is awful.
PA 11th Congressional District race: Joe Peters or Andrew Lewis
Pennsylvania’s 11th congressional district stretches from well southeast of the southcentral PA capital city of Harrisburg to the farthest reaches of northeastern PA, near the New York border. It is one of those crazily gerrymandered districts created to protect a certain congressman, a certain party. You have to try really hard to create a political district this convoluted, and it is as twisted as the power-hungry thinking that went into it.
I know, because according to the PA Supreme Court, I was the primary victim of the gerrymandering that created the 2012 Pennsylvania state political district map, released at the same time as the congressional map.
Apparently my then-candidacy (as an independent-minded conservative) for the 15th state senate district was a threat to the political establishment (self-serving careerists surrounded by a constellation of special interest groups feasting upon the taxpayer host body), and so they placed my Harrisburg home in a tiny political pocket. Our home was barely in one congressional district that is mostly based in Adams County to the south (Gettysburg). It was just one small part of Dauphin County mixed in with much larger portions of other counties, and we were also suddenly a couple blocks away from the 15th state senate district.
The gerrymandering was announced just as our 2012 campaign got under way.
The PA state Supreme Court threw out the state district map, calling the area around our home “an iron cross…” designed to exclude someone from participating in the political process. But the court kept the congressional map, which is being challenged now.
So that is where we got these crazy district lines, and it is how we now have a four-way contest to replace outgoing Congressman Lou Barletta.
Candidates who have officially announced are Joe Peters, Andrew Lewis, Steve Bloom, and Dan Meuser. Their home bases stretch from the farthest reaches of southcentral to far northeastern PA.
I know all of these guys, and I would like to share some thoughts with you about their candidacy.
Let’s start with Joe Peters.
Joe has the most impressive resume of any of the candidates here. He has been a successful professional crimefighter, and a wonderful political outsider. Joe is the stuff of legend, a tough cop surrounded by bad guys, but always doing the right thing.
Peters is the Serpico of political candidates.
A former cop and prosecutor who put away really bad men in jail, Joe took real risks, and earned real enemies. He has been tested many times over many decades, and has proven uncorruptible.
So naturally, Joe has earned the enmity and fear of politically powerful shadows now supporting the other candidate from his region, Dan Meuser.
We would be lucky to have Joe Peters in Congress, though I fear he lacks the funds to get his message and impressive personality out to the voters. When he ran for PA Attorney General a few years ago, I gladly, even eagerly voted for him. Really impressive guy. Total underdog.
Then we have Andrew Lewis.
After more or less forcing me out of the last primary race for the 15th state senate district (2016), by undercutting my base of support in Perry County, Andrew nonetheless earned my endorsement in his subsequent man-to-man primary run against John DiSanto, our current state senator, who thankfully went on to defeat incumbent Rob Teplitz (a Marxist who was outstanding at constituent services).
What I liked about Andrew then is probably his biggest weakness now, and that is his youth.
Andrew must be the most energetic candidate to ever run for any office. He is physically tough, tall, good looking, earnest, religious, conservative, and a combat veteran of the US Army operations in Iraq. And boy is he positive. This kid has the best demeanor and personality you are likely to meet in your lifetime. He is from a rural farming background, salt of the earth family, smart as hell, and highly educated. He has an impressive resume by any standard, and especially for someone so young.
People asked me in 2016 why I endorsed the guy who stole my dream of serving in the state senate. My answer was that Andrew was a really impressive young man, the kind of person America needs in politics and in leadership roles. I stand by that now, and if for some reason you can’t vote for Joe Peters, Andrew Lewis is your man. You cannot go wrong voting for Andrew, who has probably the best geographic reach (political base, or likely voters) of all the candidates.
Then we have Steve Bloom, a sitting state representative from Cumberland County.
There is nothing negative anyone anywhere can say about Steve Bloom. And there is a long, long list of very positive things about him.
And that is the problem here.
Steve, why are you in this congressional race? You are needed in the PA State House of Representatives, where you already serve with great distinction! You are WAY too good to lose from the state house.
Steve has worked hard and smart in the state house. He has amazingly, surprisingly worked his way up into junior leadership. He is on the cusp of breaking into actual leadership, which is amazing because he is a straight-talking, no BS conservative. Steve is not a weasel, he is a force for good…in the PA State House. The fact that he is moving up is cause for celebration.
Steve is very conservative, religious, and as pure as the driven snow. Steve is exactly what we need in politics, and in fact he already IS in politics. Now that he is in the state house, it would be nice to keep him there. If you vote for Steve Bloom in the upcoming primary, no one can fault you. But the fear is that Steve’s southcentral PA base is too small for him to leverage into winning this congressional seat, and that voting for him will divide up the vote, resulting in the worst possible outcome in this race…
Dan Meuser.
If you have something positive to say about Dan Meuser, would you please contact me directly?
Honestly, if you have something truthfully good to say about him, I will publish it here, unfiltered. No lie.
Dan is from the same northeastern coal country that Joe Peters is from, and he has played the strangest role in politics for a long time.
Dan has the distinction of having blown the hugest wad of cash on a losing primary race of anyone in living history. About ten years ago he ran against Chris Hackett, a religious hillbilly who no one had ever heard of.
And Dan lost.
He didn’t just lose, he lost spectacularly, hugely, phenomenally. Dan spent literally millions of dollars on a primary race, and lost to a guy who spent, what, a hundred thousand dollars? Maybe a bit more? [UPDATE May 1, 2018: Proving that memory can be a fragile thing, campaign finance records that I looked at today show that Hackett spent well over $100,000 on his campaign against Dan Meuser. It is hard to tell exactly how much both candidates spent, but Meuser’s campaign was over a million bucks, and Hackett’s may have been right behind that. What I recalled was Hackett’s excellent grass roots ground game]
What Dan lacked in charisma and character, he made up for with money. He just kept tossing that cash around, trying to buy votes that never materialized. When the dust settled, in a two-person primary race, mind you, Hackett had crushed him with his folksy man-on-the-street candidacy. The empty suits lost to the citizen revolt that became known within a year as the Tea Party.
Dan Meuser eventually served in the Tom Corbett administration as Secretary of Revenue, the Mister Moneybags of PA government.
The Corbett administration was the worst run administration in modern Pennsylvania history.
A tone deaf governor with zero loyalty for those who put him there, and a taste for private flash, Corbett was surrounded by an army of self-directed, self-interested political hacks embodying the very worst of political patronage. God it was a freaking disaster, and it brings me no happiness to write it here.
I worked hard to get Corbett elected, very hard, and I served on the transition team, only to sit back and watch in slack-jawed amazement as the entire enterprise slo-mo crashed and burned after it was in place. Like a bad dream.
How many people went into the governor’s office, pleading for Corbett to take control and right the ship of state…it was like a nightmare, where your hand is on the wheel, and you keep turning it, but your car heads over the cliff.
Anyhow, if you are like me and four years ago you said “thankfully that pain is behind us” about the departing Corbett Administration, well, Dan Meuser is here to revisit that pain upon us, once again, but this time as a congressman.
As Secretary of Revenue in the Corbett administration, Meuser oversaw, masterminded, and approved the largest state government sexual harassment settlement in Pennsylvania history. And it may be the largest state government sexual harassment settlement in the country’s history.
You understand, this is nothing to brag about. This settlement was probably unnecessary and in any event, it was a colossal waste of limited taxpayer money. At a time of tight budgets, this is no way to spend The People’s money. At a time of flush budgets, it is going to be the butt of late night comedy jokes, because it is bad policy but at least humorously so.
And speaking of The People’s money, do you know another fantastically bad public policy idea Meuser implemented from his perch in state government? He put the squeeze on Pennsylvania businesses, like the Mob would do to extract cash from innocent people.
We PA business owners, great and small, all received these ridiculous notices from Meuser’s Dept. of Revenue saying “Prove to us that you don’t owe this tax money below, and while you are mulling that over, pay this bill for what we think, but cannot prove, that you owe to state government.”
Meuser’s assault on PA businesses for fast cash to prop up bloated state government spending was so shocking that whatever bit of good will the Corbett Administration had left, was squeezed out of his remaining voting base. Nearly 100% of these phony tax bills ended up resulting in zero owed, but it was the kind of expensive and anxiety-inducing government red tape we expect from liberals. Not from business people. With people like Meuser in senior positions pulling these kinds of cheap stunts, it was ever harder to see Corbett as a pro-business Republican.
And this is the GOOD stuff about Dan.
Believe me, there is plenty more bad stuff. Like, recall the politically powerful shadows pulling his puppet strings mentioned above. He is the stultified establishment candidate. Good grief, aren’t we so beyond that now? Most Republican voters now know how failed that is, a party inward looking, without direction, barely distinguishable from the Democrats.
Dan Meuser is the last person Pennsylvanians need in office. He is representative of everything bad about politics. You cannot vote for him. You just cannot. That is a terrible choice. My gosh, you have three other good candidates to vote for here, and if you really want one of the good guys to win, you will vote for Joe Peters or Andrew Lewis.
Voting for Dan Meuser is voting for an empty suit with no principles, with a history of proven failure on one of the seminal issues of our time, sexual harassment.
Voting for Steve Bloom is effectively dividing up the good-guy vote and pretty much ensuring that Dan Meuser wins. We need Steve to stay in the PA House of Reps. Stay there, Steve, stay! Not voting for Steve Bloom is actually helping Steve stay right where we need him.
Voting for Joe Peters or Andrew Lewis is what you want if you want an outstanding congressman. You cannot go wrong with either one.
My impression of Paul Mango, candidate for PA Guv
Three weeks ago I spent half an hour on the phone with Paul Mango, newly declared candidate for Pennsylvania governor.
We talked about his candidacy, his background, political issues, economics, hopes and challenges, etc. We then followed up with several back and forth emails, each one of his expressing specific appreciation and thanks for how the exchange had benefited him in a certain way. He is a new candidate, new to politics (other than as a very generous donor to Republican candidates), and he is digesting a lot of new information and ideas, new ways of thinking.
Last week I met Mango at his formal campaign announcement at the Twin Ponds sports and fitness center in Camp Hill\Mechanicsburg.
Twin Ponds previously served as the region’s HQ for primary and general election candidate Donald Trump, who won Pennsylvania’s Electoral College votes by a margin probably accounted for just by the simple dedication of Central PA’s “normal Americans” in both political parties. The big facility is run by a pretty, petite firebrand of a woman, Mrs. Patton aka General Patton.
Here are my impressions of Mango (and yes, I know, he’s just getting started):
He is impressive in several key ways: His family background and values, his education and military service, and his high level professional work experience.
Paul Mango is a very smart, confident, and empathetic man, who comes across as a reserved, reflective, nice person, and a responsive, good listener. He is positive and genuine.
I questioned him in person about how he will compete against candidate Scott Wagner, who has spent years battling in the trenches with a lot of conservative voters and activists, against entrenched establishment political hacks in politics for personal financial gain, and who has thereby built up credibility with many politically active citizens who value bravery and honesty.
When I pointed out that Wagner has also alienated a lot of people (including many of his former supporters) in that process (because Wagner seems selfish, arrogant, and unappreciative), Mango responded that he will not say anything negative because he has never seen valuable leadership succeed except through “inspiring people.”
That is a very high bar to set for one’s self, much less one’s political competitors, but it is worthy because it says Mango has integrity. The Wagner campaign has already criticized Mango for supporting Cruz first, and then Trump later, though I got the impression that is what Scott Wagner did, too, like a lot of us did in last year’s Republican primary. Here we go, the mud is already flying!
Well, to start, if Mango is going to inspire voters, then he needs to increase his positive speaking energy, his intensity, his passion. The other night he came across as a little nervous, and definitely way too deliberative, almost plodding, at his formal announcement. His prepared speech was long and the delivery was very, very slow.
Recall that Abraham Lincoln’s speech at Gettysburg is so hard hitting because it was not long and plodding, but brief and hard hitting.
Despite serving in the 82nd Airborne and actually being a warrior, Mango’s even-keeled demeanor does not seem warrior-like, while his main competitor, Wagner, did not do military service and yet is a proven culture and fiscal political warrior.
Though he wore jeans, work boots, and an Oxford shirt, Mango is the very definition and personification of “corporate,” which will probably look or smell like moderate RINO to the trench warfare grass roots conservatives. Time will tell if that first impression is accurate.
His approach to fixing government is his approach to fixing businesses, about which it is best to just quote my activist friend Ron:
“The problem with these guys [corporate/business/ Chamber of Commerce GOP candidates who compare running government to running business] is they all have plans to fix government by running it like a business. This is not a unique viewpoint and it has never worked. This is politics, not business. Took me a while to accept that. He can have the greatest plan ever but it won’t matter because politicians don’t care [about people, policy, economy etc.]. They care about themselves and getting re-elected.”
It is a fact that careerist politicians in BOTH PARTIES do not act like corporate employees, because there is almost no accountability in politics. The old quip about the only accountability in politics resulting from being “found in bed with a dead girl or a live boy” probably doesn’t even apply today.
Like him or not, candidate Scott Wagner goes right to the key policy battles: Corrupt blood-sucking unions, ridiculous regulations that violate our federal and state constitutions, wasted and stolen taxpayer money.
That is where the rubber meets the road in the culture war for America’s soul and the war for a middle-income economy.
This is the battle front between America as it was founded and as we knew it, and America as a bastion of totalitarian socialism and politically correct thought police, envisioned by the Left.
Candidate Mango will probably arrive here at the same battle front, eventually, because the leftists’ violent street battles across America tell us that nice words alone don’t work, and Trump’s improbable win says it all (JEB! was also the quintessential corporate nice guy, and GOP voters utterly rejected him).
Mango’s steady personality seems to avoid conflict, which though commendable and reassuring in so many other settings, can send the message to some voters that he may be like a zillion other mainstream RINOs who are unwilling to dive into the bar room brawl that needs to happen for America to be set right. These careerist RINOs don’t want to get their hands dirty waging political war, which tells voters that they really just don’t care very much about political or cultural outcomes.
Mango is smart enough to see these facts and voter trends. Whether he arrives at that messy policy battle front sooner or later is the question. If he finds a way to comfortably voice his quiet intensity, his passion, his compassion for working Pennsylvanians, then he will overcome the potential impression that he is another empty GOP suit (I was told that PA GOP kingmaker Bob Asher has NOT supported Mango, which appeals to the conservative, independent-minded base).
I like the guy and I am looking forward to seeing him develop over the next six months, because, again, he is new to politics and just getting started.
Marsico, Rozman and Morris for Dauphin County Judge
If you consider experience and qualifications alone when selecting a county judge, then there are only three logical people to get your vote on May 16th, 2017:
Ed Marsico
Michael Rozman
Royce Morris
Ed Marsico has been Dauphin County’s district attorney for a long time, so long that I have lost count of the years. During his time as the chief law enforcement official for Dauphin County, Ed has always struck a balance of fairness and restraint, when lesser people would have given in to anger over some of the heinous crimes committed in the Harrisburg area. That always struck me as the sign of a well developed personality, because man, I did not feel that way about some of the scumbag criminals he prosecuted. I wanted a public stoning. Ed pursued justice. Without any stain on his long career as a visible and scrutinized public servant, Ed Marsico is the most qualified candidate for county judge in this race and one of the most qualified we have ever had. He has earned your vote. (Ed has done a great job as DA, and I and many others would have liked to have had him run for Pennsylvania Attorney General, but Ed is devoted to Dauphin County).
Michael Rozman has served as deputy district attorney under Marsico for a long time. Often laboring away out of the limelight, Rozman has racked up some of the greatest experience any lawyer can have. Rozman’s mastery of forensics, crime scene investigations, police interviews and interrogations, and knowing how to distinguish a bad boy from a true bad guy puts him head and shoulders above any of the other candidates, except for his boss, Ed Marsico. Again, if experience and outstanding qualification matters to you, if you want justice and not politics in the court room, and if you want to be judged by someone who has had decades of experience dealing with courts, criminal matters, justice, and police work, then Michael Rozman has earned your vote.
Royce Morris is also exceptionally qualified to be judge, and he is the Yin to the Yang of Marsico and Rozman. Morris has been one of Central Pennsylvania’s leading criminal defense lawyers for a long, long time. His view of criminal law is seasoned with the understanding of the behavior and reasons why certain bad things happen and how people either purposefully or mistakenly end up in the criminal justice system. Royce has received accolades from judges, jurors, prosecutors, defendants and police officers for the careful way he has handled some of the region’s toughest defense cases. Again, if experience is what you care about, and you want to be judged by someone who is not a party hack or a devotee of political climbing, then Royce Morris earns your vote.
It is true that there are other candidates for the three vacant seats on the Dauphin County court. But none of those candidates has anywhere near the hard-bitten experience dealing with tough crimes and careful analysis like Marsico, Rozman, and Morris have had.
The quality difference between the top three candidates and the others is measured in light years, which is to say an enormous gap, not even close.
Yes, it is true that a Republican political endorsement was made for this seat, which benefited one of the other candidates, and while I am no fan of political endorsements in general, if there is one place where a political endorsement does not belong, where it actually indicates weakness and not strength, it is during the selection of a judge. Politics has no business entering the court room or the judge selection process, and only you, the informed voter can stop it.
About eight years ago now-Judge Andrew Dowling was not endorsed by the Dauphin GOP, and he was told not to run, and yet he went on to win his seat on the court, overcoming what is obviously a very shallow and judicially meaningless political process. A better process would be to rank judicial candidates by a letter system, or by gradations of qualification (e.g. Highly Qualified, Qualified, Not Qualified). That election, when Dowling overcame the political hackery, was a refreshing reminder of the wisdom and power of the citizen voter.
Three years ago outstanding judicial candidate Bill Tully was passed over by the Dauphin GOP, and another, very young and less qualified candidate was endorsed. He was closer to the political establishment. The voters rejected that set-up, too, and sent Tully to be the next Dauphin County judge. That election, when Tully overcame the political hackery, was a refreshing reminder of the wisdom and power of the citizen voter.
Readers may ask why I write these essays about candidates and politics, and I will tell you it is simply because I have always had a passion for good government and fairness. Believe me, I make no friends writing these things, I receive no money and actually have lost business because of my opinions. And I have garnered some enemies along the way, too. But if Americans are not brave enough to stand up for what they deserve, then they get really bad government filled with political hacks who care nothing for the welfare of their fellow citizens. Maybe I am brave, maybe I am foolish, but I stand up nonetheless, and I tell it like I see it, and I tell it from the perspective of the person in the street.
Vote for Marsico, Rozman, and Morris, and you will get judges we can be proud of. That is my opinion.