{"id":31604,"date":"2022-04-24T08:49:42","date_gmt":"2022-04-24T12:49:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=31604"},"modified":"2022-04-24T08:49:45","modified_gmt":"2022-04-24T12:49:45","slug":"democrats-throwing-mud-in-primary-may-hurt-efforts-in-the-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=31604","title":{"rendered":"Democrats throwing mud in primary may hurt efforts in the fall"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, The Times<\/em> @mikemcgannpa<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"For a number of weeks, I\u2019ve been wanting to write a column about the dysfunction in the Democratic race for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania \u2014 but every time I\u2019d be poised to do so, the Republicans in either or both the gubernatorial or U.S. Senate race would do something so out there it could not be ignored.<\/p>\n

But the fact of the matter is while the GOP is off in nutso land, Pennsylvania\u2019s Democrats are up to some of their bad old tricks in trying very hard to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure Conor Lamb is a nice person on some level. But his candidacy for U.S. Senate has never made much sense to me \u2014 giving up a winnable U.S. House seat just for the more likely than not chance to lose a U.S. Senate primary seems like a poor choice.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For a short time, it appeared this might be a rerun of 2016: the Democratic elites line up behind the weaker candidate and muscle them through the primary, only to see them get shredded in the general election. That was Katie McGinty, who the elites favored over former Congressman Joe Sestak. While Sestak might well have given Pat Toomey a real race, McGinty\u2019s campaign was poorly run, met with little enthusiasm and she lost.<\/p>\n

Here in 2022, many of the party elites \u2014 including the wildly corrupt Philly Building Trades folks \u2014 lined up behind Lamb in his race against Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and State Representative Malcolm Kenyatta.<\/p>\n

The situation is different in 2022, though. Fetterman started early, raised a giant pile of money and worked very hard to raise his name ID \u2014 lots of cable TV news appearances really helped. So, it\u2019s not shocking that Fetterman has a healthy lead in the polls. And it appears at least some of the party elites seem to get that Lamb\u2019s campaign is probably doomed.<\/p>\n

I like Kenyatta a great deal, to be honest \u2014 but question whether a candidate can make the jump from State Representative to U.S. Senate. I also suspect there are parts of the Democratic electorate in Pennsylvania that may not be ready to support a black, gay man. That\u2019s a shame \u2014 but a political reality. Kenyatta has a very bright future ahead of him, but I don\u2019t think he\u2019ll have much of an impact at the ballot this cycle.<\/p>\n

Which leaves the race between Lamb and Fetterman.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Fetterman has legitimate issues, the largest of which is the incident when he was Mayor of Braddock and allegedly pulled a shotgun on a black jogger. Even from watching TV reports about the incident at the time, what actually happened and why remains unclear to a lot of voters – including me. His failure to appear at a Lehigh Valley debate was an unforced error \u2014 although he did manage to participate in a debate this week, where Lamb and Kenyatta focused much of their attacks on him as the frontrunner.<\/p>\n

Fetterman needs to have better answers on a number of issues, without question.<\/p>\n

But instead of pushing for answers, Lamb\u2019s campaign has pulled out the \u201csocialist\u201d card in describing a fellow Democrat \u2014 Lamb trotted out the term last year on Twitter and magically, a SuperPAC supporting Lamb started running ads suggesting that \u2014 which ultimately got banned from Channel 6.<\/p>\n

If you aren\u2019t a Democrat in the southeast of PA, maybe this doesn\u2019t have the same meaning.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But for folks here, Democrats have had to live with being called \u201csocialist\u201d for decades by Republicans. To have a Democrat do it, rubs a lot of people in this area the wrong way. And since \u201chere\u201d is where Democratic primary votes are, it\u2019s a giant tactical error for a candidate with low voter ID. Worse, if Fetterman wins the primary \u2014 the most likely outcome \u2014 the Republicans will be able to use it as weapon: \u201ceven Fetterman\u2019s fellow Democrats say he is a socialist\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s bad politics and bad for the party at large in a year when it is going to be tough enough for Democrats to make the case in the fall.<\/p>\n

But the vitriol from some of Lamb\u2019s followers on social media \u2014 many from out of state \u2013 can\u2019t be helping with ordinary rank and file Democratic voters in places like Chester County. Keep in mind, folks in PA are kind pissed that carpetbaggers like Mehmet Oz (New Jersey) and Dave McCormick (Connecticut) parachuted in to spend their wealth to try to buy a U.S. Senate seat.<\/p>\n

I made the mistake of asking why people out of state care so much this week on Twitter. I know, many folks consider posting at all on Twitter a mistake, but I enjoy the back and forth.<\/p>\n

In pointing out the whole \u201csocialist\u201d thing \u2014\u00a0 by quoting a Conor Lamb Tweet from last year \u2014 I got pilloried. I asked why someone from out of state \u2014 in this case Maryland \u2014 cares so much, I got trashed. And then, when I suggested I would quote some of these reactions in this column, I was shredded for threatening people or some such silliness. I am also a Republican, apparently, too. Oh, and racist, too. And a socialist, too.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not looking for sympathy \u2014 I\u2019ve been called worse, both in my journalism and political careers \u2014 but I hit a nerve, but it is one that could doom Democrats in the fall.<\/p>\n

So, it all starts here:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/tify330\/status\/1516498096796151810?s=20&t=qgBD1zX4YB5mlQUPVvT0uQ<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Yeah, it\u2019s a lovely toxic mix of left-wing stupidity, but it does show why Democrats, especially in Pennsylvania, need to be worried about \u201cactivists\u201d turning off normal voters and just tuning out. What should be a winnable seat in November for Democrats might get flushed away by this sort of behavior.<\/p>\n

As long as I\u2019ve been around politics in PA, going back to Casey-Rendell in 2002, it seems like Democrats are much better in ripping the crap out of each other than turning their fire on Republicans. If anything, things are even worse now in the era of social media.<\/p>\n

If Democrats can\u2019t get on the same page by the fall, it\u2019s going to be a very painful November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times @mikemcgannpa For a number of weeks, I\u2019ve been wanting to write a column about the dysfunction in the Democratic race for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania \u2014 but every time I\u2019d be poised to do so, the Republicans in either or both the gubernatorial or U.S. Senate race would do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31603,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7628,752,10417,3912,7359,11308,1677,47,1098],"class_list":["post-31604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-conor-lamb","tag-democrats","tag-election-2022","tag-featured","tag-john-fetterman","tag-malcolm-kenyatta","tag-pennsylvania","tag-twitter","tag-u-s-senate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31604"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31605,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31604\/revisions\/31605"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}