Allentown Pastor Seeks Dem Nomination in 15th

On Thursday night, US Congressman Charlie Dent (PA-15) stunned the local district by announcing his decision against seeking re-election next year. "[W]e need to give a stronger voice to the center at the moment," he said. "The sensible center is being left behind in too many cases." Two Lehigh Valley Republicans - Justin Simmons and Ryan MacKenzie - have already announced their intention to seek the GOP nomination. Bill Leiner announced as a Democrat so long ago that everyone has forgotten about him. Now you can add another Democrat to the mix in what is promising to be a hotly disputed race.

He's Greg Edwards, a colorful and sometimes controversial preacher at Allentown's Resurrected Life Church. Edwards claimed to respect Dent's statesmanship "in a time when civility in Washington has become increasingly rare.” But his candidacy is bound to take people out of their comfort zone.

According to his campaign announcement, "This moment does not call for moderation or incrementalism, but for revolutionary ideals rooted in true progress: single-payer health care, livable wages, strong public education, affordable college, good jobs, and a commitment to rebuilding the American dream."

He also jabs at Authoritarian Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans over Obamacare. “Since January 20, the drama of the politics of division and unchecked power run amok, has played out daily on our TV screens. This President and the Republicans in Congress are more interested in: taking healthcare away from millions of Americans to give unnecessary tax breaks to the 1% at the expense of our hardworking middle class; giving more to those who have sent our jobs overseas than in saving good jobs here; rewarding those who have so much while hurting families working hard just to get by.”

I first became acquainted with Edwards in 2014, when he was part of a federally funded task force concluding that the cause of wealth disparity is racism. "In fact, denying that racism exists is the new racism," charged the task force report.

Dent was the token centrist participating in that otherwise one-sided forum. He gently reminded that audience that wealth disparity is the necessary result of a free market economy. "We've always had it," he noted. He also cautioned against changing that approach to one in which power is concentrated. Under other systems, "You will see less prosperity and a heckuva' lot more cronyism," he warned, in an obvious reference to totalitarian regimes.

I also heard Edwards deliver the keynote speech at a Bethlehem Elks luncheon in 2016.

"We've got 18,000 children, a graduation rate of about 60%, and only 19% of that 60% go on to college. Almost 90% of our children qualify for free or reduced lunch. Eighty or 90% of our children are determined to be "at risk" in terms of poverty. Ninety per cent of the children are children of color and really, if I wasn't a preacher I'd cuss right here, but really, nobody cares.

"There seems to be a lack of outrage. We have churches everywhere. We have nonprofits everywhere. But there really seems to be a lack of consciousness on how important and how valuable our children's futures are when it comes to education.

"I firmly believe that one of our greatest civil liberties is public education."

But he claimed that we suffer from what he calls "educational apartheid."

"If our children cannot read by third grade, you know what happens academically. From Kindergarten to third grade, children are learning to read. After third grade, they are reading to learn. California already begins to forecast how many prisons they build by the reading scores of third graders.

"In my social context, in Allentown, nearly 70% of our third graders are not at third grade reading levels. So now, Ray Ray and Pookie can't read. Then what happens is our children go into middle school. What happens in middle school, those transition years? They go through puberty. Some of y'all remember that, right? You survived it, they'll survive it, too. But their bodies begin to change. Their voices begin to deepen. But at the end of the day, they're our babies, our children. But they are placed in the hands of people who have some level of cultural dissonance and don't understand that just because a child is different doesn't mean he's deficient.

"Now because our children have struggled - can't read - they begin to see some behavioral issues. They no longer become cute. Now they're in crisis and they begin to be labeled. But the state gives every school district extra funding for special education, which is therefore why our children end up in special education.

"We are funding what I call educational apartheid in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

"It is not required for a child to go to kindergarten. So you can have a 7 year old show up for school, never having been around children his or her age which means they have not been socialized to the learning environment. If we cannot socialize to the learning environment, your behavior begins to be different. But because our teachers in large part don't look like our students, there is empirical categorizing and there is the evolution of a slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow change."

"Our children think they are dumb. I have never encountered a child who can not learn. I've encountered a whole lot of folk who can't teach, but I have never encountered a young person who is not creative, who does not have some level of artistry residing in him, who does not want to be listened to or heard. But I have run into some incompetent people who call themselves teachers."

Edwards is a great and inspiring speaker, and precisely the wrong kind of person to represent Pennsylvania's moderate 15th Congressional District. The Democrat who wins this race will be a person who speaks Charlie Dent's language and who appeals to the "sensible center."

That person is John Morganelli. In January, long before Charlie Dent's "sensible center" remarks, Morganelli penned an op-ed that asked, "Where has the sensible middle gone?

"There was a time in American politics when those who were able to straddle the "moderate middle ground" were the most successful. Today just the opposite is true. The most successful are those who, in their respective parties, adhere rigidly and strictly to the party ideology. Until that changes, it will be difficult to govern with any type of consensus and America will be evenly divided as we have seen in recent elections."

Someone like Morganelli can pick up where Charlie left off.