The Lehigh Valley

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

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a 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.

Literally ALL White People are Racists?

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

Last year in Easton, State Representative Bob Freeman beat City Councilwoman Taiba Sultana by such a wide margin that if it were any worse, he’d be winning by numbers on par with Saddam Hussein, Vladimir Putin, and other famous autocratic leaders. For full disclosure, I did work on his campaign, but also, I am not why he won. Bob won by so much because virtually everyone in Easton likes him, and for that matter in the other communities he represents. He’s been effective at legislating, and more importantly he has not one time in his career embarrassed his community. He’s a decent human being in a time when politics lack that.

Sultana’s campaign wasn’t going to be successful, but she probably didn’t help herself making every Easton City Council meeting a referendum on Gaza. Look, neither the State Representative or Easton City Council are for the destruction and death happening in Gaza. It’s a complicated, ugly issue, but they’re not the issue. I guess aiming at the wrong culprit is still her MO though. The Councilwoman wanted to put forward an ordinance protecting undocumented immigrants in Easton. For a variety of reasons, Easton really has no part in enforcing immigration. It’s out of their jurisdiction and they don’t allow their police to really be involved. It’s simply not an issue the Easton City Council can legally do much about.

So instead of the ordinance, the council decided to bring forth Councilman Ruggles’ 2017 resolution supporting the immigrant community in Easton, with additions based on Sultana’s proposal. You know what, I support that. A resolution stating the opinion of the city government, in particular on people being taken into custody without a warrant or any due process, is a good thing. The councilwoman’s proposed additions to the resolution dealt with what should be done with people at the border, which is somewhat of a different question, but even there I’m not saying they couldn’t say that. Of course, once Sultana started squaring off with Councilman Frank Pintabone about the language in the resolution, things went totally off the rails. Pintabone suggested her language watered down the message of the resolution. Then things went nuts:

Pintabone responded by stating the resolution does not offer protection of the federal government even if it calls out issues between the city and federal officials.

Sultana eventually said Pintabone was making such points because “undocumented immigrants cannot vote for you.” 

Pintabone described Sultana’s commentary as “great talking points for your next campaign.”

She later said, “you want to make sure you have the vote of all the racists, all the white people.”

Huh? All the white people? all the racists? What in the actual blue hell is that? Yes, there are plenty of white racists in this world. No, not every white person is racist. This is probably more true in Easton than most other places. Easton is a mixed racial community. There are significant White, Black, and Latino populations in the city. There is a history of Asians in the community and particularly a vibrant Lebanese history in the city. Easton’s schools, even in the townships, are pretty well integrated. I know damn well there are some racists in the community. Saying all the white people are racist is insane.

Last I checked, Easton was just over 50% white (in the city, the surrounding townships are whiter). If you think that a group of people that large in your community are sworn racists, why in the hell do you want to represent them? Even better question yet, if you think the majority population in your community are all racists, and you’re the one standing against racism, how do you think you’re actually going to win? I have good friends in the NAACP and other community groups that are like minded, and not one of them would say all the white people in the community are racists. They might say we can do more to fight racism, but they would never make such a blanket statement as this. It’s reckless and it’s dumb politics. It kind of explains why just about 4 out of every 5 voters in the State House race didn’t vote for her. This kind of naked identity based attack is dying a painful death in American politics, and that’s a good thing. Easton deserves better than this.

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

/ Rich Wilkins / 5 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.

Who has the Edge in Lehigh County?

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

It wasn’t that long ago that Lehigh County was considered the more “red” county in the Lehigh Valley. It gave us a fairly consistent line of powerful Republicans at the federal and state level, such as Pat Toomey, Charlie Dent, and Pat Browne- or more succinctly, not MAGA. The GOP hasn’t won the County Executive’s post since 2005 (or right after George W. Bush was re-elected. The once Republican suburbs became the key for Susan Wild’s six year run. Nick Miller and Lisa Boscola represent the county in two of the state senate seats. The Republican Party is virtually obsolete in Allentown and Bethlehem, something that wasn’t true when I was growing up. In short, they’re not good at this.

It almost wasn’t that way in 2021. Phil Armstrong had a difficult re-election campaign. In 2017, he won by about 5% over a well funded and fairly normal Brad Osborne with 25,085 votes. In 2021, turnout went considerably up in the county by comparison (vote by mail) to 74,108 votes cast. Maria McLaughlin carried the county for Supreme Court with 37,002 votes and Lori Dumas carried it for Commonwealth Court with 34,303 votes. Timika Lane got more votes than Dumas (34,719) lost the county to Megan Sullivan (who actually got the most votes of all judicial candidates), and Democrats lost two of the three Court of Common Pleas seats (Tom Caffrey, Tom Capehart), with Zac Cohen carrying the third seat by 5 votes over David Ritter (trust me, I remember it well). As for Armstrong, well, he actually conceded defeat at one point in the night, which is only funny because he actually thought he was going to need to in 2017 and I kept telling him he was fine. Armstrong got 51.8% (36,873) to Glenn Eckhart’s 48.1% (34,255), a fairly close race for running against a guy who lost his seat as Controller. Republicans actually won 3 of the 5 commissioner districts as well, marking what was probably their best year in the county in years.

In 2023, the Democrats beat the brakes off of the Republicans in Lehigh County. Dan McCaffrey won the county by over 14% with 42,333 votes (57.03%). Jill Beck and Timika Lane carried the Superior Court race in the county comfortably, and Maria Battista is running again. Matt Wolf won the Commonwealth Court race by just under 8,000 votes, a blowout (55.2% to 44.6%). Democrats won all four Commissioner seats, and by a lot, with Jon Irons getting fourth and still beating the top Republican candidate by over 3,000 votes. The only contested row office race was Coroner, and Dan Buglio won by over 13%. It was, to be blunt, an ass kicking.

So what was the difference? In 2021, turnout was 74,108, or 30.9% of voters. In 2023, turnout was 75,127, or 31.1%. Yes, that’s slightly more, but it is not the kind of jump that should explain that kind of flip. Taking a good look at the current numbers for 2025, Lehigh County has 76,320 likely voters (voters in 2 of the last 4 county elections plus voters who have been mailed a ballot). Democrats hold a pretty substantial advantage in registration among these voters, with 37,661 to 31,823 for the Republicans, and another 6,836 who either independent, Green, or Libertarian. Republicans would need to win nearly all of the independent voters (literally over 90%) or cut into the Democrats ranks to win the race. On paper, Roger Maclean might not be an awful candidate to try that. He’s raised a paltry sum of money compared to Josh Siegel though, who is skillfully pointing out that Maclean isn’t up to the job. Also, his party is trying to use Charlie Kirk to inspire turnout. That’s not going to win over non-Republican voters to their cause.

It’s important to start out understanding Lehigh County this way- it’s similar to Northampton County, but the GOP has not won an Executive race there in two decades, they haven’t carried the county for President at all in that time period, they haven’t won the county for the Congressional candidate on their ticket since Charlie Dent left, and I guess basically I’m telling you that even their good years, they are not likely to win. The big reason is still Allentown, but they have steadily made gains in Allentown during the Trump era for President, and that still hasn’t changed the results because they’re losing voters in the suburbs, particularly the highest educated neighborhoods. But why did they get close in 2021? What was the difference? The answer can be found in voters who voted in 2021, but not in 2023 and have not yet received a ballot. The Republicans hold a roughly 2,600 voter advantage among these people. This Republican leaning group of voters came out and made it close in 2021, but they didn’t show up at all in 2023.

If turnout is somewhere between 2021’s and the 76,320 likely voters I have currently in the screen, there’s not much chance Maclean does all that well against Siegel. His whole campaign so far is “that liberal kid grew up in New Jersey!” and the days of that kind of crap exciting people are long over. Much like in Northampton County, the GOP’s best chance of changing their recent luck begins when *more* voters show up than are expected. In both counties, 2021 voters who didn’t vote in 2023 and haven’t requested a ballot have to come out for them, and maybe even some mid-term voters from their party too. Much like in Northampton County, I don’t think they have the guy to do it. The one caveat I will say here though is that this is basically an analysis of the Executive race, as Lehigh has a recent history of voting very different in their Court of Common Pleas races. Mulqueen may pull out a win without the electorate moving at all, and almost certainly will if turnout goes high.

My, my, how things are changing.

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.

Who Has the Edge in Northampton County?

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

In 2021, 71,335 people voted. Maria McLaughlin narrowly carried the county for Supreme Court with just below 50% of the vote. She was the only judicial Democrat to do that well in the county. Lamont McClure was about 2,700 votes over 50% in the County Executive’s race, beating Steve Lynch by 12%. Democrats took the top three spots out of the five County Council seats.

In 2023, 72,436 people voted. Dan McCaffery won the county by 14% for Supreme Court, hitting 57%. Jill Beck, Timika Lane, and Matt Wolf all won the county in statewide judicial races. Brian Panella won a seat on Common Pleas by 8%. Tara Zrinski beat John Cusick by 8% for Controller. Democrats won the only two contested County Council seats fairly easily.

Recent history has been good to Democrats. They have not lost an Executive, Controller, District Attorney, or Court of Common Pleas race in the county since 2013. Likely Turnout numbers say that trend has a decent chance to continue. Likely voters (voters who voted in 2 of the last 4 county elections) plus people who have been mailed a vote-by-mail ballot favor Democrats by a 36,405 to 30,037 margin. There are 7,385 independents, 225 Libertarians, and 40 Greens who also meet this criteria. The total number of voters expected under this screen are 74,092. At this turnout, it’s very likely Tara Zrinski will be the next Executive and Jeremy Clark will win the seat on the Court of Common Pleas. I’d also expect “yes” for the sitting Supreme Court Justices to carry the county.

There are ways for things to still swing the other way though. First off, turnout could simply fall short of expectations. A turnout similar to 2021 would likely be more competitive, as McClure outperformed the ticket as a whole that year by over 4,500 votes. Even then though, you have to remember that Zrinski was the top vote getter for Council, and she could still win. The second possibility for the GOP is that they win independents by a crushing margin- but they would need north of 70% of independents to make that happen. The third possibility is that the Republicans pull over a sizable chunk of Democrats. In reality, the GOP needs a little bit of all three, or a massive surge of federal election year Republican voters to show up, for which there is no sign of it happening right now.

I think the one certainty for me is that the strategy of the Northampton County GOP is not conducive to them pulling this off. Mailing about Charlie Kirk and being adversarial about vote-by-mail and early voting is not going to make them appeal to more moderate voters. So while they do have a chance, and there are factors beyond what the parties do (Is the Northampton Democratic Party doing anything?), right now Northampton County Republicans are probably swimming a bit uphill. Things aren’t trending well for them either. A few weeks ago they had opportunities to close in. Now they actually trail in non-2023 voters who are requesting ballots by 7,336 to 6,765. In other words, the unlikely voters becoming likely because they requested a ballot are moving towards the Democrats fairly quickly. If that holds, the outcome seems strongly likely to be obvious.

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.

The “Silent Man’s” Silent Campaign to put the GOP Chairman in Charge of Northampton County

/ Rich Wilkins / 2 Comments

Tom Giovanni doesn’t talk much. Up until recently his supporters were calling that a good thing. Now, as one Republican put it, “there’s no campaign.” Giovanni has barely mailed anyone, but he’s focusing in on talking to Republican voters, even telling them to vote for him to vote for Charlie Kirk- I kid you not, both county GOP groups are doing this garbage. Giovanni passed on debating Tara Zrinski for Executive, then could barely put together a sentence once he did his individual interview on WFMZ. You could see why he wasn’t saying much. It turns out Giovanni let his County Republican Party Chairman negotiate the format for him. Seriously, he’s running for Executive and won’t make basic decisions. In a recent council meeting he sat by quietly as that same chairman and one of his colleagues argued that the Executive does not have the power to set policy for the county’s elections office. That’ll probably be his excuse for not mailing ballots out if he’s Executive next year. He can’t, his party chairman said so. As I wrote about Giovanni before:

The question is not what Giovanni will do as Executive, the question is whether this man is in a coma or has a pulse at all in his own campaign. As the Republican Congressman, Republican County Party Chairman, and other two incumbent Republican Councilmen are up there focusing all of their attacks on a guy who isn’t going to be appearing on any ballots in 2025, Giovanni is either unwilling or incapable of putting together a coherent sentence, hence why he was terrified to debate Zrinski. Rather than debating, he had his Republican Party Chairman negotiate two separate appearances on WFMZ to “discuss,” or in his case lie about, the issues. This is because Giovanni is simply not capable of saying anything coherent and is better off letting better spokespeople explain his terrible plans for the County.

So what are Giovanni’s plans? Well, let’s be honest, they’re setting up to use the “mismanagement” of funds to come in and argue that it’s time to privatize/sell/close Gracedale. This has been the GOP’s position for 15 years in the county, and they’re going to go as far as they can to get it done. They’re going to use the excuse of the Federal Government cutting Medicaid and Harrisburg not really doing anything to fix it, as well. They’re going to start by demanding he acquiesce to the Council as the new Executive, then he’ll tell them it can’t be run. If the public outcry is too much, they’ll just spend their time making cuts to the place so that it becomes unworkable. Don’t kid yourself, Giovanni may not fully get it, but his handlers have made it clear to him that they oppose a safety net for county residents. It’s coming.

Next, Giovanni’s administration, either unilaterally or by acquiescing to council’s demands, will come in and chip away at access to voting in Northampton County. He’ll immediately kill the satellite voting sites, probably get rid of the four drop box locations (or at least cut them), and probably instruct the election’s office at a minimum to mail out ballots later than the current office does. He may just kill all vote by mail and early voting, citing the President’s illegal executive order on the matter. Does Giovanni fully understand this now? Who knows. He knows that he’s going to do what his handlers tell him though.

This guy is probably a nice enough guy personally, but he’s either over his head or paralyzed by all the different masters he’ll have to answer to if he wins. Apparently he recently went out of his way to say he will *not* be bringing former Executive and current Councilman John Brown in as Director of Administration or anything else. I find that interesting, as Brown is probably their most successful recent county official at winning elections (other than the one he didn’t win), but Giovanni seems to have felt the need to put that out there. Of course the answer is obvious though. County Republican Chairman Glenn Geissinger recently took a job in Schuylkill County as finance director, apparently saying he’d move there soon. I’m sure he will if Giovanni is unsuccessful. And if he wins? Geissinger gets to come take over this courthouse and get rid of vote-by-mail and vote-on-demand sites, gut Gracedale and sell it, let ICE run wild in the courthouse, and DOGE’ing as many people in the county as possible. It’s plain and obvious. He’s controlling what his party’s nominee says and where. This campaign is all about “righting the wrongs” of 2017 for him, when Zrinski was one of the four Democrats who knocked him off.

You can tell me I’m wrong, but that’s like Trump saying he didn’t know anything about Project 2025.

If You Don’t Like the County Executive, Just Get Rid of the Job?

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

I got a call from a little birdy yesterday (funniest description ever) about local political goings on. There was a lot of news, on all kinds of different topics. One piece of news though was hilarious to me.

A certain member of County Council, running for re-election in 2025, apparently has told people *they* (no I’m not giving it away) plan to introduce legislation at Northampton County Council tonight to scrap the County Executive and return to the three person commissioner system that most counties use.

Say what?

Northampton County passed a Home Rule Charter that basically serves as it’s constitution. That charter created an elected Executive to run the day-to-day goings of the government. Many other counties don’t have that, and are sort of ran by a part-time Commissioner board, but are mostly run by unelected bureaucrats and people who “go along to get along” running departments. They raise taxes whenever they feel like it, and tend to do what is most popular in the government center. They don’t give a shit about public sentiment and they only answer to a bunch of commissioners who don’t really know how the government runs, because they’re not there. It’s an awful system and it isn’t responsive to the public.

I’m not going to name this council person, I like them personally and I hope that posting this ahead of time discourages their poor behavior. They are not doing this because they believe it’s a good idea, they’re doing this because they do not like the current County Executive and they do not like who they think will be the next County Executive. This is petty politics at it’s worst, the kind of mean girl shit that will make life worse for the public. If you don’t like Lamont McClure, Phil Armstrong, Tara Zrinski, or any other person who tries to be County Executive, you run a campaign against them. If people elect a County Executive twice or more, you should just tip your cap- they do represent what the public wants. Running around talking about being a check on elected power, when the voters can kick out that official if they want, is simply living in denial. Deciding you’re going to get rid of the office because you think the voters are going to vote for a third time the opposite of what you think they should is anti-democracy behavior of the worst type. I know this kind of bullshit behavior is par for the course in MAGA right now, but hopefully we’re not going to see this individual try this crap with the county government.

We will see tonight.

John Fetterman… or um Crooksy Joins the Upper Lehigh Dems

/ Rich Wilkins / 4 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.