I'm doing separate articles on the candidates for governor and lieutenant governor, separated by party, so you only need to read the one you'll be voting for in the election. Today's is for Republican voters, tomorrow's (Wednesday) Democrat.
GOVERNOR ~ Frankly, watching the 2 male GOP candidates snipe back and forth on their TV ads is like teaching middle school all over again. I want to give them detentions.
Laura Ellsworth is a lawyer (though she calls herself a "business leader") in Pittsburgh. It sounds like she does corporate law, especially litigation for large companies. She also calls herself a community leader, though adamantly claims she's not a politician and has never served in public office. Her issue statement has "Property Tax" right at the top and the rest contain phrases like "It is a failure of government to allow communities to be overrun with immigrants". The only citizens she mentions are veterans and seniors. Nothing about regular working people, nor women, and especially nothing about minority communities. Read her issue statements at
http://ellsworth2018.com/category/issues/
Paul Mango was a businessman for 25 years (so says his website, Wikipedia says 28, working for McKinsey & Company, a management consulting firm, working somehow with healthcare). Before that, he was in the military. No government experience at all. On his website, he says he's a "strong pro-life, pro-family, pro-faith" candidate. His issue statements are hard to read-you have to click on each from a drop down menu, then as you read each, different issues seem to be somewhat jumbled together on each page. Read them for yourself at
https://www.mangoforpa.com/ He does spend a good amount of TV time assuring his voters he's not a liberal and talking about Scott Wagner's shortcomings (some of which are lies).
Scott Wagner is a state senator from York County. He comes across as a Trump clone (not in a good way). He's already issued a TV ad promoting homophobia and hate, and another telling a slew of lies about his opponent Paul Mango. He doesn't come across in any ad as a particularly pleasant person. Unfortunately, he's the only candidate who seems to have a clue how government works. He only lists 4 issues: Economy, Budget, Education, and the Political System (legislators who go into politics to make money, then become lobbyists). Read them at
http://wagnerforgov.com/scotts-plan-to-fix-pa/
LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR
Jeff Bartos is from Montgomery County. It was difficult to find anything about him. The only website for his election (
https://wagnerbartos.com/) is more about Scott Wagner than Bartos. It says he's on the Wagner for Governor team, though he's not mentioned at all on Wagner's site above. Bartos is a real estate exec from Lower Merion. No experience in government. He lists no issue statements of his own. He comes across as Wagner's puppy (or he wants to be).
Kathy Coder is a businesswoman who founded Inta-Great, a company that trains executives and sales personnel (clients seem to be big corporations, healthcare and Big Pharma, and private colleges and charter schools). She's served as a councilwoman (suburb of Pittsburgh, population about 8400) and she's on the Republican State Committee. The words "leader" or "leadership" can be found in nearly every paragraph on her website. Her #1 issue is lowering the corporate tax rate. She also talks about leadership (there's that word again) training for, apparently, our politicians (I wonder if she'd want her company to provide that?). She does seem to address the opioid epidemic as a health issue (not many Republicans do that) and supports medical marijuana. Read her issues for yourself at
https://www.electkathycoder.com/platform
Diana Irey Vaughn is a Washington County Commissioner, in her 6th term. Supposedly, she's Paul Mango's running mate (though again, no mention on his site). She launched her own business (SucSeed) that provides a personal and professional development curriculum. She lists every one of her volunteer accomplishments on her website. I'll let you read them for yourself. She lists The Opiod Epidemic as her first issue. She even lists a few action points, though most of her statements are general and rather 2-dimensional. She's a lifetime member of the NRA. Her website takes a long time for each page to load.
http://dianaforpa.com/the-issues/
Peg Luksik grew up in the Philly burbs, was a teacher near Erie PA, and now lives in Cabria county (possibly retired?). She helped the PA Homeschool Association pass homeschool legislation. I could find no issues on her page. All I did find was a rambling lecture on "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" from the Declaration. If I had to guess, I'd say she was a Tea Party holdover.
https://www.pa4peg.com/about-peg/
No comments:
Post a Comment