pa-7

Would You Recruit This Candidate to Face Lyin’ Ryan Mackenzie?

/ Rich Wilkins / 47 Comments
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.

Carpetbagging Republican Crosswell’s Out of Town Donors Try to Buy the Lehigh Valley

/ Rich Wilkins / 13 Comments

You can’t make this up if you try. No, really. Crosswell’s first finance report is out. It’s incredibly bad. Don’t take my word for it. From Lehigh Valley News:

Crosswell, the latest candidate to enter the race, raised more than $320,929 in just three weeks, records show. 

That amount, which came entirely from individual donors, led the field of Democrats. After expenditures, he had $254,003 on hand as of the end of June, according to the reports.

Crosswell resigned from the U.S. Justice Department in protest after the Trump administration opted to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams for political reasons. 

His campaign, which has focused on upholding the rule of law, appears to have attracted significant support from the legal community. Dozens of attorneys from across the country have donated to his campaign, records show.

However, it appears almost none of the money he’s raised came from within the district. 

LehighValleyNews.com identified only a single donation from within the Lehigh Valley or Carbon County on the 200-page report — a $500 contribution from an Allentown woman.

The dearth of local donations could feed more political attacks that cast him as a carpetbagger. Crosswell, a former Marine, moved to the district earlier this year and switched his party affiliation from Republican to Democratic in December. The Pottsville native had no prior ties to the district other than athletic competitions in high school. His three opponents have accused him of district shopping — a claim Crosswell denies.

For a moment I’ll leave aside the false narrative that the Adams decision pushed him to run and let the rest speak for itself. Croswell got exactly one person to donate to his campaign from the district. One. This guy isn’t even pretending to represent the Lehigh Valley, he’s trying to buy his way into our seat with a bunch of lawyers from North Carolina, DC, California, and God knows where else paying his tab. I’m sure if we looked over their voter registrations, plenty of them are his buddies from his union busting days in the Republican Party, but it really doesn’t matter if they aren’t. They aren’t from the Lehigh Valley. That’s fine with Crosswell though, because neither is he.

I’ll just point out though something that is just as bad, especially if you’re a solid Democrat who believes in the policies and values of the Democratic Party. While raising $321k, he couldn’t find one Democratic group to back him. Not a single PAC gave him money. Not one union. No pro-choice organization. No environmental group. Nobody. This is because he has long held the values of the Republican Party when he went to work and vote. One has to worry now that if he does find a group to give him money, it will be because he basically sells himself. He came into this with none of our values. This whole campaign is being astroturfed by union busters and Beltway elites.

The other two Democratic candidates have not matched Crosswell so far, which can be expected based on past Lehigh Valley congressional primaries. This isn’t a wealthy district, and this happens to be where they made their actual lives and careers. They’re from here, and they’re Democrats. I certainly have my preference, but I could probably deal with either one being our nominee. Being honest about who you are is the first and most important step to asking for someone’s vote.

I Wonder How Much Union Buster Money is in Crosswell’s $320K?

/ Rich Wilkins / 11 Comments

In an earlier post, I told you how Ryan Crosswell is a Republican carpetbagger, running a fraudulent campaign for the Democratic nomination in PA-7. Ryan didn’t grow up in this district, or ever live in it until earlier this year. He registered to vote as a Republican in North Carolina, Louisiana, and Washington, DC (That we know of), and voted in the Republican Presidential primary in every one of Donald Trump’s races for President, so far. He claims he had some epiphany to become a Democrat when Trump’s DOJ decided to drop the charges against Eric Adams, but he purchased his campaign websites long, long before that. He just thinks Democratic voters are dumb enough to be bought off by a Republican from the Beltway.

Despite that, VoteVets and other DC groups are astroturfing together a well-funded campaign for the carpetbagger. He announced that he raised $320,000 in the first three weeks in the race. That’s an impressive amount of money, for regular candidates. This guy is going to need every penny of it though to distract voters from the fact he’s got no connection to this district, and that he’s not a Democrat. Turns out though, he’s got lots of help with that. He doesn’t just have VoteVets helping him, or the mega law firm that he works for in San Diego currently (yes, that’s in California). In fact, the guy is likely being funded by actual Republicans.

Back before Crosswell was working for the Trump Administration he worked for a firm called Littler Mendelson in Charlotte, NC. As they would tell you it, they’re the best of the best in employment law, from the perspective of the employer. Ask literally any labor union in the United States and they’ll tell you they are a notorious anti-labor firm. In regular people speak, Littler Mendelson is a union busting law firm. According to Crosswell’s LinkedIn (above), he specialized in the kind of “non-compete” agreements that the Biden Administration was trying to weaken or end in some cases.

Basically, in addition to not being from here and being a Republican, Crosswell is asking a district that literally was the birthplace of the working class (Bethlehem Steel and Mack Trucks) to elect a union buster. I would laugh at this, if he didn’t have so much money.

Of course Crosswell would raise a bunch of money to try and buy a district he has no relationship to. One has to just ask though- how much union buster money is in that $320,000? Given that nothing in his record suggests that he changed his mind from his previous Republican positions on any other issue, one has to wonder how working on the Eric Adams case changed Crosswell’s career long beliefs in anti-union practices?

A Republican Carpetbagger Wants to be my Congressman

/ Rich Wilkins / 16 Comments

If you’re from the Lehigh Valley and don’t recognize the guy above, it’s ok, you’re not alone. His name is Ryan Crosswell and until we had a Congressional seat he felt he could win by switching parties, he probably had no idea where we were. Unless you’ve been at party events, you haven’t met him or heard the story he wants you to learn.

What is Ryan’s story? Well he grew up in Pottsville of the 9th District of Pennsylvania, not in the 7th where he’s running. He became a Marine, went off to school, graduated law school, and went to work in both the military and for the Department of Justice. He registered to vote as a Republican in North Carolina, Louisiana, and Washington, DC, from what I’ve been told. He has never actually lived in Northampton, Lehigh, Carbon, or Monroe Counties, the counties in the district. Ryan has voted as a Republican through the Tea Party, first Trump Administration, January 6th, Republican attacks on President Biden through his term, and up until this past December. The timeline that was provided to me:

December 2011: Ryan Crosswell registers as a Republican In North Carolina.

July 2014: Ryan Crosswell registers as a Republican in Louisiana.

July 19, 2016: Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination for president. Ryan Crosswell voted as a Republican. 

November 8, 2016: Donald Trump is elected President of the United States. Ryan Crosswell voted as a Republican. 

January 2017: Ryan Crosswell begins working for the Trump administration. 

August 15, 2017: Trump defends white-nationalists: ‘Some very fine people on both sides’ . . . . Ryan Crosswell continues to vote as a Republican. 

January 20, 2018: Ryan Crosswell begins his second year working for the Trump administration. 

January 20, 2019: Ryan Crosswell begins his third year working for the Trump administration. 

January 20, 2020: Ryan Crosswell begins his fourth year working for the Trump administration. 

April 23, 2020: Donald Trump suggests injecting bleach will cure COVID. Ryan Crosswell continues to vote as a Republican.

January 6 . . . .Ryan Crosswell continues to vote as a Republican.. 

June 24th, 2022: Roe v. Wade is overturned. Trump and the Republican party celebrate the decision. Ryan Crosswell continues to vote as a Republican.

November 15, 2022: Donald Trump launches his third Republican campaign. Ryan Crosswell continues to vote as a Republican.

December 5, 2023: Donald Trump vows to be a dictator on day one. Ryan Crosswell is still voting as a Republican.

May 18, 2024: Donald Trump begins floating the idea of seeking a third term, which is unconstitutional. Ryan Crosswell was still a Republican.

July 19,2024: Donald Trump promises mass deportations if elected. Ryan Crosswell continues to vote as a Republican.

July 15, 2024: Donald Trump secures the Republican nomination for a third time. Ryan Crosswell voted as a Republican. 

August 26, 2024: Donald Trump meets with Nayib Bukele to begin planning the  illegal detention of American residents in El Salvador. Ryan Crosswell continues to vote as a Republican. 

October 22, 2024: Donald Trump issues threat to prosecute political rivals. Ryan Crosswell voted as a Republican.

November 6, 2024: Donald Trump wins the 2024 general election.  Ryan Crosswell voted as a Republican. 
December 27, 2024: Ryan Crosswell decides to run for Congress. Changes Washington, D.C., voter registration to Democratic.

To hear the story as it’s told to me, this guy voted as a Republican in the 2012 Election, then again in the 2016 Election, took a job in the Trump Administration in 2017, re-registered as a Republican and voted in the 2020 Election, and was a Republican through the 2024 Election. His story is of course that he registered as a Republican many years ago, in the Bush 43 Administration years, when that President was lying about a war that cost tens of thousands of Americans their lives, trying to open up secret prisons for torture operations not allowed to be carried out in America by law, was firing U.S. Attorney’s without cause, conducting massive unapproved warrantless wiretapping, passing the Patriot Act, and otherwise trampling on the rule of law. His defenders have suggested that Crosswell was not an ideological or active Republican. They say he was non-partisan because of his government work, and really just left his registration alone. He re-registered at least three times as a Republican that I see, and was registered as a Republican for all three of Trump’s runs. He went to work for Trump’s DOJ in 2017. It’s been also provided to me now that while he was mailed a ballot in the crucially important 2024 Presidential Election, he didn’t return it. I definitely have questions. He definitely does not seem to have held any meaningful Democratic views through the Iraq War, Obama years, first Trump Administration, the ending of Roe v. Wade, or at any other pivotal point.

Now, I’m not against converts, particularly given how terrible this Trump Administration seems to be doing. Let’s just say though that the more you tolerated, the more skeptical I am. When Trump mocked the disabled reporter, when he called Mexicans drug dealers and rapists, when the Access Hollywood tape dropped, when he did the first Muslim ban, when he appointed ideological extremists to the Supreme Court, when his supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6th, when Roe v. Wade was overturned, when Trump said he wanted to be a dictator, when he accused immigrants of eating cats and dogs, all of that did not cause Crosswell to denounce his Republican registration. What we are asked to believe is that dropping the Eric Adams indictment was the last straw that made Croswell switch parties. Should we believe it? He entered this race on June 9th. He says he left DOJ on February 17th. He bought his websites for his run in December. We know all the things that didn’t make Ryan Crosswell leave the Republican Party. It certainly appears you can add dropping the Eric Adams prosecution to that list. He had made his decision to switch parties and move to a district he never lived in before the Adams’ prosecution was even able to be dropped.

I will say, it’s honorable that Crosswell defended his country, and he has an impressive academic history that suggests he’s a smart person, but our Republican Congressman Ryan Mackenzie can claim those things too, even after he recently voted to take health care from over ten million Americans. Crosswell could have moved home to the 9th Congressional District and ran in the open Republican Primary for 2026, but for whatever reasons he has decided to come run here in the most purple district in the country. The House Republicans will spend millions calling him a hypocrite, a liar, and citing his own contradictory history to make Republicans and Democrats alike hate him. There’s a long campaign to run, and maybe he’ll prove me to be wrong here, but he seems like a tremendous risk for Democrats to take.