Jun 7, 2022 1 min read

In 2021, Sen. Doug Mastriano was banned from Republican caucus meetings because he had disclosed information that the party leadership deemed to be confidential. Now that he is the party’s nominee for governor, they seem to have no choice but to invite him back in, although not all of the caucus members apparently are happy about doing so.

Jake Corman, when he was no longer a candidate for governor, tried to organize a “Stop Mastriano” campaign by encouraging other candidates to drop out and endorse a better choice, preferably Lou Barletta, as Corman had done.

His efforts were not successful; Pennsylvania Republican voters chose to rush to the bottom and nominate the least qualified and most dangerous-to-democracy candidate in the field.

No, they didn’t want him, but are now stuck with him. It will be interesting to watch them walk back their opposition to Mastriano with their inevitable statements of support for him, since they will likely prefer a bad-person Republican to a good-person Democrat.

Linda Serene

Pittsburgh