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| Cindy Miller |
Miller has managed to alienate a lot of people in her quest for the state house. She suffers from a "vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself." This became evident last year, long before she announced. In Northampton County, Executive John Brown attempted to put her on the Gaming Board, even though to do so he would have to remove Tony Pristash, a Northampton Borough Council member and a Republican who was doing a good job and wanted to remain.
Brown disingenuously told Council he wanted to replace Miller with Pristash to "mix it up," but the reality is he wanted to raise her visibility to assist her election to the state house. Smelling that politics was in the mix, Council refused to confirm this appointment, and Brown was ultimately forced to withdraw Miller's nomination.
As an indication of just how smart I am, I completely missed out on why Brown nominated Miller.But her hubris became more evident when she jumped the gun and announced her candidacy without giving Harhart a chance to announce her retirement.
From there, she went on to file two nomination challenges against the two other Republicans running for this seat, Zach Mako and Marc Grammes. In a news release about her challenge to Grammes, she referred to herself as a "small businesswoman, trusted township supervisor, wife, and mother." But returning a call from me about that news release was apparently beneath her, even though she included a contact number. She succeeded in removing Grammes, which alienated his supporters as well as numerous other Lehigh County Republicans. But she failed to get rid of Mako.
At a debate, Mako was so uninformed about most issues that I question whether he should even be allowed to fly a helicopter. "As you can tell, I am not a politician and this is not my bag," he said at one point. But his pre-election campaign finance report, which is available at the state site, makes pretty clear that he has the support of politicians.
Mako reports $12,000 in contributions, with the biggest contribution by far being $10,000 from State Rep. Marc Mustio on April 8. In addition, retired political consultant Tom Severson provided a $450 in-kind contribution of street lists and robo calls.
Why would Severson get involved? It's no secret that he and Julie Harhart were close friends for many years. He ran many of her campaigns.
Then there's Mustio from Moon Township on the other side of the state. Why would he give Mako $10,000?
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| Zach Mako |
Though Harhart will not come and directly endorse Mako, she and her colleagues in the state house and senate are willing to be sneaky. They laundered contributions to Mako through Mustio. It's safe to say he is her preferred successor.
Harhart, Emrick and Hahn refuse to file electronic campaign finance reports. They file paper reports, and likely hoped that the election would be over long before we were any the wiser. But someone forget to tell Mustio to file a paper report.
How about Miller? She filed a paper report. She'll fit right in.
Basically, the Republicans have one ambitious candidate who has alienated everyone and one clueless candidate who will be controlled.
And Democrat Phillips Armstrong. He filed an electronic report so the public can follow his campaign finance.
6 comments:
Joe Emrich is a terrible rep, disliked by his fellow reps. He does nothing for the district. Has never gotten anything passed. But spent 7 years trying to get ONE stoplight.
In early November, the Entrenchment in Harrisburg told Harhart she would be retiring at the end of her term to make way. Incidentally, on November 13, Cindy Miller registered her website. There is good reason, for Harhart not to be happy with the Harrisburg entrenchment, knowing she is being pushed out involuntarily. Afterall these are the folks that think Brown is doing a good job and should be given a promo to Auditor. Maybe Harhart was no longer a puppet for the Harrisburg Entrenchment. Entrenchment politics, bad for PA.
Marcia Hahn is also a do nothing, puppet politician. She just takes up space! Too bad the Democrats did not run anyone this time. Emerick is also a waste.
To find out more about Marc and what he stands for, here is a link to his website when he was an "official" candidate.
http://www.electmarcgrammes.com/
Write him in and make History
So as I read this today I became so disgusted with the deceit and corruption present in this race, but am not naive to realize that this is how many campaigns are being "fixed". Once again, I question the antics of those who got Marc Grammes, the most qualified candidate, thrown off the ballot. Him being the one with the most signatures and experience. CM has on her brochure that she is "constituent focused" , I beg to differ given her proclamation that she had nothing to do with the challenge, and yet she paid for the attorney who took it in to court, so her actions denied those constituents she is focused on our voting rights. Marc Grammes made several attempts to reach out to her to reconsider her challenge but not once was he granted a personal conversation, everything goes through her Campaign Manager. In fact Marc Grammes had the opportunity to challenge her petitions which seemed like a winable challenge but chose not to as he was confident that the challenge against him would be dismissed given the fact that he corrected it and in no way intentionally sought to deceive. He also could have challenged Mr. Mako's petition, but instead contacted him and offered him advice on how to correctly file his documents. Because you see this is the type of Man Marc Grammes is, admirable, moral and ethical. It is obvious by the findings of the journalist who revealed the laundering taking place in this campaign, that the political henchman involved are no better than criminals inflicting crimes against their victims. This reaks of corruption, almost Mafioso like. I for one will write in Marc Grammes on April 26,2016 and I urge others to take back your rights and do the same.
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