Seal of Disapproval

One of the things modern parents teach their children these days is that what one posts online can come back to haunt you in the future. Pre-internet, that wasn't a problem, but it sure is now. 

Last week’s scandal, wherein an endorsed Republican candidate for Methacton School Board, Scott Misus, posted offensive comments on a public social media site, became a cautionary tale and living example of this important lesson. The Misus situation has made what one posts online relevant, and in an era of lazy and low-information voters, vividly illustrates how unwillingness to do one’s own research on candidates and to allow others to do your thinking for you can have serious consequences.

Political parties have their own agendas and tend to be run by people who like to play kingmaker for their own reasons, and since most people aren’t privy to insider info about the personalities, alliances and agendas, reliance on their opinions should be viewed as no more than a starting point; a guideline, not gospel.

And don't bank on the press to do meaningful vetting for you, either. The days of investigative reporters are largely gone, and very small budgets at most media outlets means they primarily publish little more than press releases.

Misus, who was jointly endorsed by the two Republican committees in Methacton School District (LP and Worcester; school board candidates cross file, and evidently the LP Dems decided not to endorse at all), has been dealt with by party leadership and officially stripped of his endorsement.  While it’s too late to have his name removed from voting machines, he will not be advocated as a candidate on Election Day. At considerable expense, party sample ballots were pulled and reprinted without his name on them. His name was painstakingly removed from yard signs on which he appeared.  The viewpoints he expressed are not shared by the members of the local party or the other endorsed candidates.

Absolutely, I think we should have done a better job of vetting our candidates. Court records were scrutinized but we should have gone further. All candidates were asked at the endorsement meeting whether there was any information about themselves that could embarrass the party, and Misus either forgot about these Facebook posts or didn’t see a problem with them, as they were not mentioned.

But that’s typical and not a good way to vet candidates unless you already know the answer and are verifying a candidate’s honesty. Candidates often lie or mislead. They forget, hedge, hide, engage in wishful thinking, and understandably try to put the best face on things. A good vetting process is systematic and ideally discovers both the strengths and weaknesses of candidates before offering them assistance or support. You can’t rely only on what a candidate tells you.

However, even when one DOES know of adverse information that defies explanation, sometimes parties move forward with a candidate anyway. That’s when doing your own research is most valuable.

This is not just an indictment of the GOP. The local Democrat party has had their missteps too.

For example, back in 2009 one of my coworkers was a LP Democrat committeeman who excitedly bragged to me one day that his party was going to put up as a township supervisor candidate a 'dynamic woman who was new to Lower Providence but not new to politics’.

I was intrigued because I was working on a campaign to elect the then-incumbent supervisor, so as soon I learned the name, I researched this woman and discovered that she was a notorious con artist who had been at the heart of a 2002-2003 scandal in Philadelphia wherein she pretended to be an heiress descended from a Revolutionary war hero, ingratiated herself into Philly high society, and used this persona to swindle a wealthy Philadelphia real estate broker out of more than $80,000 in cash and thousands more in the form of goods and services from others. She was so notorious that a couple of crime shows had done episodes about her. (See a good summary, here; this woman, who has since remarried, moved out of Lower Providence last year as the result of a foreclosure, so apparently her money management problems continue to this day. She still has an active court docket with Montgomery County as she's still paying restitution).

Anyway, I passed this information onto county GOP party leadership, who took it to Democrat party leadership, who then presented it to the candidate and asked her whether this information was true. She quietly withdrew and nobody was publicly embarrassed. 

Perhaps, like the “CARE” parents, we should have just shopped the story around to the local news media for maximum exposure and humiliation instead of handling it in a gentlemanly manner and giving the party the opportunity to address it first.  

The lesson is, if a party doesn’t do a good job vetting candidates these days, when it’s easier than ever via the Internet, the opposition (and/or public) most certainly will.  It’s not called ‘opposition research’ for nothing.

While the Worcester Republican Committee (via Worcesterpapolitics.com) apparently was quick to blame Lower Providence’s Republican Party for the Misus debacle, the offensive Facebook posts were never presented by their municipal leader, Wini Hayes, during the leadup to the joint school board endorsement meeting (or at the actual meeting) as a reason why we should not endorse Mr. Misus, even though Ms. Hayes took the lead on questioning candidates and asked each of them about the existence of unflattering or adverse information.

Given how WRC has positioned themselves (via their friends at Worcesterpapolitics.com) as somehow innocent in this, you can imagine how surprised I was to discover something that apparently escaped WRC six years ago when it endorsed current supervisor Susan Caughlan, and earlier this year when they re-endorsed her for re-election.

Ms. Caughlan (also known as Mrs. David Brooks, whom I’ve written about previously), an attorney, wrote and published an article for the William and Mary Law Review  in 1987 that defended the in-home possession and viewing of child pornography as a protected First Amendment right [you can read her argument yourself here].  This was not a random class assignment she was forced to write, it was an analysis she chose to make, write and publish.

I’m not sure how one can defend the creation or mere existence of, let alone the private possession, viewing and sharing of, child pornography anywhere, anyplace, anytime, but this woman evidently feels the framers of the Constitution envisioned this as a protected, God-given right more than two hundred years ago - as long as it occurs in the privacy of your home, of course, if I read this correctly - and attached her name to this garbage. As a Republican, as an American, as a parent, as a human, it disgusts me that WRC would hold up someone with these reprehensible views and endorse them as some sort of exemplary representative of our values, no matter when she wrote it.

In the event that Caughlan belatedly defends writing this as some sort of youth-inspired insanity, it gets worse. In the “You can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep” department, I’m told she’s had a long friendship and association with recently convicted child porn purveyor (and Worcester Twp resident) John Harris. This friendship is shady especially when you consider that he has reportedly endorsed her in the past, donated money to her campaign, and records show she voted  to spend in the neighborhood of $200,000 of Worcester Township taxpayer dollars protecting his emails from discovery in a Right-To-Know case (Worcester didn't have an email system of their own at the time and now, of course, we know what kind of things were lurking in his email). And, incidentally, she’s also voted to spend taxpayer resources to battle Methacton School District in efforts to delay and restrict the installation of field lights at Methacton’s football field in an effort to prevent them from impacting nearby residents, which includes and benefits Harris, among other things.  

This friendship/association is common knowledge in and around Worcester, so why, again, was she ever endorsed? Was SHE vetted? As I mentioned above, WRC chair Wini Hayes asked Methacton school board candidates seeking a party endorsement this year if there was anything negative about themselves that they needed to explain; did she ask Caughlan the same thing at their meeting to endorse a supervisor candidate? And if so, did Caughlan ever tell WRC about this plank in her ‘conservative’ platform?

Is it any wonder, then, that the fastest growing voter identity group is “independent” and that increasingly, voters look with more favor upon UNendorsed candidates?

Political parties are made up of imperfect humans who despite the best of intentions, sometimes get it wrong. Voters have a wealth of free information easily available to them to determine who a candidate really is, what he/she is really about, and whether a candidate resonates with their values.  The fact that so many have voter apathy and abdicate the vetting responsibility to others lends validity to the saying ‘you get the government you deserve”.

Don't Hate The Player, Hate the Game

If you choose not to play in a particular game, is it unfair when someone else who does, wins?

That is the twisted political logic on display in a recent Lower Providence Patch article (here) from local far-left Democrat, Joe “The Nerd” Ferraro.  You may have seen Mr. Ferraro on cable TV attending a local meeting on occasion. He has a talent for getting the local press to publish his sound bites, and is a frequent contributor to Huffington Post (and Patch). He and I have butted heads on occasion in the past and he’s often tried to label me as one thing or another.

Joe cries foul and plays the victim because, as he claims, the LP Republican Party is ‘gaming the system’ in that their candidate for the Board of Supervisors, attorney Patrick Duffy, is allegedly running a write-in campaign on the Democrat ballot. This is not illegal; in fact it’s standard practice for school board and judicial candidates in Pennsylvania to file nominating petitions to run on both tickets.

I think it’s disingenuous for Joe to throw a flag on the play. The Democrat party in LP either is so disorganized that they can’t get their act together to get someone to step up and run, OR actively chose not to recruit and run candidates for township supervisor. Then, when there is an attempt at a
write-in campaign on their (empty) ballot, they get all indignant, as if somehow the GOP is disrespecting the position that they couldn't even be bothered to fill in the first place --- for TWO ELECTION CYCLES RUNNING!!!

In addition, they only have one candidate running for the 4 open spots on the Methacton School Board. Something tells me the LP Dems may not even have had anything to do with that; most likely, that candidate is a lone ranger.

They are also not running anyone for auditor. The only position they really do have a candidate for is tax collector. Incumbent Kirsten Deal – who withdrew from her seat as a Democrat committeeperson several years ago when she became frustrated with their leadership -  is up for another term this  year, so it’s not like the Dems had to go find their candidate for this slot.  She was already in the gate.

For all intents and purposes, LP Dems have almost totally avoided wading into the LP political pool of late. Given that, why on earth wouldn’t any smart candidate try to wrap up a 9-month election cycle in the primary if he or she can? If your party abandons its voters and offers up no candidate for them to rally around, who can blame the only participant in the race for going after them and presenting them with a candidate to evaluate on his/her merits, rather than by whether their name is followed by an R or a D? What have you got to lose at that point?

As I can personally attest, running for any elected office these days can cost a decent chunk of change and, if you do it right and actually knock on hundreds of doors to meet voters personally, can consume a huge amount of time and shoe leather. If your opposition gives you a freebie, you’d be stupid not to take it so that you can win on both ballots in the primary and be done with it. Don’t doubt for a second that if the shoe were on the other foot, the Democrats wouldn’t do the same.

When I ran for township supervisor in 2011, I elected to try this strategy and ran a Dem write-in campaign, as did the other two Republican candidates. As Joe alludes, the Democrats got wind of it when all the mail started hitting and, incensed that the Republican candidates were supposedly ‘hijacking’ their party, sprang into action 72 hours before the election, beginning their own write-in campaign on the Sunday evening before the Tuesday primary. Well, I submit that you can’t hijack something that has been abandoned, and make no mistake, the Dems abandoned the supervisor’s races in 2011 and 2013.

He also expressed outrage at this supposed violation of the ‘rules’.  Rules? Maybe the Dems should try  playing by the rules per the PA election code and running a real campaign the way serious candidates do.  Playing by the rules means filing nominating petitions full of voters’ signatures to get your candidate on the ballot, filing campaign formation documents and appointing officers so your candidate can fundraise and have transparency as to what he spends his money on, and running an issues-based campaign around whatever his positions are. It is most certainly not throwing a Hail Mary pass two days before an election and running an unvetted Johnny-come-lately who couldn’t be bothered to follow the process or spend any time visiting or educating voters on what he believes, his position on the issues, and what he would do if elected. It is the political equivalent of a drive-by shooting.

And, not for nothing, but the whining about how Duffy is supposedly sneakily using the color ‘blue’ in his yard signs to lull Democrats into voting for him is ludicrous.  Did I miss something? When did the Democrat party trademark the color blue and reserve it for their exclusive use? If everybody had the same thought process Joe does, shouldn’t Duffy’s use of blue work against him with his own party of red-loving Republicans?

I have to hand it to the Dems. In recent years all they managed to do was run the same retreads for the same offices over and over, but in the last few years it appears they completely threw in the towel and are running no one, so Joe’s righteous indignation rings hollow.  If you only start looking for candidates at the time nominating petitions are being circulated, you're already behind the 8-ball....what, you have no bench??

To quote the PA lottery groundhog, “You can’t win if you don’t play”.  

 

 

 

 

 

Open Season

When you went to the polls this past Tuesday in either of the two townships served by Methacton School District, you were greeted by a sign that read as follows, courtesy of our local Democrat party:

First, aside from the obvious factual error - there are really five positions up for election in 2011, not four - the sign claimed that 'school board member is a non-partisan position'.  Really? Maybe it should be, but the truth is that they are elected positions, and the only way to get elected as a school board member is to petition to get on the ballot for one party or the other (or, as some do, cross-file and run under the banners of both parties, a process that I think really should be disallowed for any elected position,since it muddies the water as to what a candidate's true ideology is).

In fact, at the website for PSBA, the Pennsylvania School Boards Association (http://www.psba.org/parents-public/board-candidates/how-to-run.asp), Federal employees are reminded that they are subject to the Hatch Act and barred from running for 'partisan elective office' such as for school board.  

This is not a homogenous position, nor should it be. I think we deserve to understand the political and fiscal philosophy that drives a potential school board member who is controlling a $91 million dollar budget made up of your federal, state and local tax dollars. Personally, recognizing that while we all want the best for our students,  I prefer to see fiscal conservatives in the seats who understand that we want the best education and resources we can afford, not someone who thinks this is still 2005 and every household in the district has unlimited affluence.

Now, if the Democrats are truly open to considering ANY qualified candidate, and endorsing them without requiring them to switch party affiliation, I'm all for it. In the past, there were qualified Republicans who were rebuffed by their own party in favor of  candidates who were Democrats until immediately prior to filing their petitions to run as Republicans, and who were clearly favored over the known fiscally conservative proclivities of the authentic Republican candidates because the former Democrats were believed to be more likely to push through approval and spending to build the new 5-6 school, which they ultimately did. Folks, that project alone is costing so much money that we will won't even begin to start paying down principal until 2018. That's 5 years AFTER my sophomore student graduates.

I certainly hope this isn't the case in these recessionary times, but perhaps those Republican candidates - some of whom are still interested in running - will find more support from the other side of the table than they got (or may get) from their own. I know our side doesn't exactly have people leaping out of the woodwork to take on the free-spending legacy left to us by some members of the current and immediate past school boards, and I have to believe this newfound openness to outsiders by the Democrats is at least in part driven by a similar lack of viable candidates on their side as well.

Whoever runs in 2011, candidates are needed who are not afraid to make some tough decisions over the next several years.The 2012 budget is already shaping up to have serious gaps, and increasing taxes at a time of high unemployment is not the answer. Difficult choices will have to be made about more services to be cut, and no matter what is done, people will be unhappy. Both parties should look to find candidates with the backbone to do it and the stomach for dealing with the grief it will cause.

By the way, if you're thinking of throwing your hat into the ring on either side of the ticket, you may never have less competition. Although you may find yourself running as a Republican endorsed by Democrats!

Trash Talk

Maybe you haven't heard, but trash is the hottest topic in the land these days. And everybody's got an opinion.

It's the system that has served Lower Providence well for almost twenty years, with Mascaro doing the hauling. We were one of the first townships to do contract for volume purchasing power with a single hauler; now the vast majority of municipalities across the state have caught up with us. Mascaro was the winning low bidder in the last six contract cycles dating back to the early 1990's. We were trendsetters in the waste removal arena before it was trendy to be.

The trash removal contract is up for rebid. There's been great debate about whether it should be rebid, and if so, how it should be rebid.

Recently, supervisors Chris DiPaolo and Rick Brown decided that we should get out of the trash business altogether and not put out a bid for one company to do trash removal. I'm sure this recent change of heart has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Chris, and close friends of both he and Rick Brown, were sued by Mascaro recently involving alleged election violations during the primary this past spring. Nah, probably just a coincidence.

The bid package that will be put out for bid will, in addition to a tiered pricing option depending on whether you want once or twice a week pickup, have an 'opt out' provision. The problem is, 3 supervisors think "opt out" means one thing, and 2 think it means something else.

Rick and Chris think 'opt out' means you opt out of the contract hauler option and instead pick your own company to pick up your trash. Piero Sassu, Marie Altieri and Craig Dininny support 'opt out' to mean that you are one of those folks who has some other option to handle your trash. Maybe you own a business, and you dispose of your residential trash there.  You have NO need for trash service here in Lower Providence.

The math associated with this option as interpreted by Rick and Chris is staggering. Here's a little word problem: if you and your neighbors select, between you, six different trash companies, and each of those six picks up one time a week for trash, one time for yard waste, and once for recycleables, how many trucks do you think that is thundering down your road each week?

That's a lot of trucks tearing up all the roads that were just paved...roads that have to last for ten years, until they're paid off. That's a lot of extra vehicles on the roads with the school buses each morning. That's a lot of extra noise.

What do you think makes sense? And for the record, since Election Day is coming up soon, Republican candidates Eckman/Thomas favor multiple haulers, and Democrat candidates Keenan/Heinegg support one contract hauler with tiered pricing based on how many pickups you need a week...a modification of what we have now.

I understand the township will be surveying residents on this issue. However, the survey is a mere two questions long and doesn't fully explain the options. Be sure to let your elected officials know just what you want, whether you respond to the survey, or take the time to email them.