On Tuesday there was a special election for the House in Pennsylvania House district, PA-12. This has been a reliably safe Republican seat during the incumbency of Tom Marino. Marino resigned in January leading to the need for a special election to fill the seat.
There were two main-stream candidates, Fred Keller (R) and Marc Friedenberg (D). Keller was a state legislator while Friedenberg, an academic and lawyer, had run against Marino in 2018.
Friedenberg campaigned in support of issues like free Medicare-for-All and the need for the planet to convert to renewable energy,
“I accept the scientific consensus that climate change poses a threat to our future on this planet.”
“I’m proud to support the fight for a single-payer, Medicare-for-all insurance program.”
He opposed the idea that parents should have a choice in where to send their children to be educated. He voiced the need to pump more tax dollars into public school districts to help kids succeed. He opposed “right to work” laws that give individuals the right to opt out of having to belong to a union in order to hold a job. Of course, following Bernie Sanders lead, Friedenberg did not provide any way to raise all the money needed for these initiatives.
These are all standard Democratic talking points. They all revolve around the idea that more government is better government. That is, that more control exerted by the government in the marketplace leads to better outcomes for all.
Keller campaigned on rolling back excessive regulations in order to allow the marketplace to thrive, that fewer regulations mean more jobs and higher wages. Keller came out in support of PDJT’s immigration policies noting that illegal immigration is a threat to the jobs and wages of American workers. Fred quoted the late Jack Kemp when he said, “We must close the backdoor of illegal immigration so that we can keep open the front door of legal immigration.”
In these kinds of elections where there is no incumbent, it is normal for the gap between the two parties in the previous general election to narrow. This is particularly true when the previous incumbent resigns amid hints of scandal. Marino had won by 32 points. I am sure that the Democrats had a press release ready to trumpet a “victory” and a repudiation of PDJT’s policies if the gap had been narrowed to 10 points or even 20 points. Friedenberg had the advantage of name recognition since he had run against Marino in 2018.
The actual result.
Keep in mind that this is an even higher margin than was enjoyed by Marino, who was a multi-term incumbent. Such incumbency is usually a significant advantage.
It certainly appears that Keller’s candidacy was not hurt by PDJT’s appearance at his campaign rally on Monday in Montoursville. Keller’s margin of victory may be a signal that Democratic talking points are becoming less effective in their push to expand their power in Washington. They may need to heighten their efforts at voter fraud if they expect to do so.
Why did PDJT choose to go to a campaign rally for Keller? And why Montoursville? Keller was expected to win big. The President’s support was a nice gesture but unnecessary. It is interesting that PDJT chose Montoursville. Montoursville is a small town (<5000 pop.) in Pennsylvania. There are certainly many, many places in PA-12 with a larger population than Montoursville.
Jack Cashill over at American Thinker noted,
If there was a reason President Donald Trump chose the small Pennsylvania town of Montoursville to hold a campaign rally, no one in the media is saying what it is. In the absence of any answers, let me suggest one, admittedly more speculative than proven but a possibility nonetheless.
In 1996, during the midst of Bill Clinton’s desperate drive to become president, 16 French club members from the Montoursville high school and five of their chaperones died in the crash of TWA Flight 800 off the coast of Long Island.
Although the phrase has been much abused, there is none better than “cover-up” to describe what followed. Like many initiatives the Clinton White House choreographed, this one was highly improvisational. Before it was through, with the CIA calling the shots and the FBI following its lead, the TWA 800 investigation would make several sharp course corrections.
To be sure, the great majority of those working the investigation had little or no idea it was being misdirected. Some who did harbor suspicions bravely resisted the misdirection, but they had almost nowhere to turn with their protests. Had there been a vigilant media to hear these individuals, or even a mature internet to share their objections, the truth would have surfaced, but it has not. At least not yet.
What better place to start the unraveling than Montoursville?
As noted above, Montoursville was disproportionately affected by this disaster on July 17, 1996, off East Moriches, New York. 21 of the 230 on board were Montoursville-area residents.
Cashill has written two books on the subject. Cover-up is the best word to use to describe what was done.
Understanding that PDJT has unusually sharp tactical instincts, is PDJT signaling that he knows what happened to TWA 800? Will sunlight finally come to the TWA 800 disaster? Will actions choreographed by the Clinton White House to win an election finally be exposed? If so, it will be another positive outcome from electing Trump as President.
