According to several news outlets, Lehigh County Controller Mark Pinsley has announced his intention to seek the Democratic nomination in the Pa.-7 Congressional race. His Statement of Candidacy was filed with the FEC on July 30.
He's got company, including NorCo County Exec Lamont McClure, Susan Wild puppet Carol Obando-Derstine, and Republican-turned Democrat Ryan Croswell, who resided in D.C. until he was urged to run.
Pinsley is a poster boy for what is wrong with Democrats. He's a blatant opportunist. No sooner was he elected South Whitehall Tp Commissioner than he announced he was running against Pat Browne in a State Senate race. Undaunted after losing, he took on Lehigh County Controller Glenn Eckhart in the next election cycle and knocked him off. As Controller, he proposed both an increase in sales tax in Lehigh County as well as an income tax that would hurt low-income families that work multiple jobs just to put food on the table. He called for UN observers in the 2020 presidential election, He also revealed his true feelings about Allentown and Bethlehem when he objected to them being combined as part of redistricting. "We don't need another ghetto," he said. Well, we don't need Pinsley. While running for re-election as Lehigh County Controller, he told donors he was running for state auditor general. He did and he lost Then he started telling donors he wanted to run for the US Senate, but appears to have put that off for a seat in the House.
The most offensive thing about him was his use of families accused of child abuse as political props. He paraded them before both Northampton County Council and Lehigh County's Board of Comm's with unproven claims of misdiagnoses of child abuse. His claims were completely contrary to the philosophy of the human services departments in both counties, which will only separate children from their family as a last resort, and with due process. His actions solved nothing, but he did get a $50,000 campaign donation from the lawyer who filed a class action on behalf of families claiming they were wrongly accused of child abuse. Both LehiCo and NorCo have been dismissed as Defendants in that matter.
He's never shied away from using his public office to play politics. Most recently, he did that with a thinly disguised political rally disguised as a "town hall" to discuss planned federal cuts to Medicaid on a county level.
I still believe that of all candidates on the left or the right, the person best suited for Congress was John Morganelli, a true centrist. He's unfortunately done with politics. Lamont McClure has been his protege.
