Lehigh County Controller Mark Pinsley just became the fourth Democrat to officially enter the race for the PA-7 Congressional seat. Pinsley told one Democratic insider last week that he will be the “progressive” in the race. Others have told me he is hoping to garner support from “Make the Road,” and other Lehigh County progressive groups.
Pinsley becomes the second elected official and third Lehigh County based (allegedly) candidate in the race. He will attempt to consolidate the “Bernie crowd.” He has previously run for State Senate and Auditor General. Despite his progressive views, he has struggled in the past with earning union support.
I still expect Bob Brooks to enter and make it five. Very clearly, this field is not closing off and consolidating behind one candidate. We are looking at a crowded 2026 primary.
About a half hour ago my mother received a text poll on the Democratic Primary in PA-7. The poll asked her about Ryan Crosswell, Lamont McClure, Bob Brooks, Carol Obando-Derstine, and Mark Pinsley. It gave some biographical information on each. My mother thought they were “impressive.” No idea who did it, but I’d be interested to hear the results. She didn’t mention any negatives, but I didn’t see it for myself.
I registered as a Democrat in no small part because of George W. Bush. I was unhappy with how he had won the 2000 election and decided to be a Democrat because of this (and a few, very important, other reasons). Then Iraq, the Patriot Act, Katrina, and a market collapse pushed me firmly left of center. I had grown up in a union household, but those young adult years really made me a Democrat. I couldn’t stand Bush 43.
Fast forward to last year. I lose my lower left leg. By Thanksgiving I have my prosthetic. A couple setbacks later, I’m walking for real at New Years. In May I had another issue, back to the hospital for three days. After some healing, I was back up, and this week I get a state of the art brand new leg. Medicine and science are great. For those of you who hate the industries, let me tell you that those of us living with major issues thank God every day that we live with today’s advancements.
Now, the ironic part- I would not have the medical blessings I have without the Bush (and Obama) era VA. I owe 95% of my thanks to the brave Americans who lost limbs in Iraq and Afghanistan, they were the reason the VA and medical field poured money into prosthetics research. Every ounce of faith I have in humanity goes to them. But it was the Bush Administration’s investment that got me walking today. Hence I will tell you- it’s not worth the partisan hate we put out into the universe. Almost always, someone is doing good for others. Embrace that.
Pennsylvania Professional Fire Fighters Association President (IAFF) and retired Bethlehem Fire Fighter Bob Brooks will reportedly enter the race for Congress in the Lehigh Valley this week, according to a source in labor. He joins a field of three, with one more person reportedly about to enter. This primary is getting crowded.
Brooks has an excellent profile to run in this district, at least on paper. Every time I’ve ever seen it polled in Pennsylvania, fire fighters are the most overwhelmingly popular group tested. He has an authentically blue collar profile, which fits well trying to win over the district’s crucial swing voters. If he had come out months ago, one wonders if the field would be this crowded.
With that all said, I think this is a fool’s errand. No one knows who Brooks is right now, and there’s no reason to believe he’ll be the kind of fundraiser that Crosswell has been, on his own. Unless he can drive McClure out (he can’t), he’s not going to get enough votes out of his home county. He’s a very risky unknown as a first time candidate in a crucial seat. He claims some major people are backing him, or have promised to back him if he starts out well. Let’s see if they’re willing to not only endorse, and campaign for him, but also to raise him the kind of money he needs. Short of an insane investment from others, I see no path to victory.
At this point, I think this is simply comedy hour. Imagine you’re a Republican carpetbagger. Imagine you also have a history of being a union buster. Now imagine you raise $320k and only $500 of it is from the district you want to represent. Ok, you’ve got all of that? Now you see a story in the Morning Call, a story that ends up being made up, but you don’t know that at the time. You spring to action, because to your credit, you want to help.
Ok, hey, your heart is in the right place, but you’re not in the right place. Your law firm is 3,000 miles away from this family.
Can this firm do the work? I’m sure they can. But if you already are being hit for being a carpetbagger in the Lehigh Valley, maybe hunting for business for a firm in California isn’t the best look. Like I’m 2,000% sure there is an immigration attorney in the Lehigh Valley.
Of course, there was the whole matter of being caught on the wrong side of the lie too. Lyin’ Ryan Mackenzie’s team had a field day with him.
Look, this is amateur hour. This is why you can’t just throw any first time candidate into a Congressional race. This guy is totally out of his element and should probably have shopped for a safer seat in Louisiana, North Carolina, Schuylkill County, Washington DC, California, ah, I give up. He should have just run as a Republican in PA-9, or something.
I’ve decided to take down yesterday’s post. Two reasons:
I’m 10,000% sure the right audience read it. Like all of the right audience. So the point got made. No need to beleaguer the point.
The goal was to let the persons involved know I hear everything they say. They can’t talk freely and safely, even to their candidate.
The race is about the candidates, not some guy not working on the campaign. There will be much more where that came from. Now that I know I can make him mad, you can bank on it.
Carol Obando-Derstine is running for Congress in PA-7. I don’t think we’ve ever met, but we have some common friends. She describes herself as “An engineer, advocate, educator, bilingual leader, Mom, and Democrat running for Congress in #PA07 to continue serving her community.” She’s worked for PP&L and Senator Bob Casey. She’s an immigrant to us in the Lehigh Valley, but her roots here include years and years of work time, at least one degree from Lehigh University, and time serving the public in this area. She’s a Democrat, and she is not a carpetbagger. I have many of the same doubts others express in private about her electability, particularly as a first time candidate. With that said, she has picked up major endorsements from our last Congresswoman, EMILY’s List, and BOLD PAC. She is not embarrassing herself in this race whatsoever. Her fundraising so far isn’t super impressive, but it is competitive.
Word on the street though is that the powers that be in the Democratic Party, in both Harrisburg and Washington, are going to ask Carol, Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure, Ex-Republican Ryan Crosswell, and a yet unannounced local office holder who is getting ready to enter the race to all stand aside for a white male, who is also a first time candidate like Carol, and who seems to who have stiffed an old lady out of $55,000. These powers that be are claiming the Governor himself is going to ask all of the candidates to drop out, ask all of the unions who have endorsed to switch their endorsements, and everyone to genuflect to a complete neophyte candidate. They’re going to ask the only woman, and the only person of color in the race to stand down for a white guy who has even less experience than she does running for office, and who has yet to prove he can raise money or do any of the other things a Congressional candidate needs to do. Apparently it’s a much bigger problem that Carol is new to this and hasn’t raised a million dollars yet than it is that this white guy is inexperienced and has no money at the end of July. Do I believe the Governor is actually in on this? No. I can’t believe he’d even entertain such a stupid idea.
I’m going to give Carol some completely unsolicited advice- if someone actually calls her and asks her to get out of the race, be with the Governor or some staff person in DC, she should politely decline. Why would she, as the only woman in a field of four or probably five candidates, drop out? Especially with the support of major political organizations inside the Democratic Party who are going to stick with her as long as she’s in the race? Frankly if they spend on her behalf, in a field that is so male heavy, she’s probably going to win. Again, I have my concerns about her, but a woman held this seat literally until the third day of this year, it’s kind of insulting to think she’s D.O.A. and this yet unnamed new candidate (at least here) is some sort of savior that is going to beat a sitting Congressman. I see no reason Crosswell would or should drop out of this now, almost all of his money is out of state and won’t care what in state powers want. The chances McClure is going to drop out after not running for re-election as Executive are absolutely flat zero. Why would Carol drop out? There’s really no reason she should. I see no way this guy can win the primary with multiple other guys, one from the same geographic space, and at least one other in a similar ideological space. He starts with zero name recognition, less time to raise money, and opposition in his way. There’s no reason Carol should capitulate to his quixotic dreams.
Let’s be honest- nobody likes the Democratic Party. The left hates them, the right despises them, and the base of the party wonders why we platform every weirdo and nerd that steps forward and can put together a sentence. Political people argue about this as though policy choices cause this. It’s really that our party is infested with inauthentic ass holes and we are run by people who have never met our own base.
But from the rubble… emerges an unlikely hero… Hunter Biden?!?
You couldn’t make this up if you tried. Sure, maybe he’s a crackhead. Maybe he’s weird. But he’s saying what we’re all thinking, and he’s saying it authentically. George Clooney is an asshole and blew the election. The podcast bros are a bunch of trust fund dorks, still living off of writing some other guys speeches ten years ago. Nobody outside of the Beltway gives two shits what Jake Tapper said in his fictional book about Joe Biden. Yes, the party abandoned Biden for all of the dumbest reasons, and they’re basically cowards. Kamala Harris may be flawed, but she’s loyal and gave it her best shot. Joe Biden knew more in his pinky about his job than most of these idiots will learn in their lifetime. Yes, the media gives Trump a pass to say dumb things and make up his own reality, for their benefit. I’m not co-signing everything Hunter has to say here, but let that man cook. All the hit dogs are hollering.
A bunch of mega donors are going to spend lots of money, paying consultants to focus test a bunch of stupid shit to try and create an interesting, authentic, plain spoken face for our party moving forward. For obvious reasons Hunter Biden shouldn’t run for anything, but he’s showing all of the trust fund dorks and fancy degrees exactly what it looks like in the wild. Instead of defending the indefensible, listen to what the guy is saying, and more importantly, how.
This Goof Represents The Most Swing District in America.
There’s not many scenarios where Democrats win the House in 2026 and don’t win PA-7. Joe Biden won it in 2020, Donald Trump did so in 2024, and both times the margins look similar to the state margin, and Pennsylvania basically is the tipping point state right now. One of the reasons I never registered to vote anywhere else while out on the road (besides the fact I was coming back) was that I really do live in the most swing spot in the country.
So it seems that the DCCC may not have been as thrilled with how the race was shaping up. Fundraising amongst the candidates in the field wasn’t matching up with the more metropolis swing districts in New York and California. That sort of makes sense though. There’s not a lot of big donor money in this district. The big donors in Philadelphia and New York are hesitant to put money into a competitive primary. So two of the three candidates are finding it a little harder to raise cash than expected. The other, we’ll just say he’s problematic. Problematic in big ways. Problematic in many ways.
I can’t blame the DCCC for going looking for more candidates. Why not? The more seats you can put on the board, the better. If you don’t feel absolutely great about the candidates you have, keep finding more. Competition should be fierce for an important job. Right? Unfortunately, maybe the DCCC is not looking in the right direction. The candidate they are supposedly recruiting now has some, let’s just say, issues.
Out of respect for the man, I won’t name this first time candidate, yet. He has never held public office, but he has spent his career working for the public. He’s got no experience being a candidate though, and running for Congress is not the place to learn. Digging in a little deeper, things get a little difficult for him though. A friend whom I will not name dropped me a note on the guy today, and he’s got some problems that will dog him in his race. He’s been in foreclosure twice, in 2012 and 2016. One could write that off, all of us normal people have financial problems at some point. He also had a $5,000 legal judgment rendered against him to Midland Bank, which sounds like a credit card or some small loan that he failed to pay. Again, no judgment here. This part of what they told me stuck out though. It goes well beyond just some hard economic times:
He borrowed $55,000.00 from his mother-in-law. Signed a promissory note. Refused to pay. Got sued. Had a trial. Lost. Appealed. Lost. There is currently a unsatisfied $55,000.00 judgment hanging over his head.
Ok, look, there’s being a working class guy that is behind on some bills, which I think we all can sympathize with. Congress could use more guys that understand that feeling. Then there’s stiffing your mother-in-law for $55k and not paying it back even after you lose in court twice. This friend goes on to note that there’s also a divorce with the potential candidate’s first wife out there, which they don’t know what is in there. I don’t know if this was mother-in-law one or mother-in-law two, but I’m guessing this judgment was from the first one. If that’s the case, I’m sure that divorce is messy and I’ll probably get something sent my way on that later.
Stiffing old ladies isn’t a good look. Especially when it fits with a pattern of being bad with money. Stiffing a family member makes it look like maybe the money problems aren’t just a case of tough times, but maybe something worse. It’s hard to tell, but I will bet bourbons to beers that Ryan Mackenzie and the Republican Party will take information like this and absolutely slime this guy if he’s nominated. By the end he’ll be the symbol of elder abuse and financial misconduct in America, not the next Congressman.
This new candidate has went around the district telling people he will enter with the public support of the DCCC, the Governor of Pennsylvania, and the Democratic Leader in the House. I find it hard to believe any of them would be so stupid as to promise all of that to a candidate without doing a little more research than this friend of mine did before sending this info to me. In fact, I first met the Governor like twenty years ago when he was a State House member, the guy is way too smart to put himself into a nasty, competitive primary like this right before re-election (and maybe a run for President?). I definitely don’t see that happening, once they do their research.
Campaigns are hard. This guy has had an honorable career serving the public. This may be biting off a bit more than could be chewed.
It’s July 21st. The Phillies are 56-43. They have a half game lead over the Mets in the NL East. Things are really not bad. One could argue that if nothing happens in the next ten days, they are still highly likely to make the playoffs. They have the best starting pitching rotation in Major League Baseball, and they have depth. Their fate literally may come down to whether their pitching and maybe Harper and Schwarber are hot when the playoffs start. There is no rhyme or reason to picking who wins the World Series, it’s usually just whoever can get on a run for a month.
It doesn’t feel like the Phillies are going to win though. Sure, it didn’t feel that way for most of 2008, or in 2022, but feelings are not as irrelevant as advanced metrics can make them feel. Were you 100% confident in Craig Kimbrel in 2023? No, but he did have a pretty good year until the NLCS. In 2024 the Phillies felt literally unbeatable until June, then they limped to the division title and lost right away in October. The Phillies are back in first and that’s great, but the season to this point feels more like last year from June on than the early portion. The bullpen is a mess. The lineup really isn’t that bad statistically, but it’s wildly inconsistent. They’re really not a great team on the road. They have lost series against current playoff contenders San Diego, San Francisco, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and New York this season (they’ve beaten some of them too). Sure, they absolutely can beat Los Angeles or Chicago in a playoff series. They have to get there to even have that conversation though.
If all I did was write down that they need bullpen help, there would be no point to me writing this. Orion Kerkering, Tanner Banks, and Matt Strahm can’t really be all they use in a playoff series. I like signing David Robertson yesterday, but that doesn’t fix their bullpen problem on it’s own. If we’re being realistic, the Phillies probably need two more relief arms at the deadline, but might get away with one good one because they’ll shift a starter or two into their bullpen for the postseason. Again though, everyone knows this. They desperately could use some help internally, but their AAA bullpen might be worse than the big league one.
The bigger problem here is that the Phillies could probably use a bat too, and there aren’t really many of them available. Center field is a black hole, left field might somehow be worse, second base has been very disappointing, and a number of other spots in the lineup have been fine, but inconsistent. Without even getting into the potential future without Kyle Schwarber, or even to a much lesser extent J.T. Realmuto, the Phillies offense needs a re-tool. They’re no longer the feared group they were in the 2022 World Series run. The problem is, there’s not a lot of difference makers on the market. In fact, the solution may be sitting in AAA, with Justin Crawford hitting .325, with an .830 OPS as of this morning. The solution to the offense could simply be slotting him in center, full-time platooning Marsh and Otto Kemp in left, and maybe finding a bench bat on the trade market that kills left handers. Of course there’s a major problem with that thought process though- how do you get the kind of relief arm the Phillies need without moving a Crawford in a trade? Especially if you correctly don’t want to trade Andrew Painter for a reliever? If you’re keeping Painter off the market, it’s hard to hold onto Crawford and Aidan Miller, your best two offensive prospects. Mick Abel has recovered a lot of value this season, but he still won’t land you a Mason Miller or Emmanuel Clase on his own. And if you trade Crawford? You still have two glaring holes in your outfield to fill.
I’m not saying I don’t want Miller or Clase, but I am saying that I haven’t gone into the fully crazy fan mode where I’m willing to move Painter or the whole system to get them. The Phillies have multiple needs right now, and the problem they face is that the solution to one is the cost of the other. I would not be upset if they find a team who is willing to move them multiple relief arms, or a relief arm and a right-handed bat, instead of making the biggest splash for the biggest reliever. This team is obviously not a bad team, but it is conceivable that quantity is as important as quality for them. The 2008 Phillies got players like Joe Blanton and Matt Stairs to load up for the postseason. The 2009 Phillies got Cliff Lee. The 2008 team won. Again, I’d love seeing Miller or Clase in South Philadelphia this Fall, but I hope the front office isn’t so in love with them that they throw all caution to the wind- because I don’t think they alone will be enough.
With all of that said, I think the worst outcome of all would be nothing. The Dodgers, Cubs, Mets, Brewers, and Padres are the current other playoff teams, and while they’re all good, that’s hardly terrifying when you have the best rotation of the group. The Phillies absolutely need to make moves in the plural and go for this thing. A set up man or an Austin Hays level bat won’t do it. Dave Dombrowski is known as an aggressive executive, one who goes for the World Series every chance he gets, and gets there a lot. The Phillies need him to live up to that billing over the next week or so. You just can’t waste opportunities like this.
Apocalypse Vibes 