PA House 22

Planet Allentown and that Debate the Other Night

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

I don’t know Ana Tiburcio, but I feel bad for her. Getting up and debating in a televised setting for any office takes a level of confidence that like 99% of people don’t have. Then you add on that a lot of the people criticizing her now were going to say she sounded out of her depth no matter what, and it’s kind of a no win situation. She was debating a perennial candidate in Bob Smith, so he’s comfortable being lost up there, and she’s supposed to win, and nothing she did was going to be good enough, and yeah- it’s hard as hell. I want to give her some grace for that debate performance because I know it isn’t easy.

With that said, we are talking about an election that decides who controls a 102-101 election, and by extension, the well being of millions of Pennsylvanians. Tiburcio is supposed to win, and should, but it’s fair to expect her to do some real basic things in a debate. She had a job to introduce herself and her work to the public in the debate. When your leading achievement that *you* cite on the school board is community engagement, you need to go into some depth for us about that engagement- what you’ve learned, some precise stories you’ve heard, some details. I wasn’t sure from that debate if she had mastered her current job, let alone shown us she’s ready for this one. She also had a job to introduce us to her opponent. When she had a chance to ask him three questions, she decided on the second one to say, “I think I know enough about him already.” That’s wonderful. You as the candidate aren’t the audience. The voters are. They need to know more about him, and you have to assume they don’t know yet. When you combine these problems with the consistent answer of “I’ll ask the legislators,” a reasonable person could be left standing there asking, is the Democratic candidate as prepared to actually do the job as the Republican? Or is she literally being put forward as literally a proxy vote in that district for the other two state reps in Allentown? I’ll leave out the criticisms of the bizarre things (calling Josh Siegel a “five… out of ten” in the seat before her because she couldn’t find his office was weird shit), but I think it would be fair to ask if this is going to be an independent person and legislator in Harrisburg or if everything down to district office staff will be picked in the other two offices.

Which leads us to the subject of Ce-Ce Gerlach in this race. Ce-Ce is a bit to my left, as I think you could guess from the blog. With that said, no competent adult watched that debate and can honestly say Ce-Ce wouldn’t have been a more prepared candidate to do this job in March when the winner is seated. She was passed over because the folks pulling the strings here, the other major electeds in Allentown, don’t want her. I’m not sure why one blessed voter in Allentown should care what they want? When the other option was someone who was working on state issues as an aide to the State Senator, I think that was easy to excuse. He was ready to do the job. That does not seem to be the case now. If this races doesn’t change (i.e.- add candidates) between now and May, I have literally no argument for why a person should not vote for Ce-Ce Gerlach. In fact, I’ll be honest, they should. If that upsets some of the folks who are “leaders” in Allentown, so be it.

Allentown has weird politics. In the past year the Mayor beat a “Make Allentown Great Again” style candidate 80-20%, a noose was planted in City Hall, allegedly by the person who claimed it was put on their desk, and the “conservative” wing of City Council went away for the first time in forever. Don’t get this twisted, Easton and Bethlehem have their quirks too, but Allentown can be on it’s own planet sometimes. While the utter disgusting corruption of the Pawlowski era is gone now, the old idea of a couple of leaders sitting around and dividing out the spoils among the peasants that are loyal to them is still there. We’re seeing the ugly side effects of that manifest themselves in this race now. It isn’t a pretty sight to watch.

Julian Guridy Got Screwed, and Now We Have a Race

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

To say I think it’s unfair and stupid is an understatement. Julian Guridy got screwed. Despite the fact he clearly grew up in the town he was going to run to represent, he’s ineligible to run for the State House because of his residency- he grew up there and has lived there again for three years. Apparently because he lived in Florida for a few years as a young adult, the 90% of his life he lived here isn’t enough.

This rule is absolute bullshit, a state constitutional relic that only exists today to protect incumbent legislators from real challenges. It’s apparently easier to be eligible to run for Congress than the State House. The legislature should be working to fix this so it doesn’t happen again. This is just terrible.

So now Ana Tiburcio, a member of the Allentown School Board, will be the candidate in February’s Special Election. She almost certainly will beat Bob Smith, who has run for virtually every legislative office in the city of Allentown and only ever won the school board. That will make Tiburcio an incumbent in May’s primary, but she will not get a free pass. Erlinda Augilar sought the party nomination for the special election, though I have not seen if she plans to run in May or not. Allentown Councilwoman CeCe Gerlach definitely plans to run. This will be a highly competitive race. Much of Gerlach’s message about the party “bosses” (such a ridiculous term) trying to pick the candidate instead of the people still works, if not better now that she’s been passed over twice. Gerlach also probably has a sizable name recognition advantage over Tiburcio. While party insiders like to complain about Gerlach, I don’t see much evidence that the voting public hates her. Sure, she lost for Mayor when the story about her dropping a minor at the “tent city” homeless encampment came out close to the primary election, but even then she was within a couple of points of winning. Since then she was re-elected handily to the council. I’m not sure that a bunch of endorsements from people not in her district are going to be what sinks her, but maybe a huge investment by House Democratic leadership would get it done. That also kind of seems silly in a safe Democratic seat. If this is a real fight and isn’t just bought by Harrisburg, Gerlach just might win anyway.

All of this really doesn’t look great for the Democrats. It looks like people didn’t do their homework ahead of time and just figured they could rubber stamp their way through. Is that the truth? Of course not. Guridy had worked hard to become the choice of most of the party. Reality matters a lot less than optics. Now there is a chance that a very, very independent leftist voice will win and represent the 22nd District, an outsider to the Allentown establishment. If you can get yourself far enough away from the mess to be objective, it kind of looks like some folks walked themselves right into it.

Who Will Lehigh County Dems Pick?

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

Todays’ the day that Lehigh County Democrats will pick their candidate to replace incoming Lehigh County Executive Josh Siegel in his Allentown and Salisbury based 22nd District seat. The candidates are lining up:

Four Democratic candidates — precinct committee person Erlinda Aguilar; Allentown City Councilwoman Ce-Ce Gerlach; Julian Guridy, an aide to state Sen. Nick Miller; and Lewis Shupe, who attempted to launch a congressional campaign in 2024 — submitted their names for consideration ahead of Thursday’s 5 p.m. deadline, Lehigh County Democratic Committee Chair Lori McFarland said.

A fifth, Douglas Kunkle, withdrew his nomination.

Kunkle apparently withdrew out of frustration with the process. Gerlach has also complained about who is and who isn’t an eligible voter, from what I’ve been told. Many expected that. The Allentown City Democrats did fold several years ago, leading to some questions about who is and who isn’t still on the committee, though it actually appears that this isn’t as real of a question as some believed. Jessica Ortiz, who had a Facebook page to run for this seat, did not apply for the Democratic nomination either.

If you put a gun to my head and asked me who is going to win today, well you wouldn’t need the gun, because I would tell you that it will be Julian Guridy. Guridy is publicly supported by Mayor Tuerk, Siegel, and Allentown’s other two Representatives, Mike Schlossberg and Pete Schweyer, and a functioning adult would guess State Senator Nick Miller, Guridy’s current boss. Does anyone think the committee is going to go out of it’s way to embarrass literally every significant elected official at the state level from Allentown? Of course not.

Gerlach is formidable (I don’t know the other two candidates very well, so I can’t comment there) and this is not the end. She has support from most of the more leftist groups in Allentown, and this committee selection is only binding for the February 24th Special Election. She is still more than able to run in the May Primary, and has a base of support for that race.

With all of that said, Guridy is going to win today.