Faced with Doug Mastriano’s insurgent candidacy, the state’s Republican leaders chose to do precisely nothing to protect Pennsylvania from a fanatic who would use the power of the governor’s office to try to subvert the laws of the United States.
The state party chair, Lawrence Tabas, should resign for his failure to prevent Mastriano’s essential takeover of the Pennsylvania GOP. Importantly, his resignation would declare to the party that Mastriano’s candidacy should be not be considered, and cannot become, business as usual. A party that maintained its leadership after such a failure would acquiesce in becoming, explicitly, the party of political fantasy and conspiracy-mongering.
Under Tabas’ leadership, the state GOP took a hands-off approach to this year’s primaries. Perhaps he, and members of the party’s state committee, felt that endorsing candidates or attempting to curate the field would only strengthen Mastriano’s anti-establishment appeal. But doing nothing — until a pathetic eleventh-hour attempt to consolidate behind former U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta — was a dereliction of duty not just to the party, but to all the people of Pennsylvania. There’s no point in being party leader if you won’t lead the party.
The state and local Democratic establishment is facing the opposite crisis, one far less severe but still important. There is clearly an appetite among many Democratic voters for a more brash, more progressive, more populist style of politics. In two cases, the party’s power brokers tried to unite behind a single contender — a traditional, center-left, Democratic establishment candidate — in order to squelch this movement. Both attempts failed — one spectacularly, one squeakily.
They endorsed U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb over Lt. Gov. John Fetterman. Lamb campaigned like a consensus front-runner, as the party’s anointed, until the bitter end. The candidates from the party’s left wing got almost three times as many votes as Lamb.
Meanwhile, Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, former Mayor Bill Peduto and retiring U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, among other party leaders — though not current Mayor Ed Gainey — lined up against state Rep. Summer Lee of Swissvale. She seems likely to prevail against insider favorite Steve Irwin, her second establishment scalp after Paul Costa in 2018.
Democratic insiders’ insistence on treating candidates like Fetterman and Lee as threats, rather than potentially constructive partners, is looking increasingly short-sighted. The energy their movements bring isn’t going anywhere; the party’s establishment will have to learn to channel it, or they’ll be swept away by it.
But that’s all nitpicking compared to the Republicans’ fecklessness. The election-denying Mastriano may be a bookkeeper’s underdog, but he’s still one of two men who will hold the highest office in the state come next year, and anything can happen. The people responsible for placing Pennsylvania on the precipice, starting with Tabas, must step aside and let stronger leaders take the helm.
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