pa-7

The Democratic Tea Party Moment has Arrived, and That isn’t a Good Thing

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

I’ve been around long enough to remember the Bush Republican Party. It was an awful institution, an institution that ruined our standing in the world with their post-9/11 foreign policy, created permanent deficits with their tax cuts, wars, and unfunded mandates, wrecked public education, put the architects of repealing Roe v. Wade on the bench, ran a Presidential campaign in 2004 based on gay baiting and homophobia, weakened environmental laws, and deregulated housing and Wall Street to the point of an economic collapse in 2008. In short, the reason I am a Democrat today is that the Bush Republican Party was an incredibly damaging group of people and was full of completely repugnant people, from Dennis Hastert to Dick Cheney. We should not opine the moral superiority of “those good ole’ days.” There was nothing good about them.

What followed the Bush Republican Party was not an improvement. Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, and the rise of people like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul was not some return of moral leadership to the Party of Lincoln. Those folks gave rise to Trumpism, and Trump has been the revolution. Our government is largely no longer functional, and that’s what many folks who supported him want. “Norms” are no longer normal, there is no discussion of common ground. The current pathway is simply a regression to the desired conservative mean, a natural outcome of the algorithm billionaires and conservative culture warriors wanted. The destruction of this moment cannot be understated.

The problem of course is that as dumb as Trump truly is, there was a decent argument that a 20th century government and political culture was no longer working for America. The large, bulky government we had put together after World War II, and it’s technocratic wonkiness, had become a hinderance to the desires of the public. Our society was not, and by the way is still not, meeting our needs.

I won’t draw a comparison between the party of Obama/Clinton/Biden and the Bush GOP, because let’s be honest, they gave us things like Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, and an infrastructure bill. If you want to argue they didn’t go far enough, fine, but they were good things. However, the Democratic Party had become the defenders of systems and institutions that were not, and are not, popular. We were arguing the economy was fine because of market growth and job numbers, while housing and costs in general were rising. We were arguing that Israel was right to attack Hamas, because they were, but were giving ourselves no room to criticize Netanyahu’s incompetence and total disinterest in getting to a sustainable outcome, even as he criticized and attacked us. We were right to bail out Wall Street, the auto industry, and the health care industry after 2008, but also not only didn’t make them pay for their bad choices, we sort of got stuck defending why America “needed” them. Basically, we got stuck keeping our systems working, because it was the best thing for society, and then also got stuck defending the institutions on which we had always been the only check. We started to look like the kids serving as hall monitors in high school, the wet blankets.

The correct response to this is not to start yielding to anti-semitism and white men with Nazi tattoos, that much I know. Globalizing the Intifada is still a very, very bad idea, even if you think Netanyahu is an abject criminal. Sure, Democrats should never have conceded to the data nerds and embraced a “base only” approach to politics, but the answer to that is not to embrace the very worst human beings one can find. The 2010 Republican Party conceded power to the Tea Party, and within a few years they were embracing Pizza Gate, Charlottesville, chem trail theorists, and “white replacement theory.” So much for Milton Friedman economics and “real politic” foreign policy. They were overrun with an unmanageable caucus in both houses of Congress and a Presidential candidate who was completely self motivated and transactional. What could go wrong? Well, everything. And now it’s the Democrats turn. We are on the verge of accepting anti-semitism, grifters, and crackpot conspiracy theorists. They are defending political violence against Jews. And before you say, it’s just one of them, no it’s the whole Alt-Left movement. As DSA calls murder okay, they organize for Mamdani. That would be Zohran Mamdani, who last year was a part of the uncommitted movement over, yes, Gaza. Up on stage at their DSA rally he had AOC, a proponent of the “defund the police” movement. Seriously. She didn’t just want changes to policing, she wanted it defunded. She meant it too. And then there was Bernie up there with them. Bernie, who ran and lost for President twice, the second time much worse, who never misses a chance to attack Democrats. Not on stage with them was Bernie’s heart throb in Maine, Graham Platner, a loud progressive who also thinks the Democratic Party sucks, and also has Nazi tattoos. Of course, the Alt-Left loves him and thinks they “might have found our Trump.” They also didn’t bring their old buddy John Fetterman around, because he’s sort of problematic right now, but he was Mamdani and Platner before they were.

There are Democratic leaders, from Martin Heinrich to Chris Murphy, maybe to even Hakeem Jeffries and Kathy Hochul, ready to concede to these folks. They are ready to concede the Democratic Party to self avowed socialists, conspiracy theories, and nuts. It’s about to happen here in the Lehigh Valley too. Bernie Sanders has endorsed Bob “Crooksy” Brooks in the 7th Congressional district primary. Just like he did for Fetterman. That would be Crooksy who stiffed his mother-in-law, but lives in a state of denial that people won’t care about stealing $55k, defending political violence, sharing racist memes, and being a religious radical. Of course Bernie is for this, he was for Fetterman too. And like Bernie and Fetterman, Crooksy lectures the Democrats about “not supporting the working class,” which for Crooksy just means they let the Black lady talk to Black people, which he definitely hates. Sadly, it sounds like Governor Shapiro is going to join the PA Dems in conceding the Democratic Party to the most vile, terrible elements of the left for political expediency. This is no profile in courage moment. Our leaders are letting us down. They are allowing anti-semites, conspiracy theorists, and socialists to be our future. This is our Tea Party Moment. We are failing it.

I’m Ruffling Some Feathers Around Crooksy and the Harrisburg Insiders

/ Rich Wilkins / 1 Comment

“Where did you get this?”

The question hit like a ton of bricks. The person asking me it was one of several people that have been accused of leaking me stuff to put on here. Like usual, the accusations were wrong. There are some people upset about things I find out and print here, things like Governor Shapiro getting ready to endorse the man known as Crooksy or that the State Democratic Party is helping Crooksy’s campaign. The thing is, they don’t deny these things, because they’re true. They just don’t want them talked about. So they want to know who is leaking me the info. They want to stop the leaks. Never mind that they are getting ready to nominate a deadbeat. That’s not the problem for them. They’re ok with that. They’re living in denial.

Look, I’m a political dinosaur at this point. I’ve been around campaigns long enough to remember who managed the Governor’s first campaign and what happened to them. It shouldn’t be a shock that there are a few people who will tell me what the state party is doing, or what the governor is doing, or what Crooksy shot his mouth off about in a room of people he thinks won’t tell. I have friends in this business who literally came to see me at the hospital, but I also have tons of acquaintances, and I know the difference. They’d stick a knife in me if convenient. Apparently the folks around Crooksy and Harrisburg don’t think that happens to them. They don’t get that the calls come from within their own house.

None of this really matters though. The truth is, all I write about Crooksy, or Crosswell, or anyone else, is quite literally things that are verifiable facts. Crosswell doesn’t deny that he was a Republican registrant and primary voter in at least four separate states and districts, or that he worked at a union busting firm, he just claims somehow that he “wasn’t partisan” while he was voting in Trump’s elections, even as he consciously re-registered as a Republican and voted in Republican primaries that featured Trump. Crooksy doesn’t deny that he failed to pay his mother-in-law back one cent of the $55k they had loaned him and his ex-wife for over 15 years, or that he lost twice in court, he just tries to deflect by saying it only was an issue because of a messy divorce. He doesn’t even bother to make up a spin for his racist social media posts or his lax attitude on political violence, or for that matter his belief in school prayer. He knows he posted this stuff. He just hopes you don’t care.

Look, whether it’s a Nazi tattoo in Maine, a Hamas supporter in New York City, a Republican union-buster from Pottsville, or a deadbeat right-winger from Nazareth, I am not going to be okay with crooks, lunatics, liars, and terrible people taking over the Democratic Party in some vain hope of “taking back” young male voters. This stuff is unacceptable. I get that there are staff people in the Harrisburg establishment who don’t want people to get to read about these people and what they did. They hope you never learn about it. I’m not going to oblige them. I’m going to make sure it’s out there for everyone. There are downsides to this, of course. I know that several staff members from Congressman Mackenzie, and many other Republicans also read my blog, and they will use this stuff against these folks. So be it. These are not good people.

I think it goes without saying, voters get to make the last call. If voters don’t care that Crooksy is untrustworthy, if they don’t care about the things he did, so be it. Same for Crosswell. If Democratic Primary voters in Maine don’t care that a self-professed history buff claims he didn’t know he had a Nazi tattoo, when he clearly did, then so be it. As long as they know, because the truth is that they will find out, either from us, or from the other side. You can’t hide it as a candidate.

Bernie’s Goofy Lefties that don’t Believe in Political Gravity

/ Rich Wilkins / 6 Comments

Just based on his schedule and endorsements, it’s pretty obvious that ancient fossil/dinosaur/cranky old man Bernie Sanders either wants to run for President in 2028 or try to be the king maker for who Democrats nominate for President. Bernie is 84 years old and will be 87 in 2028. He is, in short, older than Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Al Gore, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, and probably a bunch of other national political figures who are very old, or in most cases, long retired. Also, all of them were at least able to win a nomination to run for President, something Sanders failed at twice, and in fact did far worse in his second attempt at. Bernie is a delusional nut, and not just for his archaic left views on policy. People don’t vote for the guy. He’s not as likable as he thinks he is, thanks to the internet. His record of king making? Tulsi Gabbard, John Fetterman, some failed pro-life Mayoral candidate in Omaha, and of course, that lady Shontel Brown blew out in Cleveland (“HELLO SOMEBODY,” Nina Turner!). This guy is a delusional crackpot that Democrats should be trying to stuff back in the school locker that the DNC braintrusts let him out of in 2016. He’s yesterday’s loser.

Here’s the thing though, Bernie doesn’t just have delusions for himself, he creates delusions for others. Take Graham Platner in the Maine Senate race. The latest “white savior” from the far left to run for office is certain he can win a U.S. Senate seat away from Susan Collins. Never mind that he never has won anything, he’s certain he’s the LeBron James of Democratic politics. He’s so certain that he’ll tell you that his past Reddit posts questioning why Black people don’t tip, downplaying sexual assault, and using homophobic slurs don’t matter. You know, he was just trying to get a rise out of people. Now he’s re-shuffling his campaign and making people sign NDA’s so you don’t hear any more about it. He figures people will just forget about it and elect their savior, who is of course, him. For a brief moment yesterday morning he got a poll that showed that primary voters were willing to excuse the early stuff. That’s sick, vile, and disgusting, and I hope is just a matter of Maine voters not knowing enough about it yet. I’m sure we will soon find out that the general electorate is not as forgiving. I guess it was the endorsement from a white supremacist might do it. Or maybe, and just hear me out here for a second, it was having a Nazi tattoo that he got on a drunken night in Croatia when he was 37 will kill his candidacy.

The whole entire premise of his campaign is dumb to begin with though. Sara Gideon didn’t lose to Collins because she was some super moderate. The attack at the end that Collins team ran with was that Gideon wanted to defund police. Of course though, Bernie Sanders, surprisingly Senator Martin Heinrich, and basically all the Democratic Socialist types are sticking up for Graham and saying he’s a great candidate. They think this stuff will go away, or voters just won’t care. Assuming voters in Maine don’t mind that he’s further left than Gideon, who they rejected in 2020, they probably will mind that Platner is a piece of shit human being. Collins and her backers will remind them of it, over and over again. His defense is basically that he was a drunken man child. I’m sure people will be cool with a Neo-Nazi Senator.

This is the kind of judgment Bernie Sanders shows over and over again though. He endorses delusional deadbeats in primaries who run on his populist BS. Here in the 7th District of Pennsylvania, that’s his guy, Bob “Crooksy” Brooks. Crooksy took $55,000 from his mother-in-law and didn’t pay it back He went to court, and lost, then lost his appeal too. His excuse is that it was all just part of a messy divorce. That’s one helluva long divorce- it was basically the entire marriage! Crooksy took the money in 2004, paid none back by 2008 and therefore signed a promissory note to pay the money back, then proceeded to pay back not one dime for ten more years before the lady filed suit against him. A full two more years went by before the case went to court, he still didn’t pay any money back, then he appealed the case on the grounds that the promissory note was no longer valid, so he didn’t need to pay. Seriously. This dude stiffed his mother-in-law and thinks voters in the most swing district are going to trust him as some sort of ridiculous “every man” figure.

Look, if we set aside for a minute that he became the President of the Fire Fighters union by pushing out his predecessor allegedly in dubious ways, or that the guy is a racist, a gun nut and militant religious wacko, and maybe the only statewide union President too lazy to go to Labor Day events, I think most normal voters understand that stiffing your mother-in-law for over 15 years brings up some serious issues in your trustworthiness. Explaining his laissez-faire views on political violence can be hard to get across to voters. Taking money, not paying it back, and then lying about it is much easier. In his delusional mind though, he thinks he’s Congressional material. Ryan Mackenzie will make him the poster-child for elder abuse by the end of this race, fair or not. He’s easily the worst candidate in this field. But he’s lecturing Democrats about supporting working people. Give me a break.

Maybe I’m over thinking it though. Maybe the sign came on the first day of the campaign- the endorsement from Bernie Sanders. The same Bernie Sanders who stood on stage with Tulsi Gabbard and told us she’s great. The same Bernie Sanders who rallied voters for John Fetterman, who now wants to sell out our health care. The same Bernie Sanders defending the guy with the Nazi tattoo in Maine. The same Bernie Sanders who is fine with stiffing your mother-in-law in the Lehigh Valley.

Yeah, there’s a pattern here.

Crooksy to Get the Governor’s Endorsement For Real This Time?

/ Rich Wilkins / 5 Comments

I got a text last night- “Josh IS endorsing Crooksy!!! Unbelievable.”

I won’t reveal the source of the text, but I guess if that’s the street word, it’s only like the twelfth time it’s been out there. If Crooksy thinks he has the Governor’s endorsement, by the 37th time or so he believes it, it has to be true.

The out-of-town union buster known as Ryan Crosswell basically dusted Crooksy in fundraising last quarter despite help from every legislator not from the Lehigh Valley and the Governor’s hired guns at the state party. The truth is that Bob “Crooksy” Brooks is problematic right to his core. He’s another John Fetterman. We’re talking about a guy who stole money from his mother-in-law here. Yes, he did it. She gave him 14 years, and he still didn’t pay back one dime.

If this is who the Governor wants, that’s nice, he won’t have a vote. My sense is he won’t spend on the guy’s behalf either, so who cares? We will see what the voters think of Crooksy’s record of backstabbing his way to the top of his union and deceiving his own family.

Cash Rules Everything Around Me…

/ Rich Wilkins / 1 Comment

Welp, we have updated finance numbers. If it wasn’t clear before, Ryan Crosswell is going to have the most campaign cash in the PA-7 race. The former Trump Administration Republican from DC won the money race by a lot. Since we know the DCCC values that over everything, obviously they will go looking for a sixth candidate now, right?

Anyway, here’s the numbers here in PA-7, followed by some other races of note.

  • Crooksy brought in $308,259.47. He has $243,615.75 on hand.
  • Crosswell brought in another $380,000. He has raised $701,108.08 in two reports. He has spent $266,743.94, leaving him with $433,791.14. That’s some burn rate.
  • Carol Obando-Derstine brought in $123,000. She has raised $317,006.02. She has spent $198,245.98, leaving her with $127,513.18. That’s a really astounding burn rate.
  • Lamont McClure’s report doesn’t seem to be fully up on the FEC site yet. He raised $229,000 according to press reports, which should put him at $458,386.04. He had burned through $135,267.89 in the first two reports, which should leave him at $323,118.15, minus whatever he spent this quarter. That was a fast burn rate, but we’ll see what he did this quarter.
  • Mark Pinsley’s report isn’t up on the FEC site yet. Press reports indicate he has raised $73,000. I have nothing to add to that.

Crosswell is raising serious cash, but spending just shy of 40% of it on staff and things that aren’t voter contact. He’s spent $266,743.94 and 10% of voters or less really know anything about him. I actually have to compliment Crooksy’s campaign, their burn rate is like half of Crosswell’s. They might catch him in money if there was more than two and a half quarters left at this rate, but they won’t. Carol’s number slowed and her burn rate is very high. McClure wrote himself most of what he raised this quarter, but the word is he stopped most of his spending so he may have a decent cash on hand number, but we’ll see about that. Pinsley’s number won’t do it. Crosswell and Crooksy have decent numbers here, but not Neary enough cash on hand with their low name ID’s. We’ll see here.

Now for context, some other numbers of note:

  • Paige Cognetti, the Mayor of Scranton, running in PA-8, announced she raised over $500,000 in under a month. She currently has no primary and probably won’t get one.She has $442,966.97 on hand. That district won’t be easy for her, but those are damn good numbers.
  • Janelle Stelson brought in $1,249,712.55. She has $969,643.79 on hand. The burn rate is a little higher, but damn!
  • Not enough numbers are out yet in PA-3, but so far the leaders in cash-on-hand are Sharif Street at $372,089.87 and David Oxman at $331,724.05. I’m really interested in Dr. Ala Stanford’s number to see if they hype is real.
  • Across the river in NJ-7, two candidates have crossed the $1 million mark raised. Rebecca Bennett still has $922,757.14 and Brian Varela has $805,278.44 left. Tina Shah has $481,396.28 on hand and Michael Roth has $290,302.11 left.

At this stage in the game, the most important number is really your cash on hand number. Sure, the DCCC and a bunch of DC types care about the total raised and quarter raise for their horse race purposes, but if you spend everything you raise, who cares? Campaigns are, in the end, about talking to voters. Right now, no one in PA-7 is really prepared to spend on the level they need.

John Fetterman… or um Crooksy Joins the Upper Lehigh Dems

/ Rich Wilkins / 5 Comments

He’s got the black hoodie. He talks about “fighting” in Washington. He claims he’s a blue collar guy. He’s supported by Bernie Sanders. He has the same media consultants as Bernie, Fetterman, and Zohran. He’d like you to call him Brooksy. He stiffed his mother-in-law though, so on here we call him “Crooksy.”

Crooksy went on the Upper Lehigh Dems podcast/zoom to talk about his campaign. I needed to watch the leaves fall off trees in my neighborhood though, so I was too busy to listen to this guy lie about what a champion for the little guy he is. He is only the champion for some little guys, I think. I’m not going to listen to him lie when everything we need to know about him was litigated in public. A friend of the blog did watch though, a very skilled friend, and they had some thoughts.

Gotta tell ya, he is just not political material. I cannot imagine him going toe to toe with Rs in Congress or even some of his D colleagues.

Yep.

DC people pushed him and his head got big

Even more yep. He’s not at all of the caliber to do this. He’s not even someone who has shown us he can win anything. If we nominated this guy, one of two things will happen. It’s most likely that everything I received on him, and probably worse, is used against him, and Ryan Mackenzie wins another term. Under the unlikely scenario where this guy wins, he goes to Washington and is the next John Fetterman. Look, I was for Conor Lamb, so I don’t want to watch the rest of you get duped again. Send Crooksy off to the retirement he earned and give someone real a chance.

Union Buster Crosswell Crushed Crooksy?

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

I haven’t seen any full reports yet, but apparently we’re in for a bit of a surprise. Bob “Crooksy” Brooks definitely didn’t “rake in the cash,” only so far saying he beat $300k. That’s definitely not the $400k the DCCC rumor mill pushed. Despite touting his backing from a bunch of people from out of town and the non-endorsement that is supposed to be an endorsement from Governor Shapiro, Crooksy isn’t keeping pace with what his handlers are saying about him.

Meanwhile the word was that Ryan Crosswell was going to underwhelm. Well it doesn’t matter if it’s crushing Coors Light in DC or raising cash, he’s apparently keeping a serious pace. His campaign says they’ve raised $700k so far in two quarters. That would mean he raised $380k this past quarter. He probably beat Crooksy pretty badly.

Both of these guys have awful negatives and I think are very vulnerable. I think Crooksy probably has insurmountable negatives, no one likes a guy who stiffs his mother-in-law. Neither is a Democrat really, so I guess they both have primary problems. Crooksy was already $320k behind Union Busting Ryan to begin with, now it’s probably like $350k. Nobody knows who Crooksy is out there, it’s so bad that Mackenzie just left him out of his poll this week. Of course, earlier polling showed people didn’t really love Crooksy even when they were read a positive bio, so that’s probably for the best. Neither of these two are well known, but Crosswell will at least have money to try and cover up his bad behavior. If Crooksy keeps spending away his campaign money and missing his goals, he’ll be lucky to finish fourth in this primary. He should never have ran.

Congressional Poll Drops in PA-7- Crooksy Excluded

/ Rich Wilkins / 1 Comment
Live look at the state of the PA-7 race.

I got chosen for a web poll- whoever did that should be fired. They asked how I felt about every Democratic candidate but Crooksy, and I only gave two of them positive marks. They asked my feelings about Governor Shapiro- I’ll vote for him, but I’m definitely not in the cult. They asked about Trump and Vance- I think they’re trailer trash. They asked about my top issues- I said healthcare and inflation. It was very vanilla. I think it was either Mackenzie or Pinsley/Carol doing the poll. If I had to guess? It was Mackenzie.

The interesting part? No Crooksy. My guess is if it’s Mackenzie he’s just not worried about a guy who robbed his mother-in-law. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks maybe Crooksy himself, trying to figure out how to pick up voters. Honestly though, he should just drop out. His negatives will burn him.

Drop out, Crooksy. This was a mistake.

Crosswell and the Bros out Crushing Coors at RNC South

/ Rich Wilkins / 1 Comment

Ryan Crosswell’s manager says he’s feeling the love in Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District, but every other metric says otherwise. No elected in the district backs him. No union backs him. He had one donor from the district on his first report. Look, it’s hard moving to a new place and making new friends, I get it. Ryan’s struggling a bit.

I have to hand it to him though, he’s a man after my own heart. A couple weeks ago he ran off to Washington, D.C. for a few days. I like to do that when I’m depressed and want to feel completely hopeless about the future. He went hanging out at a bar called “Problem Child” over by Nats Park in the Navy Yard, also known as “RNC South” for the folks living there. You know what, I’m still right with him, that’s exactly where I go to feel better about all of my flaws, the Navy Yard is full of people who will make you feel better about yourself. So far, I’m with him. He also went out drinking beer, and well, I definitely like beer. More importantly than me liking beer, I think any good candidate who isn’t literally a recovering alcoholic should be able to drink beer amongst the people, it shows you can relate to the masses. So far, I’d say Ryan is kind of winning me over with all of this. But… Coors? I mean look bro, why don’t you just order a water? At least the water isn’t created by a notorious anti-union company, and it probably will get you more drunk. If I were being called a Republican and a union-buster, while running in a Democratic Primary in a district I’m not from, I’d probably put down the Coors for at least a bit so that people can’t make the point once again that I don’t care about labor rights. Hey though, we all make choices.

The photo and others (more for later, right?) were forwarded to me in an e-mail from a friend. They were dated 9/18 and 9/19, so a Thursday and Friday. I don’t mind that Crosswell likes beer, I do too. This just all screams the main points about him though- he’s running not to represent the Valley, but to get back home to DC, and he doesn’t give a damn about Democratic values, because he isn’t one.

Drink up, friends.

Are the PA Dems Essentially Running Crooksy’s Operation?

/ Rich Wilkins / 7 Comments

Street word is that Bob “Crooksy” Brooks is going to fall well short of the $400k the DCCC and his campaign were putting out there. Now it sounds like $300k. That’s a very good first quarter. That’s not “clear the field” level numbers. That comes as no one on the ground is endorsing him and his union support has stopped after his own IAFF and the crooked SEIU endorsement. While Crooksy is popular with some Harrisburg types, people on the ground are scared off by his lazy personal campaign style and the abundance of negatives that follow this guy around. Deadbeat Bernie Sanders is for Crooksy, but PA-7 is not. This fire is too big for Crooksy.

There is the whole matter though of how Bob “Crooksy” Brooks is raising $300k in the first place though. In multiple calls with local party leaders this week, they all remarked how he’s late for events and leaves before they’re over. At least two of these leaders made the remark to me though, “he does have the state party helping him.” Really? I’m not shocked that he has the Bernie grifters helping him raise money, and for that matter the same people who created Fetterman. The state party though? That’s fascinating. This is a Democratic Primary, almost all of the other candidates are definitely Democrats. The state committee, the elected body that governs the staff at the party, has not voted to endorse in this or any other Congressional Primary in years. No county party in the district has voted to endorse Crooksy. In fact, no elected official in this district is backing Crooksy. So under what authority are the new chairman and his staff helping this guy? Seems crooked as hell.

By now though everyone knows what’s going on here. Brooksy has no shot in hell against Ryan Mackenzie, they’ll drown him just with the fact that he stiffed his mother-in-law for $55k, let alone all the other stupid things. That was a temporary distraction though. No one has shown they are the certain nominee in this district, and Crooksy is good for the good ole’ boys in Harrisburg’s bottom line. Senator Fetterman’s mouthpieces get paid. The out-of-district legislators endorsing him get to come back to the IAFF later and remind them how they supported their guy. The Governor can say to IAFF leadership in his gubernatorial run, and his future Presidential run, that he has been a loyal soldier with them. Here’s the thing- that’s all true. The folks at the DCCC got to push some work to consultants they like too. Absolutely none of this does anything to win this seat and give the Democrats a majority in PA-7. We actually run the risk of nominating a dude who will be way over his head and get mugged by the GOP money machine in November. It’s a political dead end, and worse yet, even if I’m wrong and he does win, the guy is just another John Fetterman. Wasn’t it enough for the good ole’ boys in Harrisburg to push one massive mistake on us all? Do we need to do that again?

Does one district decide everything? No. This one is as close as you can get though. Nominating this guy and either losing or getting a shit Congressman will hurt people who need government to work. No one benefits from that. We need to sink this guy, and sink him fast. He’s a nightmare in waiting.