You could have knocked me over with a sledgehammer when I read that the Cambria County Republican Party had ended a years-long practice of not endorsing primary candidates and chose to pick two candidates not named John DeBartola or Joseph Taranto to push for county commissioner.
Seriously. This was as stunning as the sun rising each morning and setting each evening, the ongoing veils of secrecy that cloak the behind-the-scenes dealings of Johnstown power brokers, as well as the certainty of death and taxes.
I jest, of course. Going against populists is nothing new for the Republican establishment.
Recall how hard they worked to make sure Donald Trump did not secure the nomination for president in 2016. And, when he did, the party didn’t go full-on to support him. He wasn’t “electable” they said.
Trump won despite that. I stand by my statement at the time that nonpartisan historians will record it as the greatest triumph in American politics because Trump not only had to beat the opposition Democrats to prevail, he also had to overcome his own party, the Republicans.
I also stand by my assessment, made shortly after the Trump win, that he would not win again. The Democrats got caught with their pants down – figuratively this time – presuming Hillary’s coronation was a done deal. They didn’t pull out all their “vote enhancement” tricks and Hillary suffered a defeat she still will not accept.
Of course that’s fine because Hillary is a leftist Democrat and the likes of her and serial Georgia loser Stacey Abrams can deny the legitimacy of elections until they grow hoarse – sadly they never seem to lose their screechy voices – and there are no repercussions for their denials.
But give Democrats credit, they didn’t repeat their Hillary error and were able to drag comatose Clueless Joe Biden over the finish line to alleged victory. They did this by using tried and true devices like scanning cases full of ballots after observers had been sent home, harvesting ballots from the citizenry (some dead and some illegal aliens) and generally making sure their governmental agents at the state level kept all their machinations supposedly within the bounds of legality.
We are to believe that Biden, with all the charisma and cognitive function of a cucumber, garnered the most votes in U.S. history.
Yeah, sure.
The Republican Party also gave us Dr. Oz as a Senate candidate, who managed to lose to another vegetable, this one named John Fetterman.
It was Biden redux. Fetterman’s claim to fame was being mayor of a community as crime-ridden and economically downtrodden as Johnstown. He ascended to the role of Lieutenant Governor, where he did a good job of looking homeless in shorts and a hooded sweatshirt.
With a wife who is a former illegal immigrant, Fetterman was a leftist’s wet dream candidate.
Just to add to it all, he suffered a stroke during the campaign and went into a Biden-like bunker. When he emerged, he gave a ridiculous performance in the only debate, contradicting his past statements on such things as fracking and generally looking like he was lost.
If the Republicans had put up a legitimate candidate instead of carpetbagging Dr. Oz, it should have been a win.
Instead, Fetterman “won” the election and since then has been checked into the hospital for issues both physical and mental.
Way to go, Republican Party.
We can’t have people like DeBartola and Taranto, a couple of rabble-rousers who expose dirty dealing, refuse to kiss the butts of the elites and generally exhibit a strong ethical compass, running for county commissioner with the Republican blessing. Not electable, eh?
If there is any electoral justice, DeBartola and Taranto will pull a Trump, defying the preferences of their party and win not only in the primary, but also the general election.
We can dream, can’t we?
Sam Ross Jr's site 