My friend Zen left this comment on an earlier thread:
Please Luzerne County voters, I beg of you, keep voting straight democrat. It will ensure that we have something to write about.
I read similar comments on the Times-Leader website all the time. I would be more than happy to vote for Republicans (sometimes I do) in the county if they would actually field some candidates.
In this upcoming election for the the state house races in the county the 5 Democratic incumbents don't even have a GOP opponent.
In last year's local elections there was no Republican candidate for Judge or District Attorney and the R candidate for Coroner was Dem that won on a write-in after losing the Democratic nomination.
The Commissioner candidates, Steve Urban and Bill Jones, wouldn't even talk to each other and after the election Jones switched to the Dems. The GOP nominee for Clerk of Courts had no money to defeat a 20+ year office holder and the Treasurer hopeful not only had no money she said the only change she would make is requiring licenses for cats.
It's hard to take this bunch seriously.
After the last shutout in 2007 people blamed the debacle on Luzerne County Republican Chairwoman Lynette Villano and they blamed her for the dismal showing in the election before that.
This is what I wrote last year:
From what I hear the local GOP organization resembles a collection of nerdy high school cliques that are getting bullied by the cool kids and will take whatever crumbs fall off the table. ..They can't raise money even though wealthy Republicans in the county regularly give to state and federal candidates. But many of them also contribute to the local Dems because they are smart business people who know that there isn't much chance of a Republican winning anything and want to influence the decision makers.
A new county Republican Chair is supposedly on the way, we''ll see. But Villano is not the whole problem. When I look at FEC and state finance reports I see that there is plenty of local GOP money but the people who donate to state and federal races skip the local ones or donate to the Dems. I find it hard to believe that the local Republicans can't find attractive candidates for local offices and back them financially.
Thank you for the mention. You accurately described the Republican party under Villano. I went to a few meetings and as they didn't know me, nor was i a memebr of the clique, they didn't want to hear a word from me. The result, I didn't bother with any further contact with them. You are also correct that people like me give copious amounts of money to candidates we believe in. The reason we don't see more republican candidates for county offices is that the democrat machine has a death grip on Luzerne County. It is futile to run as a member of any other party.
ReplyDeletegee i wonder what luzerne county republican gave to dems??????
ReplyDeleteanon, that's easy, all of them. The real question you should ask is which republicans got juicy county contracts out of it.
ReplyDeleteI'm disgusted with all local politicians from BOTH parties! They're just like the national level, they are ALL corrupt!
ReplyDeleteThat's sad, isn't it?
The older I get, the more ALL politicians disgust me!
ReplyDeleteWord has it we have a new patsy being groomed by the Back Mountain RINO crowd, Terry Casey.
ReplyDeleteDem death grip to continue for at least another decade.
I have been a Republican in Luzerne County since 1986. It is not just Villano. This has been the state of Republican Party in this county for far too long. They only time you see anything from this organization is when they appear on the ballots to become delegates to the National Convention. It is quite sad.
ReplyDelete