The Lehigh Valley

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?