LETTER: GOP failed with Mastriano pick
The Pennsylvania Republican party has shown its true ugly colors in providing a decisive victory to state Sen. Doug Mastriano in the race for the Republican nomination for governor.
Mastriano wears his military service and religious fervor on his sleeve, demonstrating that such facets of one’s life do not serve to confer honor, integrity, decency, or patriotism on an individual.
He supports a ban on abortions with no exception for rape, incest, or to save the endangered life of the mother. He seeks to make voting more difficult to exclude those he considers undesirable, and as a Trump wannabe, he deeply regrets that he approved legislation to allow mail-in voting since it did not work out in Trump’s favor. He spent thousands of dollars of campaign money to bring a crowd to the pre-insurrection speech of its instigator, Donald Trump, in which the former president egged on the crowd by telling them with his usual bombast and fury, “You’ve got to fight like hell or you’re not going to have a country anymore!” He made a fool of himself and our state through his prominent efforts to overturn the Pennsylvania vote in 2020, even taking his campaign to Arizona, which engaged in a widely discredited and laughed-at effort to perform more audits of its state’s results. Mastriano did not question any election result in which a Republican won. He could be counted upon to appoint a secretary of state who believes that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, someone who could commandeer the vote in future elections. Mastriano would restrict our rights, except, of course, for gun rights, as like most Republicans, he believes that we are safer when everyone is armed.
The bright side for us Democrats and believers in democracy is that even Mastriano’s Republican opponents in this race have told the truth about one thing: Mastriano cannot win in a state like Pennsylvania.
Mastriano will go down to defeat at the hands of an honorable, hard-working, accomplished Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who has been a devoted and tireless friend and advocate for Pennsylvanians and for democracy. Shapiro can be counted upon to continue to protect our hard-fought rights and liberties, most importantly our democratic system of governance. He will be a bulwark against mischief that a Republican General Assembly would otherwise be able to succeed in perpetrating.
I suggest that Senator Mastriano move to a state in which his brand of Neanderthal ideology would be appreciated. Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas will welcome you with open arms, Senator.
Oren Spiegler
Peters Township