Playing With Fire

Boy, did I call the U.S. Senate Republican primary in Pennsylvania or what?  The race between Mehmet Oz and David McCormick is still too close to call, and it may not be decided for days.  Kathy Barnette wasn't even much of a factor.  But as entertaining as all that is, I must divert your attention to something far more serious that came out of the Pennsylvania gubernatorial primary.

On the Republican side, State Senator Doug Mastriano won the nomination, while Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro is the Democratic candidate.  Mastriano is a dangerous right-wing pro-Trump ideologue who was instrumental in bringing protesters to Washington on January 6, 2021 to demonstrate against the electoral vote count for the Presidency to help Trump stay in office.  He's also been subpoenaed by the January 6 House committee over his role in the demonstration.  The Shapiro campaign actually sent out flyers and ran TV ads to play up Mastriano because it figured that he was the easiest Republican gubernatorial candidate to defeat.

I can only draw one conclusion from this:  Democrats are incredibly stupid.  

Doesn't anyone remember how President Carter's 1980 re-election campaign wanted Ronald Reagan as the Republican opponent because the Carter campaign thought he was unelectable?  Didn't I bring up just recently that Hillary Clinton played up Donald Trump to ensure his nomination for President by the Republicans because she thought he'd be easy to defeat?  And, like Hillary with the Presidency, Shapiro was so formidable in his bid for governor of Pennsylvania that potential Democratic gubernatorial candidates decided not to run.  Unlike with Hillary, Shapiro had no opposition whatsoever.  His election to succeed term-limited, outgoing governor Tom Wolf is seen as - shhh!  - "inevitable."

Yeah, right.  Shapiro is playing a dangerous game.  Mastriano has a chance as long as Pennsylvania voters, like votes in other states, are dissatisfied with the way things are in the country, and polls show that they're not only dissatisfied, they're disgusted.  And they blame Democrats because they are the ones in power, including the leadership of Pennsylvania.  But if Mastriano wins the Pennsylvania governorship, he'll use the levers of power to ensure that Pennsylvania voters, if they vote for the 2024 Democratic presidential candidate, will have their choice overturned by a Republican Secretary of State (secretaries of state serve at the pleasure of the governor in Pennsylvania, not elected by the people) and a Republican legislature (the GOP has been successful in keeping the Pennsylvania legislature under their control), who will send electoral votes for the 2024 Republican presidential candidate to Washington to be tallied on January 6, 2025. 

As Lawrence O'Donnell noted this past week, Pennsylvania was where American democracy was started, and now it could be the place where American democracy ends.

Keystone Kops

Crazy things are going on in today's Pennsylvania primary elections.  On the Republican side, a racist black female conservative - she sounds like a Jerry Springer guest - has thrown a monkey wrench into things in the Senate nomination contest, while on the Democratic side, a tough guy with bad fashion sense and a heart of gold could beat a mainstream Democrat for their party's U.S. Senate nomination.

Kathy Barnette has surged in the polls for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania for the state's open seat, mainly for being farther to the right than even Donald Trump, bashing Muslims and gays while using her own circumstance - she's the result of her mother's rape - as an argument against all abortions.  Trump likes her and thinks she has a future but doesn't think she's ready for prime time now.  His choice is New Jersey resident (shh! - don't tell anyone! 😀) Mehmet Oz, a daytime TV show who says he's a doctor, though hedge-fund manager David McCormick is running a close race with him and could easily win the nomination by being more like Trump than Oz.  Now Barnette has made it a three-way tie in the polls, which means the election results could be unavailable for days.

On the Democratic side, Conor Lamb, a moderate congressman from the Pittsburgh area who looks so much like a senator that he could get away with wearing a toga, is well behind in the polls, with Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman, a Bernie Sanders-style progressive so causal he campaigns in sweatshirts and gym shorts, in the lead.  Lamb, a former Marine and a former assistant U.S. attorney,  has a dream candidate's resume in his favor . . . and that's all.  Pennsylvania Democrats have decided that a safe choice is no longer desirable, simply because they believe that a Senator Lamb could go to Washington and fail to get anything done because of the way the Senate "operates" these days.  Fetterman is seen as a fighter who will fight for core Democratic values.  Lamb is seen as someone who lives up to his surname.  

Independent commentator and Pennsylvania resident Michael Smerconish worries that Pennsylvania voters will be turned off in the fall by the possibility of extreme Senate candidates in a state where only registered party members can vote in primaries and independents have to stay home, and some Republicans are looking forward to a potential Oz-Fetterman race, thinking Oz can win such a match because of middle-class familiarity with the not-so-good doctor.  I'm not sure about that. Fetterman is a working-class hero who always talks about how blue-collar voters and the middle class constantly get screwed by the system, making him a populist at a time when populism is, well, popular.  He can sell progressive populism because he's a regular guy, not some coastal intellectual or some social-media-happy showhorse.       

Fetterman has one thing against him.  He suffered a stroke a few days ago.  How that plays into today's voting remains to be seen.  One thing I'd like to note; former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley has supported both Fetterman and Lamb in earlier elections, Fetterman for his previous U.S. Senate run and Lamb for his first U.S. House run.  O'Malley is neutral this time, mainly because he can't be bothered with any political campaigns other than his wife's bid for Maryland Attorney General.  

The gubernatorial primary is more straightforward.  Far rightist state senator and 2020 election result denier Doug Mastriano is a shoo-in for the Republican nomination while Pennsylvania Attorney Josh Shapiro is running for the Democratic nomination unopposed.  Both sides agree that Shapiro will likely win the governorship in a landslide in November if Mastriano is his opponent.