I don’t think he’d be elected, but I don’t want to gamble.
Doug Mastriano, a retired military officer whose grasp of government is less than a competent 9th grader’s, has bowed out of Pennsylvania’s 2024 U.S. Senate contest (see story here).
Mastriano (bio here) is a theocrat who takes his cues about governing from “prophets,” not the constitution or secular laws (see story here). He has called separation of church and state a “myth” even though it’s embedded in the Constitution. He’s closely identified with Christian nationalism, even though he rejects the label.
Another problem is he refuses to talk to reporters, which is a basic responsibility of politicians. We’re entitled to know what they stand for, and what they’ll do in office.
Considered by most people an extremist, Mastriano easily won a seat in the Pennsylvania state senate, which he still holds today, but suffered crushing defeats in campaigns for Congress (2020) and governor (2022).
Pennsylvania Republicans, wary of his unelectability, didn’t want him to run for Senate, where he would face a popular Democratic incumbent, Bob Casey. They’re hoping for a pickup there, and don’t want a throwaway nominee who, while popular among GOP primary voters, turns off a majority of general election voters.
This illustrates a practical problem facing the Republican Party as a whole: It’s saddled with a base of crazy voters who go for toxic candidates. This largely explains the
GOP’s collapse in the 2022 midterm elections. GOP strategists are acutely aware of their problem, but can’t control the party’s voters.
It also shows the GOP’s fundamental problem is voters, not candidates. They would get good candidates if they had responsible and thoughtful voters. America is a large country of 330 million people, and while no political party is all things to all people, there’s a place for a party whose emphasis is individual freedom, smaller government, and free enterprise.
The Democrats are good at representing workers, consumers, minorities, senior citizens, young people, and marginalized groups like LGBQT people, but they don’t have all the answers or always the right answers. America’s political system benefits from competition between reasonable sets of beliefs, priorities, candidates, and policy agendas.
The Republicans don’t have that in someone like Mastriano, who should’ve stuck to what he knows, which is fighting wars. Election and climate denialism, anti-Muslim and anti-LGBQT bigotry, and religion-based governing puts him firmly in the nutcase camp. Our ancestors came to America fleeing from Europe’s religious wars, and we don’t need that history repeated here.
But make no mistake, Pennsylvania’s Republican leaders aren’t against Mastriano running for the Senate because of his crazy beliefs or propensity to ignore the rights of people who don’t think like he does. They don’t want to lose, period, and know a clunker when they see one. That’s not a principled rejection of a flawed candidate. It’s rejection of losing. They would support him, Confederate uniform and all, if they thought he could win. And that’s a problem.