I don't understand how a fellow Bernie Supporter, who wants to signal a need for change to the Democratic party, can say that McGinty is a "good" candidate. She and her lobbyist husband have long & deep ties to fracking and big energy, as does her mentor & campaign manager , Ed Rendell. She epitomizes the revolving door between government and the oil and gas industry in the Commonwealth. She has actually been rebuked by the state ethics committee and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for funneling tax dollars to her husband.”
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/426513/reid-backs-scandal-tarred-candidate-pa-senate-race-elaina-plott
She's never held elective office and has been abysmal at raising campaign money, to the extent that the DSCC has just pumped $1.5 million into her campaign to try to overcome Sestak's 16 point lead in the polls through media ads. That money traditionally has been given to a winner of the Democratic primary for use in campaigning against the GOP candidate in the general election - except of course, the last time when Sestak ran against Arlen Specter, & the Dems financed Arlen's failed primary bid.
If you familiarize yourself with the history of Sestak's congressional career and political campaigns you know that the establishment Dems in the state and federal level (including Rahm Emanuel and Bill Clinton) stridently oppose him exactly because he does not go along with the entrenched Dem. machine at the state or federal level.
Focusing on McGinty's scandal riddled, ethically challenged political history, I refer you to a couple of articles:
http://public-accountability.org/2013/02/fracking-and-the-revolving-door-in-pennsylvania/
Numerous top government officers and environmental regulators in Pennsylvania have either left their public jobs for careers in the oil and gas industry or come to government from the industry.
The revolving door trend in Pennsylvania raises questions about whether regulators are serving the public interest or private industry interests in their oversight of fracking. (Note that Rendell is McGinty's campaign manager.)
The following are major findings from the report:
(1)Pennsylvania’s previous three governors have strong ties to the natural gas industry. Tom Ridge’s firms benefited from a $900,000 contract to lobby for the Marcellus Shale Coalition, Mark Schweiker joined a lobbying firm with a Marcellus Shale practice, and Ed Rendell is a partner in a private equity firm invested in fracking services companies and recently lobbied on behalf of driller Range Resources. Current governor Tom Corbett also has strong ties to the industry – he received more than $1 million in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry and previously worked as a lawyer for Waste Management, which is active in the Marcellus Shale.
(2)Every Secretary of Environmental Protection since the DEP was created has had ties to the natural gas industry. Jim Seif is now a principal and energy consultant at Ridge Global LLC, one of former governor Ridge’s firms that lobbied for the Marcellus Shale Coalition; David Hess is now a lobbyist at Crisci Associates and has gas industry clients; Kathleen McGinty has served on the boards of two energy companies, is managing director of a consulting firm that is part of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, and is a partner in former Governor Rendell’s private equity firm; John Hanger is now special counsel to a law firm that represents every segment of the natural resources industry; and Michael Krancer is former general counsel at a utility that relies on natural gas and a former partner at a law firm member of the Marcellus Shale Coalition.
Last week, Harry Reid predicted a win for McGinty, and slammed her main rival, Joe Sestak, as “an unproductive candidate for us.” Sestak, a former three-star admiral in the Navy who is much beloved by the party’s grassroots, has been gunning for a Senate seat since his 2010 bid against Toomey. Reid and his colleagues are so hell-bent on keeping him at bay that they’ve embraced
McGinty, whose past is checkered by a protracted state ethics investigation. “The establishment is behind McGinty, but the grassroots — the core of the Democratic party — is die-hard for Sestak,” says Vincent Galko, a consultant at the public-affairs firm Mercury LLC. “It will be interesting to see how much political capital Reid and others want to burn” defending a candidate who
“became infamous for having an ethics committee name a rule after her.” Indeed, Reid’s enthusiastic endorsement papers over
McGinty’s pockmarked record as the state’s environmental protection secretary under then-governor Ed Rendell, who currently serves as her campaign chairman.
From 2003 to 2007, McGinty awarded $2.6 million in grants to environmental firms that, in 2007, employed her husband, provoking a Pennsylvania ethics-committee investigation and the creation of a statewide law prohibiting cabinet members from channeling grant dollars to their spouses’ employers. When it became clear that McGinty had bestowed her department’s largesse on two firms that paid her husband, Karl Hausker, $3,700 for consulting work, Republicans in the state Senate cried foul, demanding more time to consider Rendell’s renomination of McGinty to her cabinet post. Rendell balked, complaining that it was “ludicrous” to imply a conflict of interest in the department’s grants, and accusing Republican lawmakers of political theater. But fearing that McGinty couldn’t win reconfirmation, he acquiesced and allowed the Senate GOP to feed the case to the state Ethics Commission.
The seven-member
commission, without judging the ethicality of past grants,
ruled that McGinty, if she continued to approve grants to companies that employed her husband, would be in violation of state ethics law, and would face up to five-years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Pledging to adhere to the new ruling, McGinty was reconfirmed with a 42-6 vote, but notably opposed by two female Democratic senators from her own backyard in southeastern Pennsylvania.
Two years later, the Rendell administration was still reeling, pushing the issue to the state Supreme Court in 2009. The ruling was upheld.
Read more at:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/426513/reid-backs-scandal-tarred-candidate-pa-senate-race-elaina-plott
In contrast, Sestak successfully ran for his House seat against the explicit advice/order of Rahm Emanuel. He was the 2nd Democrat elected to the Senate from his Congressional District since the civil war. In the Congress he was named the most productive freshman member. His office was available to constituents' calls 24/7. As noted in the Inquirer's endorsement, Sestak puts principle above party. That sounds a lot like Bernie Sanders to me. And while Sestak hasn't endorsed Sanders, neither has he endorsed Clinton - as McGinty/Rendell have. After handily defeating Specter in the 2010 primary, and in an off year when the GOP swept many races, Sestak lost to Toomey by only 2%, despite being outspent 4 to 1 (because he got zip financial support from the national Dems).
RE: Mayor John Fetterman
I think Fetterman is an intelligent, good-hearted, well-intentioned guy, but he doesn't have a chance at winning this primary (last poll I saw had him at 7%), and sad to say, may damage Sestak's chances, and result in McGinty winning. It's a big leap from very small town mayor to United States Senator. As intelligent as Fetterman is, he'd have an incredibly steep learning curve on both procedure and substance. He has next to no name recognition outside of SW Pennsylvania - and frankly, and unfair as it may be, his heavily bearded and tatooed appearance will put off many voters.
I think he joined the race to start building up statewide recognition and to get a platform for his policy positions. I hope he runs again - for either state legislature or perhaps U.S. House. I don't say he should adopt a dress for success public image, new-outfit-every-damn-day-like-Hillary but losing, or at least neatly trimming the beard would be a good idea. As would be long sleeves to cover up some of the tattoos. And the shaved head? It just reminds me of WWF. He has a picture on his FB page of himself years back in a suit and tie, without the beard or shaved head. He looked fine/normal, if you will. When I taught trial advocacy, I used to tell the students - dress appropriately - you want people to listen to your arguments, not be distracted by your appearance.
Sestak had the support of almost one third of Democrats (31 percent) to McGinty’s one in seven (14 percent). Braddock Mayor John Fetterman had the support of about one in 14 voters (7 percent). Joe Vodvarka, the spring and wire-form manufacturing company owner, had no support.
Sestak has gone from leading by 4 points in a January F&M poll and 9 points in February to a 17-point lead in the latest, all before anyone airs large numbers of television commercials.
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