2026-election

The Governor’s Endorsement of Crooksy is all About 2028 Politics

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment
Josh Shapiro endorsed Bob “Crooksy” Brooks for Congress yesterday. The comments on the article’s Facebook page were brutal. I announced this a while back, I guess the Governor just wanted to put it out there at a time of year when less people were paying attention. I wonder why, why, why, why, why, and why he would want to do that?

If Bob Brooks is the nominee of the Democratic Party in PA-7, Republicans will swamp him with negative ads defining him as a deadbeat who took money from his mother-in-law and expresses racist beliefs on social media. In any normal time, I’d say that’s disqualifying, but there are a lot of people who would vote for O.J. Simpson if he ran on their party’s ticket right now. Even so, Crooksy is really the only candidate with a strong general election negative to run against, and Republicans are open that they feel most confident they can beat him. They’ll use his personal baggage, his endorsement from Bernie Sanders and other radical left wingers, and even negatives from his career that they have waiting to use. Democrats can’t afford that. Ryan Crosswell is completely unacceptable, but probably can win a general election, if you’re willing to vote for a Republican. There are three Democrats actually from the Lehigh Valley who are Democrats running in this race. We never needed the DCCC to mess this race up with this guy, but sure enough, it happened.

There’s absolutely no evidence that Crooksy brings anything to the table as a candidate, but that’s not what this is about. He raised $300k last quarter? So did like everyone across the river in NJ-7. Any candidate that gets nominated will raise plenty in the general election, and have PACs you’ve never heard of spending on their behalf. All that any of these folks endorsing him cares about is, he is the President of the IAFF’s Pennsylvania organization and the IAFF is really damn good at politics. When the IAFF backs a candidate for President, that candidate usually wins the Democratic nomination, at a minimum. The Governor wants the IAFF to support him in future campaigns, such as for Governor in 2026 and for President in 2028, and let’s be honest, one is more critical right now than the other. It’s very clear this is why this endorsement is happening, and anyone saying otherwise is a liar. Let’s be honest here, otherwise there’s no other reason to step into a competitive primary. Months ago, everyone claimed they would stay out. Plenty of people have appealed to the Governor directly and his insiders, pleading with them to not endorse this guy. None of that mattered, because this isn’t about this race. It’s about 2028.

I know this is an inconvenient truth to publish, but it’s a truth nonetheless. If I was worried about backlash for saying it, I wouldn’t have started in on Crooksy. I knew this from the start and made the decision on my own to write it. I’ve brought the receipts since day one. Frankly, I haven’t wrote the worst stuff, and probably won’t. Unions and elected officials are being pressured from the good ole’ boys club in Harrisburg to fall in line, to crush a primary here. I’m not invested enough in anyone’s success to play that game.

Jasmine Crockett, Voter Persuasion, and Reality

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I’m under no illusions- I do not think any Democratic candidate can win the state of Texas for Senator or Governor in 2026, and probably not in 2030 either. Texas is a red state, more red than the nation as a whole, because Texas Republicans have been more competitive with Latino voters than their national party has been overall. Yes, Democrats could very well do better in 2026 because of actions Trump has decided to take, but what does that mean? Kamala Harris lost the state by nearly 14%. Joe Biden lost it by 5.5%. Hillary Clinton lost it by 9%. So I guess we’re just debating how bad the loss will be. Beto got kind of, sort of close in 2018 against Ted Cruz, but still lost by a margin well beyond a recount. I’m giving you the reality up front- Texas is red, and it’s not going to change very soon.

I have no strong opinion about Jasmine Crockett as a candidate. She will raise money and motivate the Democratic base, probably more impressively than her primary opponent, James Talarico. Does it really matter though? One may argue that she’ll maximize turnout and therefore be closer. Another might say a Democrat can’t possibly win Texas without persuading some Republicans, and Talarico may be better to do that. In the end, I think they both lose. You would need to be prime Bill Clinton to even have a chance to do both strategies at once, and even then you probably lose Texas.

So I’m not losing sleep over Jasmine Crockett supposedly saying something about persuading Trump voters. To be clear, she said the following:

Q: How will you win over Trump supporters? Crockett: “I don’t know that we’ll necessarily convert all of Trump’s supporters. That’s not our goal.” Q: “Do you need to?” Crockett: “No, we don’t. We don’t need to.”

Let’s start by saying she’s factually correct. You don’t need to convince all of the other side in almost any election. Most Republicans are going to vote Republican. She doesn’t need them all. All true. Now, she was asked how she is going to win them over though, and she did dodge that question. She also doesn’t really need an answer in December of 2025. The election is 11 months away. She may be running against a very corrupt Ken Paxton. She also may not. There’s a lot of variables here.

The problem with Crockett’s answer is that largely after 2012 the Democratic position became to not do persuasion, and to instead focus on base turnout. That worked fine for President Obama, but he still did persuasion. The electorate has grown considerably since 2012, and the truth is that the lowest propensity voters don’t vote Democratic anymore, or at least it’s a lot more murky than it used to be (Biden’s super high 2020 number confuses things, but he was a persuader). Trump’s share of the vote grew with each election he ran. I think what a lot of people want to hear is that a candidate is thinking about why the Clinton or Harris campaigns didn’t work, and is going to try something different, and well, she didn’t say that. “Demographics are destiny” was an entirely failed approach, and we have to get back in the game of winning the hearts and minds of the impressionable voters out there. Ignoring them is a losing strategy.

Voter persuasion is expensive and hard. Yes, racial and gender bias can make the road even harder. It’s not impossible to do, it just probably requires a lot of luck in this case that is probably not going to happen. Math is math. For a state like Texas to flip, there has to be some societal level movement against the Republican Party, and I know you want to believe that’s going to happen, but it’s probably not. America is simply not offended enough by him to become a clearly center-left to liberal nation like it was before the 1960’s. They simply don’t like Democrats enough, when push comes to shove in an actual election. Some argue we need to move left, or pick more white guy candidates to fix that, but those things are not going to work. Republicans hate white Democrats plenty, and you’ll lose some of your base chasing them.

Look, what I’m saying is that people are going to get up in their feels about this primary. They shouldn’t. If Democrats have a chance at Texas, they’re probably already spending heavily in Ohio and Iowa, maybe even Florida, and just won’t have the resources to go into Texas. If we win this race, it won’t be because of which candidate wins the primary. At that point, it’s an act of God.

The Democrats Who Need to be Defeated in 2026

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

Donald Trump has destroyed Washington. He has harmed our government permanently and left his successor a mess to clean up. Eventually some alternative is going to have to put functional government back together. That someone is probably the Democratic Party. The Democrats are at a crossroads- do they want to be a leftist party or a center-left/social liberal party. It’s very simple and very straight forward. For me, becoming a party that plays footsie with socialism, embraces isolationism, abandons Civil Rights, embraces guns, opposes the existence of Israel, opposes defending our allies in Europe, throws Obamacare away, and flirts with extremists, whether they have Nazi tattoos or embrace “the Intifada,” is a hard no. Our voters have rejected Bernie Sanders soundly at the ballot box twice. His politics should not be the future of our party, unless we want to never win elections again. Sure, there are some shared, common goals and aims. I embrace Democrats who actually have got things done.

For that reason, I have put together a list of Democrats who need to be defeated in 2026. Some are bad because of ideology, others because they are personally reprehensible, and in a few cases both. I did not put every “progressive” candidate in the country on the list, and that’s for a reason- they are not all bad. I oppose grifters, deadbeats, crackpots, and generally offensive people. Some of them are even moderates. These are generally people I have no interest I supporting in 2026.

  1. Graham Platner- Maine Senate- The Nazi tattoo guy from Maine, I’ve written about him a bit here and here. And more here. This guy is an embarrassment, and yet some folks defend him, because vibes or something. Whether you want to talk about his racism and homophobic slurs on the internet, or his Nazi tattoo, we don’t need to nominate this complete novice, who is paying his wife on his campaign. He’s a nightmare candidate in the making.
  2. Katie Porter- California Governor- I never liked the whole “whiteboard” shtick, and neither did 2024 California Primary voters. That was before she started making a fool of herself in interviews with the press. There are a lot of good candidates for Governor in California. She’s not one of them.
  3. Saikat Chakrabarti- CA-11- Look, just read this. Sure, it was before Nancy Pelosi retired, but nothing about him has changed. He founded the Justice Democrats. He worked for AOC. He wants to remove Hakeem Jeffries as leader. He basically is running against the Democratic Party.
  4. Brad Lander- NY-10- The outgoing New York City Comptroller is primarying Daniel Goldman in NY-10, because getting his ass kicked in the New York City Mayoral primary wasn’t enough for him. He’s attacking Goldman on AIPAC, and raising a lot of money, and… I guess, because he’s not pro-Mamdani? Basically he thinks Lower Manhattan and part of Brooklyn will hate Goldman because he’s not “outspoken” enough? I’m not sure. Goldman was pretty outspoken as the Majority Counsel for Trump’s first impeachment hearings, but Lander would like you to believe him getting arrested at protests is real action. This is maybe the dumbest primary in the country.
  5. Bob “Crooksy” Brooks- PA-7- I’ve wrote about this guy too much. Read this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. Look, you can’t trust this guy, and that’s a major hurdle for anyone to get over. He’s another John Fetterman. Right down to the hoodie.
  6. Abdul El-Sayed- MI Senate- All you need to really know about this guy is that he had to apologize for a fundraising email he sent out on October 7th. Yes, he’s that antisemitic. He also had to scrub his social media posts for talking about “Defund the Police” and other looney tunes things. He’s been called the “bro whisperer.” Honestly, how does anybody think this guy can win a general election in Michigan? He’s endorsed by Rashida Tlaib.
  7. Kat Abughazaleh- IL-9- Kat began her race as a barely eligible upstart challenger. Today she’s still running, against a very progressive opponent, and trying to shoot out to his left flank. Her campaign is largely about defunding Israel, but also touches on some other pet projects of leftists. She was indicted recently for a showdown with ICE, which can be commendable, but isn’t really part of the job of a Congressman. She’s also an advocate for the “Green New Deal,” a cool slogan that ended up kind of being slop legislation. She’s just not a serious person. Daniel Biss is endorsed by Elizabeth Warren of all people, and well, he’s a serious person.
  8. Chi Osse- NY-8- I guess I can take him off of this list, but it’s still worth noting the guy said he voted for Bernie Sanders in 2016, but actually didn’t vote. I’ll leave him on, in case someone encourages him to change his mind.
  9. Ryan Crosswell- PA-7- Again, I’ve wrote about this guy too much. Read this. And this. And this. And this. And this. Look, the guy has no ties to the Lehigh Valley, even for work, and will be gone if he loses this race, like Dr. Oz. He’s a lifelong Republican, re-registering as a Republican in several states, and voting in Trump primaries. His story about quitting the DOJ because Trump dropped the Eric Adams case, and being so enraged that he had to run for Congress, is just false. He bought his websites a while before that. This whole campaign is based on fraudulent storytelling. The guy worked at a damn union busting law firm.
  10. Cameron Kasky- NY-12- At all of 25, Kasky knows it all. He’s going to end ICE. And Israel, I guess. As he puts it, “you can’t be a tame politician” right now. He basically wants to go to Capitol Hill to be a protestor. There’s no serious substance here, just a wishlist.
  11. Cori Bush- MO-1- The former Congresswoman was kicked out last cycle in her primary, and just won’t go away. She’s for “defund the police,” but gets caught being hypocritical by the GOP. She slammed other Democrats over Gaza. She spent her time in Congress attacking her fellow Democrats, rather than Republicans. It’s utterly stupid to do that.
  12. Henry Cuellar- TX-28- Trump pardoned him for corruption. His colleagues don’t even like him. By the way, accepting a pardon is an admission of guilt, legally. No thanks.
  13. Abbas Alawieh-MI State Senate 2- He founded the “Uncommitted” Vote last year, which has only lead to more Palestinians dying under Trump. What a gigantic mistake.

I will continue to add to this list and update as more happens.

Are You Talkin’ to Me? The Good Ole’ Boys and Girls in Harrisburg Don’t Want the Voters to Choose in PA-7

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

Last week I met Crooksy in the flesh. I have before, but I know I was not as interested in it then. His campaign manager walked up with him at an event, outside of the actual event, and said to him “this is Rich Wilkins, the guy who writes mean things about you.” You know what, that’s sort of accurate (I write accurate things about him), and it’s actually pretty funny. I said “how do you do,” and moved along. It was cold, but cordial. That’s really all it needed to be. I have said the guy would be inappropriate as a nominee, let alone a Congressman. I stand by that.

Later on in the event, a labor “personality” from a union that backs Crooksy decided to let me know they were unhappy with my coverage of their endorsement. After questioning why I didn’t ask them first if I was right (someone involved told me, why would I?) quite aggressively, I asked a pretty straight forward question- was what I wrote wrong? Their answer- “it didn’t go down the way you wrote it.” I don’t know, if I was going to confront someone like that, I’d probably be able to just say “yes, you were wrong” when asked that. Hey though, I guess sometimes the truth is a problem for some.

Look, I have the least skin in the game of anyone in this whole shenanigan- I don’t work for anyone involved in the race. I’m not going to work for anyone in the race. While I have a preference in the race, there are several candidates I could accept if they won. It has been said to friends of mine that I’m “harming my ability to work” by being so vocal about Crooksy. Huh? I haven’t worked for an actual candidate since before my health scare, almost two years, and I’m not really trying to. I charged my last candidate gas money basically for a couple months of work, because I grew up looking up to them and just wanted to help them through. These people want to blacklist me from a job I don’t want or have? Allegedly I won’t be able to work anymore judicial races, at least at the state level. You wouldn’t believe how badly that has me torn up, I might not be able to go on here (I shouldn’t have to tell you to read that with sarcasm, but yeah.). I didn’t have people attempting to blacklist me from work I don’t do on my 2025 bingo card, but I think this is supposed to scare me or something. Listen, I was almost dead once, you’re going to have to do better than that to scare me now. At least threaten to kneecap my good leg or something, I might blink. I’ve never really socialized with my co-workers much, the ones I am friends with know we’re friends. The rest? Honestly, maybe we’re acquaintances. I find myself more and more at odds with the world a lot of these people are trying to build. My attachment level is pretty low at this point.

These folks are hellbent to make sure people don’t have choices in this primary and don’t hear information about the people they want to thrust onto the voters. They had emissaries up here trying to clear the field and rally support. It didn’t work. They think if voters hear about the candidates, they won’t pick their guy. They’re probably right. What I don’t think they want to realize is, the 9-1-1 calls are coming from inside of their own house. Most of what I write is coming from people they tell it to. You think I found this stuff on my own? I dug up social media posts? I mean, this stuff is fair game, but it was given to me. It came from multiple sources. There’s more of it not yet written. The stuff I knew about the guy is stuff that quite frankly I can’t write, it lacks sources willing to talk about it. At least right now. Look, the total readership of this blog isn’t going to move this primary. I mostly put it out hoping the right reader will see it. I have no grand illusions here. If you want to spend all day mad about it, go right on ahead.

I don’t think I’ll be asking the good ole’ boys and girls out on the Susquehanna for a green light on anything. I mean, God bless, but they just don’t really matter to me. If they did, I’d be writing about them. God knows normal people would cringe if they read that kind of stuff.

LOL, Graham Platner. Please Go Away.

/ Rich Wilkins / 1 Comment

It wasn’t bad enough that he had a Nazi tattoo. Or that he posted horrific stuff on the internet. Or that his campaign pays his wife. No. To quote Tom Petty, he won’t back down. He’s still running.

Now we find out that he probably had a few girlfriends at a time until fairly recently. Now look, I have friends who have been on both sides of these pages, and this can get touchy- I really don’t care if he ghosted someone, men and women do that all the time today- but that’s not all it looks like here. The NRSC is practically just trolling the guy, because they can. They know that will drive some primary voters towards him, and they’d love to run against him, because the general electorate will hate this guy. It’s a joke that this guy is still running.

The damage is done at this point. There’s a portion of Democrats who won’t vote for this guy, especially once they’re reminded about him, and he can’t overcome that. Unfortunately, thanks to Comrade Bernie, there are movement leftists dug in to only vote for this guy now, so we’ll probably lose either way. His team will get paid though. I guess somebody wins here. Just not America.

Crooksy’s Hired Nerds Will Save Us, Right?

/ Rich Wilkins / 1 Comment

They gave you an underperforming antisemite. They gave you Senator Shrek. Now you should trust that they are ready to deliver you a House Majority. Just check out their puff article.

After successfully propelling Zohran Mamdani to the mayor’s office in New York City, the campaign firm Fight Agency is moving on to its next targets – defeating Pennsylvania Reps. Ryan Mackenzie (R-07) and Rob Bresnahan (R-08).

The six-person firm consists of Rebecca Katz, Tommy McDonald, Julian Mulvey, Morris Katz, Eric Stern, and Lynnette Jackson. Fight Agency’s website reads that it has assisted over 300 winning elections in 40 states and has won over 100 awards, including 2022 Campaign of the Year.

Katz was the lead strategist for Sen. John Fetterman’s winning campaign in 2022, while McDonald was his key admaker. Mulvey was a key member of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) braintrust, and Katz was the firm’s lead on the Mamdani campaign. 

Stern was deputy campaign manager for Fetterman, while Jackson heads operations.

The group’s website says that it is “looking to help American originals” who are “ready to fight the toughest battles in politics.”

“And we’re here to help you with sharp messaging and the next great iconic ad.  So, if you’re looking for something different, you might have just found it.”

So their new iconic original is a pro-gun militant, who hates Kaepernick for supporting BLM (as opposed to telling people to not vote in 2016), and stiffed his mother-in-law. An American original? I mean, you can find deadbeats all over the place right, like maybe Trump Tower? Or is this whatever day Northampton County has hearings for people who stiff their family? I’m unsure. Bob “Crooksy” Brooks is certainly unoriginal though. I’ve see plenty of people who aren’t even honest when it comes to their family.

Yes, these folks got Zohran elected in a gigantic blue city. Good job. Unless they’re going to flat out lie to people and get away with it like they did with John “Shrek” Fetterman, that doesn’t usually work though. Look, Mamdani will be the latest leftist who promised the world and under delivers. John Fetterman somehow went from a Bernie socialist to a Republican before he finished three years in the Senate. These same folks want you to think it’s okay to have a Nazi tattoo, so much so that you should be elected Senator in Maine. Yes, he’s really their guy. These folks brag about electing like 300 socialists, but they probably lost more Presidential primaries with just Bernie Sanders alone than Eugene Debs did in his career. Most Americans don’t want to be Democratic Socialists.

The movement they are selling is simply awful. It’s morally bankrupt. We have seen what their kind of candidates give us. They give us Trump’s National Intelligence Director, Tulsi Gabbard. They give us deadbeat Senator, Bernie Sanders. They give us completely con-artist Senators, like John Fetterman. That’s a road to the future version of MAGA. We don’t need this kind of garbage.

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Stumble Over the Political Industrial Complex

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

In case you’re a total fucking idiot, allow me to verify something for you- there is a “political industrial complex.” I mean, c’mon, did you need Marjorie Taylor Greene to tell you that? Look, I’m still not a fan of her’s, but even a broke clock is right twice a day. Like, you thought all of those emails asking you for money with the headline “This is the most important election of our lifetime!” and texts asking you “just give us $5!” were something genuine? You never wondered why after you gave one candidate $10 because you believed in them, then you suddenly ended up on other email lists? List sales and swaps are a big business, man. Really though, you needed her to tell you this?

Washington politics is not any different any other industry, it needs it’s customers to survive. Candidates are taught, if they don’t instinctively know, to cater to the audience that keeps the lights on. Small dollar donors. Volunteers. Interest group leaders. Mega donors. Government affairs directors. Basically, the hyper engaged. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking this only means the rich or corporate interests, but it’s really true of anyone that is an active participant in our political dialogue in America full time. Why are we running candidates who mostly appeal to base voters and turn off most of the rest of the public? It’s an industry. That keeps the lights on.

Is there any reason the #1 metric of the DCCC in a swing seat needs to be money? Not really. Let’s be honest, they’re going to spend money in PA-7 or 8, or NJ-7, or NY-17, and so on. The nominee will be funded, so why worry about if they’re good at it? We all know why- the DCCC exists to make sure people get paid. They want candidates who can sustain expensive consultants and pay staff. Is it always necessary? At a certain point, yes. For months on end? No, not at all.

Let’s be honest, shitty people sustain candidates like Graham Platner because they make them money. Does any one think the guy with the Nazi tattoo should walk into a Senate seat for their first political gig? Only if they’re a weirdo. Did anyone think Marjorie Taylor Greene was an ideal Congresswoman? Only if they were so strange that they thought making the other side angry was a positive attribute. It takes a grift to make someone think the guy robbing his mother in law should go to Congress. This is where we are though.

Conflict sells. Anger sells. Telling people they want the most divisive person possible because the other side’s voters, not just candidates and donors, are horrible people who want to kill children, old people, and puppies, it sells. Lining up AOC’s resume next to say Jimmy Carter’s or Barack Obama’s, let alone Dwight Eisenhower or LBJ, and trying to claim she should be a viable Presidential candidate should immediately tell you by common sense that this is silly. It doesn’t for a lot of hyper partisan people. The industry has rewired your brain to believe things that a rational person would not. If you stay in a constant state of conflict against everyone, even your friends, neighbors, and family members that you disagree with, you’re ready to roll with anyone. Suddenly you have no standards. You’re good with whatever slop is put in front of you. J.D. Vance couldn’t even find the private gym in the Senate, and suddenly he’s up to being Vice-President, because he can speak to the hyper engaged.

I do not think for a second that this all bothered Marjorie Taylor Greene even a little bit. I mean, remember “Jewish space lasers?” This woman pushed every crackpot conspiracy theory, hell she even claimed to believe in Q Anon. She’s not mad that you’re being played. She’s mad that she fell out of favor with the cabal in her party and they turned on her. I do think there was some genuine concern over the Epstein Files on her part, there’s something real there, and she couldn’t let it go. She took it too far and they turned on her. She’s mad the grift was over for her. I don’t think for a second that she’s had some genuine, over-arching epiphany.

If you’re just a normal person that votes twice a year and goes about your daily life, you are not the audience of our politicians. They’re not aiming their message at you. They have figured out that you will make a choice within the binary, even if you’re not really thrilled about it. You don’t sustain the business, like any casual consumer is not the main target of any industry. They’d love to hook you too, so that you spend your time on social media raging about a “second Civil War,” but until you get there, they don’t worry much about you. You knew that though. You knew this was an industry and that people made money off of it. You didn’t need Marjorie Taylor Greene to tell you that. The fact that an animal of the system like MTG is the messenger here may seem not right to you, but consider this- Dwight Eisenhower told you about the military industrial complex, and he rose to prominence by being one of the greatest generals in history.

Now I’m going to tell you something though that runs almost entirely counterintuitive. The vast majority of the people in that industry actually aren’t trying to set a trap for you. There are some, and they benefit a lot. Most are people who hold strongly held convictions and beliefs, and think you’ll live in a better world if they can just win. So they take part in this, to win. I’m not sure if this makes me feel better or worse, but I guess it does make things make sense to me.

Why Did Allentown Go With Crooksy Over Carol?

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I told you before about a bunch of Allentown elected officials endorsing Crooksy for Congress. All had stayed neutral for months, and even suggested to folks that they planned to stay neutral, or possibly endorse other candidates. Obviously in the end, only one state elected official in the city is still neutral, Senator Nick Miller. So what happened?

Republican Ryan Crosswell and Democrat Carol Obando-Derstine are both from Lehigh County. Mark Pinsley is literally the Lehigh County Treasurer. Crosswell even claims he lives in Allentown, even if he’s out with the night owls in DC. I know what they’re going to say, and that’s half the fun of writing this. Crosswell is a Republican carpetbagger that worked at a union busting firm. Well, that’s true. Pinsley is a far left progressive in their eyes, which is maybe true, but he’s also winning with their voters, so they may want to be careful how bad they diss him. So what about Carol Obando-Derstine? She’s endorsed by former Congresswoman Susan Wild, who they all loyally backed basically from the start in 2018, albeit maybe less vocally than they’re being for Crooksy. She worked for Bob Casey, who they all loyally supported as well, as they should. So what is it about Carol that they don’t like? Is it that she worked for PP&L, and now PP&L is asking the PUC to approve a rate hike? PP&L is currently asking for a 7% rate increase, so I can get them being reluctant to be too friendly to PP&L. The thing is, they didn’t care about that when Obando-Derstine actually worked at PP&L and rate increases were enacted, they liked her there. I doubt that’s the reason. While Crooksy has failed to really gain support from local organized labor on the whole, he has the Allentown Fire Fighters basically running his political operation, and they are objectively good at it. Are they demanding endorsements for Crooksy from anyone who will seek their future support? Or is it the state Democratic Party, run by the Governor’s foot soldiers, who are demanding support for Crooksy? Could it literally be the Governor himself demanded they endorse Crooksy? We’ve known from day one that the good ole’ boys in the Democratic Party have wanted to shove Obando-Derstine out of the race as the only woman running, because they think she’s dangerous to their plot to astroturf Crooksy in. Could it be that people were told they are not allowed to endorse her? They have already put a nasty rumor out in the street that Carol will be dropping out and endorsing Crosswell because of her poor fundraising. Are they trying to make sure no one backs her now?

If we’re being honest, there are only three people with a chance to win this primary, unless the Harrisburg insiders can muscle all resources and support to their flunky, Crooksy. Crosswell might be able to win because he’s raising a lot of money and his cover story for why he’s doing this is heart-warming to primary voters who don’t know better. Obando-Derstine can win this primary too, if her supporters put up an IE for her and she doesn’t get knee capped as “unelectable” for either her PP&L time or for the “sin” of being an immigrant woman in the era of Trump. And then there’s Lamont McClure, who can win because he’s actually won some elections around here and the voters like him a lot more than the party good ole’ boys do. Crooksy can only win this race if he can get McClure, and probably Obando-Derstine, out of this race too. Otherwise he starts out too unknown to win any part of this district by a large enough margin to win. They know they can’t get Crosswell out of this race, because his Republican out-of-town donors don’t care what the Governor thinks, or any other Democrat for that matter. They know they can’t get Pinsley out of the race either, because the guy habitually loves to run for something. They know they can’t get Crooksy nominated, to ultimately lose the general election, unless they get the actual Democrats from the actual Lehigh Valley to drop out. If they can pull that off, then a bigot, socialist, that stiffs his mother-in-law can maybe, just maybe win. If we race to the bottom, we’ll find something lower.

Mamdani Really Didn’t Do That Great

/ Rich Wilkins / 1 Comment

If you listen to the Branch BERNidians, BROhan Zohan Mamdani taught Democrats the way forward. We need more charismatic candidates like him, candidates who promise to defund Israel and give away a lot of free stuff. As I’ve said before, Mamdani isn’t a good candidate and being like him would lead to 2026 losses for Democrats, under the kindest of conditions, outside of dark blue enclaves. But do we even need to look beyond New York City to illustrate that?

It turns out there were other races on the ballot citywide in New York City. Both Democratic candidates essentially did what Sherrill and Spanberger did in other states, bringing all anti-Trump voters together under their umbrella. Mamdani supporters will be quick to point out they had a three way with Andrew Cuomo in it. These races had independent candidates too. These guys ran against a field that didn’t include a vigilante and the former Governor who once had to say “I’m not a pervert, I’m Italian” on live TV to defend himself as he was getting ready to resign. One could argue they beat actual candidates and not cartoon characters.

Then there’s these races- Borough wide races within New York City. Staten Island is a red place, so ignore that one for a moment. The dude that won there literally got caught having two families when he was in Congress and they still made him President of Staten Island. The rest of the city is the rest of the city. None of the Democrats, even somewhat controversial ones like say Alvin Bragg, got less than 70%. All of them did at least 20% better than Mamdani. None of them ran against a disgraced ex-Governor or a vigilante.

Let’s look beyond New York City again though. It’s too fun.

This is what Allegheny County looked like in the Pennsylvania Judicial retention elections. Two years ago they ran a strong leftist candidate for County Executive and she barely won. Without that argument this time, Allegheny looked like old Allegheny.

This is my favorite map, because it was put out by Republicans as some sort of evidence that Mikie Sherrill stole the election. I shit you not. I also love this because the terminally online leftists spent months saying Sherrill was a terrible candidate. You know what, I didn’t think she was great as a candidate either (she’ll be a very good governor), but for totally different reasons than they had. Sherrill moved the entire state and never had to answer a question about “globalizing the intifada” one time. People seem to like it when you’re not an obnoxious child.

Basically, Mamdani was a good enough candidate for New York City. He was not a blueprint for the nation, he was not some force of nature. He was just a guy. He beat two strange birds in a very Democratic place. About 30% of people who should have been his voters said “no thanks.” That’s the lesson you should be taking from him.

Crooksy’s Claiming He’s Got Governor Newsom Supporting Him

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

Bob “Crooksy” Brooks should be a salesman. Apparently Josh Shapiro has been convinced that Crooksy is good for his personal political ambitions, and he’s going to endorse him. Of course, they’ve been saying that since July, but still. The good ole’ boys from Harrisburg have been up here telling people to endorse him, because the Governor will be “soon.” Only a couple did, and for all the wrong reasons. Most people don’t want to support a racist, a religious gun-nut fundamentalist, and guy who stole from his mother-in-law and didn’t pay her back for 14 years, even losing on appeal. You would think in a Democratic primary the racism alone, let alone the embrace of political violence, would do it. Ryan Mackenzie has nothing to fear if he gets to run against this crook. No normal person is going to trust a guy who broke a contract with his mother-in-law for 14 years, it shows you exactly who he is. People aren’t going to vote for a guy who lies, steals, and pulls underhanded moves to take over his union. Bob “Crooksy” Brooks is just another Tulsi Gabbard or John Fetterman.

Crooksy is either a real good salesman, delusional, or just hilarious. Now he’s claiming he’s going to get endorsed by Gavin Newsom, according to sources. Look, I’d say he’s full of shit, but he did get Deadbeat Bernie Sanders to endorse him, which is both political malpractice and hilarious. You know what they say about crooks of a feather? But Newsom? Really? Coming across the country to endorse a guy who stiffed his mother-in-law? Gavin Newsom wants to embrace the latest marginal intellect white savior complex candidate endorsed by the bolsheviks? That helps him how? He wants to tell Black voters he is for the guy who hates Kaepernick for kneeling?

There is definitely an element within the Democratic operative world that thinks we need to run communists and bigoted white guys. They think a guy with a Nazi tattoo is what we need to win in Maine. They’re not right though, and Newsom is smart enough to know that. So why would this be? The #2 guy at the IAFF is their head guy in California, and I’m just taking a shot in the dark here, but he may be the link. Perhaps it’s a very low brain wave version of political chess, where one Governor thinks he can get a major endorsement for his quixotic 2028 Presidential campaign, and the other Governor then is convinced he absolutely needs to get in on this too, so nobody gets the credit. I mean, I’m spit balling here. It’s definitely not worth the trouble though.

Look, this is borderline hilarious. Given what a narcissist this guy is, he probably opened an email from Newsom and thinks he’s getting his endorsement now. As one out of the Valley lawmaker puts it, “we all like Bob, but none of us think he can do it.” He’s way nicer than I. If I didn’t know the place he tended bar, I wouldn’t believe he was smart enough to tend bar. Bartenders I know are the smartest people out there, they know when to get cut off a bad situation. This guy is trying to drink from a fire hose while a raging inferno blazes in front of him. The problem is, the powerful and brilliant minds that gave us the 2024 Democratic Party in Harrisburg and Washington are trying to astroturf this guy a victory. This is like handing a mentally ill person a loaded AR-15.