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Why Lentz’s silence doesn’t sit right

Bryan Lentz doesn’t want to comment on Jim Schneller’s nominating petitions. Not on Wednesday in Tinicum. Not on Thursday in Clifton Heights. Not if you call up his campaign on the phone.

Schneller, in case you missed the political story of the week, is the conservative, third-party candidate in the 7th Congressional District. He filed enough signatures to get on the ballot, but only thanks to some big help from folks allied with Lentz, the Democratic nominee. The political strategy here is simple: get a conservative on the ballot, siphon votes away from Republican Pat Meehan, win the state’s most competitive—and most bitter—House race.

It’s worth pausing here to say that Democrats are playing within the rules of the road, and Republicans have done the same thing when they could find a liberal candidate to play spoiler. So I don’t see anything inherently wrong with what Lentz and the Democrats are doing here, though people who consider it unethical surely can find good company.

No, what’s been bothering me for a few days is Lentz’s silence on the matter. Both he and his campaign have been too-cute-by-half. It took me a little while, but I figured out why it’s bothering me: I don’t believe Lentz has lived up to the very high standard he himself set when it comes to being accountable for the actions of your supporters.

To understand where I’m coming from, we need to go back to the spring, when Lentz was raising hell about Meehan’s troubled nominating petition drive. A ballot challenge spearheaded by his campaign fell short, but in the process, Team Lentz was able to expose significant impropriety within Meehan’s petitions, some of which has been confirmed by news organizations and all of which remains under investigation by the state attorney general’s office.

Again, it’s worth pausing to note that comparing the conduct of Meehan’s supporters with that of Lentz’s supporters is like comparing apples and oranges. Some folks who back Meehan very well may have broken the law, whereas the people who back Lentz are just playing politics.

But let’s get back to the standard Lentz set. In seeking to hold Meehan accountable for fraudulent nominating petitions, Lentz said: “If Meehan isn’t responsible for his campaign… who is? The buck has to stop somewhere.”

Fair enough, Representative Lentz. But now the shoe’s on the other foot. If Meehan was responsible for those who gathered signatures on his behalf, than Lentz is responsible for those who did the same for him. And yes, technically these signatures were gathered on behalf of Jim Schneller. But more honestly, they were gathered to further the election of Bryan Lentz. Whether or not he knew or authorized what they were doing, by his standard, is almost besides the point.

And the extent to which Lentz’s supporters helped Schneller get on the ballot is overwhelming. The facts no longer need to be attributed to the Meehan campaign’s research: I’m still poring through Schneller’s petitions myself, but I’ve confirmed the crux of what Team Meehan has been saying. With the exception of Schneller himself and one registered Republican, it seems that all of Schneller’s circulators were registered Democrats, and most of them can be tied to Lentz by far less than Six Degrees of Separation. At least five of those circulators also gathered signatures for Lentz. And as we noted from the beginning, one of them is Colleen Guiney, the volunteer who Lentz once called “the hardest worker on my campaign.”

These facts, along with the seemingly coordinated way in which Lentz’s supporters have chosen not to return reporters’ calls, can only lead us to conclude that this effort originated from within the leadership of the Lentz campaign, or at least the local Democratic Party. And again, there’s nothing inherently wrong with this.

But why the silence, especially when it’s so out of character for Lentz?

As a journalist, one of the things I’ve often appreciated about the man was his willingness to stand directly in front of what his campaign was doing, to speak for himself, to crash his opponent’s press conference and take questions for longer than the man who actually called the press conference. The comments from Lentz’s campaign manager have on this subject have been disingenuous at best. And however little, the silence from the candidate himself has put a dent in Lentz’s image as a guy who will take on all comers, answer all questions. I can’t speak for all my colleagues. But I have a hunch that it’s the stark contrast between Talkative-Lentz and No-Comment-Lentz has played a big role in coloring local press coverage.

This dynamic is worsened by what appears to be some erasing of the digital footprints by Team Lentz. For example, a Facebook photograph from Lentz’s office opening party was once tagged with the name of one of the Schneller circulators. That tag has been removed. That same supporter’s name has been removed from Lentz’s ActBlue fundraising page.

Why act like you’re doing something wrong when you’re not?

To be fair, Meehan is hardly living up to the standard Lentz set, either. He’s never stood before a reporter and answered questions about his petitions. His campaign overreached in trying to narrowly define the scope of the petition fraud, and ever since then has waved off questions on the subject as petty politics from Lentz. So when Meehan says Lentz has to “stop hiding,” as he did this week, that’s pretty much the definition of throwing stones from inside a glass house.

But today we’re talking about Lentz, and for the life of me, I just don’t understand why a guy who’s built his rapport with the press on forthrightness would go quiet like this. In having this conversation with many Democrats, some have asked me, exasperated: “What can the guy really say?”

Well, I understand this is an impolitic subject to address. But here’s something Lentz could have said:

“I think a true conservative like Jim Schneller has something to add to the debate.”

Or, if you want bonus points for political honesty, try this one:

“I believe I’m the best candidate to represent this district, and I’m going to do whatever it takes, within the rules of the game, to win this thing.”

Lentz wouldn’t comment for this post. But I know him better than I know most candidates we cover here, and I strongly suspect it’s this last explanation that reflects his true feelings. When The Inquirer pigenholed him Thursday, here’s what he had to say:

“I think my answer is a fair one: that Schneller took [the petitions] to Harrisburg and filed them and I think it’s fair for him to answer questions about the petitions. That whole process was Jim Schneller’s ballot and Jim Schneller should answer the questions.”

Look, let’s be honest: Just like the Meehan petition controversy, this whole mess will have little impact on Election Day. It’s fun for us political junkies to talk about, and it mostly ends there.

But one of Lent’s larger strategic advantages was a seeming ability to beat Meehan in the public messaging war at almost every turn.

For the first time, I think he may have jeopardized that advantage.

August 6, 2010 at 1:00 pm

--Dan Hirschhorn

Tags: Bryan Lentz, Jim Schneller, PA-7, Pat Meehan

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