Halloween Comes Early to Pennsylvania
Things are a mess for the Keystone State's GOP primaries for Governor, Lt. Gov., and US Senate on Tuesday. But there are solid choices if voters will just make them. I have endorsements
Two of my favorite acronyms are SNAFU and FUBAR. They’re not favorite federal agencies, although they could describe many of them.
“Situation normal, all fouled up” is the first one. “Fouled up beyond all recognition” is the second one. Other renditions replace “fouled” with a more colorful f word.
But only one acronym indeed describes the ribald Pennsylvania Republican primary election for US Senate, Governor, and Lt. Governor on Tuesday. All three are open seats, with one incumbent retiring (GOP US Sen. Pat Toomey), one running for another office (Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman), and the other, thankfully ineligible to seek another term (Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf).
Democrats also have a competitive primary for US Senate, but the nomination is a foregone affair: Fetterman, a lumbering ex-mayor and a former Keystone State chair of the Bernie Sanders for President campaign in the Commonwealth and is best known for championing recreational cannabis, his raison d’etre. Progressive partisan Attorney General Josh Shapiro will be the Democratic gubernatorial nominee.
Nine candidates are seeking the GOP nomination for governor. Now that State Senate President Jake Corman and former US Rep. Melissa Hart have dropped out and endorsed former US Rep. Lou Barletta make that seven, even though they remain on the ballot.
And Democrats can’t believe their good luck. At least so far.
Given the coming national GOP political tsunami, all things being equal, both offices should go Republican this Fall. They still might. But there’s nothing ordinary about elections in Pennsylvania this year. And never underestimate the Pennsylvania Republican Party’s talent for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Nominating candidates with a plurality of primary votes but lacking the skill to raise money or possess broad enough appeal to win over enough Republicans, much less independents and Democrats, is a losing formula. Democrats still lead in party registrations, although the gap has narrowed. There is no provision for primary runoff elections or ranked-choice voting in Pennsylvania, which legislators should seriously consider.
The situation is not “normal.” But it is FUBAR. All three primaries. And it has national implications, especially in the US Senate race where party control is up for grabs in November. The Senate is split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, as we famously know. There are competitive races in several states that could go either way. There are even implications for 2024 contests for President and US Senate.
Believe it or not, both the timing of the leaked draft of Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion that overturns Roe v. Wade and its cousin, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, have affected the contest. So has the release of “2000 Mules,” Dinesh D’Souza’s new film on 2020 election fraud. They play into a couple of the candidate’s messaging. Stay with me here.
Let’s start with the intriguing “alliance” between US Senate candidate Kathy Barnette, gubernatorial candidate and St. Sen. Doug Mastriano, and Lt. Gov. candidate Teddy Daniels. Allow me to briefly introduce them to you.
Barnette is a charismatic African-American woman and Alabama native who won 40 percent of the vote in a losing congressional race in 2020 to US Rep. Madeleine Dean in a heavily Democratic suburban Philadelphia district. “Multiple polls this week have shown Barnette within striking distance for the nomination to replace retiring GOP Sen. Pat Toomey,” reported YahooNews. “She’s a conservative commentator who moved to the state about eight years ago and failed in a bid for a Philadelphia-area House seat in 2020. She lost the safe Democratic seat by 20 points, a result she blamed on voter fraud.” She did, however, narrowly outpoll Trump in her district.
And her “vetting” isn’t going very well, from questions about her military service to fudging a Wall Street career and whether she supported Donald Trump or not in 2016. Her campaign and her website are an embarrassing mess.
“Although Barnette has spent a fraction of her rivals' outlay on television ads, a confluence of events — late endorsements, an alliance with the gubernatorial frontrunner, a lack of enthusiasm for other options, and a viral ad about her own mother’s decision not to have an abortion after being raped at age 11 — has pushed her into contention,” YahooNews continued. Her very brief campaign bio claims her background is as a mom, a veteran (including attending “officer candidacy [sic] school”), author, and political commentator. Her campaign seems poorly staffed. Pennsylvania-based journalist Salena Zito’s recent post on Barnett isn’t to be missed.
Mastriano, who finally captured Trump’s endorsement this weekend, is a retired Army colonel with 30 years of military service, including four overseas deployments. He was elected to the State Senate four years ago and is best known for challenging the 2020 election results in Pennsylvania. He often sports his paratrooper pin on his suits. He has an attractive “plan” for when he becomes governor, but Zito described his candidacy in a recent Washington Examiner post this way:
Mastriano is known for wearing spurs everywhere he goes and giving elaborate and often uncomfortable speeches. This week, he became agitated and abruptly ended a podcast interview when asked about his attendance at a QAnon-linked event in Gettysburg, as well as the rally he attended just before the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack subpoenaed him in March about his involvement.
Mastriano, a retired Army colonel elected to the state Senate in 2019, has emerged as a front-runner with a small core group of supporters. He could get the nomination just because there are so many people in the race; the latest Franklin and Marshall College polling shows that a whopping 40% of Pennsylvania Republican primary voters are undecided.
Mastriano says he’s pro-business, but much of the business community finds him unelectable.
Lt. Gov. candidate Teddy Daniels is a former policeman and wounded combat veteran (Afghanistan) and runs a cannabis “security” business. He recently took flak for a protective order requested by his wife for threats of physical and mental abuse (the order was later dismissed by a judge). His pugnacious style is polarizing, but he, Mastriano, and Barnette run as a team. Democrat Shapiro and the Pennsylvania Democratic Party are flooding Republican households with mail to raise the underfunded Mastriano’s name identification and tie him to Trump. They think GOP voters are gullible enough to fall for the ploy. They may be right.
St. Rep. Russ Diamond and others challenging Daniels for the Lieutenant Governor nomination are taking him head-on, threats of retaliation and all.
Halloween has come early to Pennsylvania.
This is a lot of Freddy Krueger-style drama and not much crossover appeal for a statewide ticket. No wonder 40 percent of Pennsylvania GOP voters are undecided. The establishment GOP, not known for their influence or competence, is trying to pressure candidates to coalesce behind one alternative in the governor’s race, which looks to be Barletta, who is not particularly strong either (he badly lost a US Senate race against Bob Casey Jr. in 2018) and a poor fundraiser but is polling second to Mastriano.
It’s too late for that now. The election is Tuesday. No one can take their name off the ballot.
The Senate race has featured millions spent by outside PACs to attack either Oz or McCormick. It is not surprising that voters look for an attractive alternative. They have them in former Ambassador to Denmark, Carla Sands, and businessman Jeff Bartos, whom I know and like very much and probably most resembles Sen. Toomey politically, but Barnette’s compelling personal story is the one that gets attention after all the recent attention on Roe v. Wade.
We’ll see if the Oz attack machine, which includes Fox News’ Sean Hannity, can do enough damage to Barnette. We will also see which of the three candidates - Oz, former hedge fund manager, West Point graduate, and 82nd Airborne paratrooper David McCormick or Barnette - are the nominee after Tuesday. Maybe Bartos or Sands will surprise us.
Barnette is not ready for prime time. She’s a raw talent with insufficient staffing, inexplicably unable to outline her professional and military careers, and painfully unprepared for the rigors of a statewide US Senate campaign. Oz is a dual citizen who has probably voted more often in Turkey’s elections than Pennsylvania’s, where he hasn’t lived since medical school and is no conservative with a history of dietary quackery, despite his Trump endorsement. Iraq war veteran and successful hedge fund manager McCormick has the most substantial pedigree as a 7th generation Pennsylvanian, but Oz’s attack hounds have been relentless. So have McCormick’s. It almost looks like mutually assured destruction. Neither candidate seems to have caught fire with voters.
This is enough to give the GOP heartburn and turn off everyday voters. But it is only mid-May. The general election is almost 6 months and several political lifetimes away. Lots can and will happen. But will enough voters show up and follow the Buckley Rule? “Vote for the most conservative candidate who can win.” There’s little doubt that the rise of abortion as an issue and the 2020 election movie 2000 Mules have boosted Barnette’s and Mastriano’s candidacies, respectively.
We’ll have to wait until Tuesday night to see what Pennsylvania’s fickle GOP voters decide. Buckle in and have plenty of adult refreshments on hand. Will rank and file GOP voters snatch defeat from the jaw of victory by nominating candidates who repulse swing GOP and independent voters?
Having said all that, could Barnette win a Senate race in November? Will we be congratulating “Governor-elect” Doug Mastriano? All things are possible. But that’s like investing in cryptocurrency right now. Safer investments look more attractive considering the political environment. And the stakes.
Remember, politics, like finances, is a numbers game. He or she with the most votes wins.
Oh, and pay attention to the race for Lieutenant Governor. I would not be surprised if Democrats pick State Representative and lefty gay activist Brian Sims as their nominee. You can guess which finger he prominently features behind his tweet below. A class act! He also infamously doxxed pro-life teenagers and elderly persons for peacefully demonstrating at a Planned Parenthood clinic in his legislative district. Fetterman has his issues, too.
I’m trying to imagine a Lieutenant Governor debate between Daniels and Sims, but I’ve never liked horror movies.
It is too bad that Pennsylvania’s competitive statewide contests couldn’t have played out more like Ohio’s US Senate primary, where author and businessman JD Vance eventually emerged not only as the GOP nominee but favored to win in November against Democratic nominee and US Rep. Tim Ryan. During primary debates, they had their moments, but Ohio Republicans quickly coalesced behind Vance. Pennsylvania may not be so blessed when this primary is over. They’ll need magnetometers at any post-election “unity” breakfasts.
FUBAR, indeed. I have no predictions for Tuesday. After 20 years in the Keystone State, I’m now richly blessed to have Glenn Youngkin as my governor here in Virginia. But if I were still a Pennsylvania GOP primary voter, I’d cast my ballot for David McCormick for US Senate; former US Attorney Bill McSwain for Governor; and Carrie Lewis DelRosso for Lt. Governor.
The combination covers the geographic landscape (McCormick is from western Pennsylvania; McSwain from the east) and hits on significant issues like the economy and national security (McCormick) and crime, where McSwain has taken on Philadelphia’s pro-criminal Soros-funded prosecutor, Larry Krasner. All three are high-quality candidates with first-rate campaigns and broad appeal. They can raise campaign cash and are much less inclined to make the unforced errors we’ve seen from Mastriano and Barnette. This November, they will win.
If they can make it past Halloween this Tuesday.
