Unnecessary, unfortunate remarks

I would like to congratulate my counterpart, Bob Kerns, on being unanimously reelected as chairman of the Montgomery County Republican Committee. It has been a long time since there has been a unanimous opinion about anything among county Republicans. Kerns should be proud.

What Kerns should be less proud of are the comments he made upon being reelected.

June 14, 2010 at 9:15 am | Comments (17)

The ‘Matthews effect,’ the 13th District and the decline of the MontCo GOP

The Montgomery County GOP has endorsed pEarly comments on the vote have emphasized the so-called a href="http://writemarsh.blogspot.com/2010/02/mathews-effect-claims-its-latest-victim.html" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://writemarsh.blogspot.com']);return TrackClick("http%3A%2F%2Fwritemarsh.blogspot.com%2F2010%2F02%2Fmathews-effect-claims-its-latest-victim.html','Matthews+Effect')" target="_blank">Matthews Effect,…

February 12, 2010 at 2:10 pm | Comments (3)

MontCo GOP chair backs Gerlach’s reelection bid

The chairman of the Montgomery County Republican Committee publicly voiced his support for Congressman Jim Gerlach’s (R-6) reelection bid Monday, and urged his fellow committee members to join him in backing the incumbent.

In a statement, county GOP leader Bob Kerns said Gerlach “has a tremendous record in Washington as a fiscal conservative fighting for taxpayers and families.”

“The Republican Party, and residents of the 6th Congressional District, are fortunate that he has decided to…

January 18, 2010 at 10:36 am | Comments (3)

EXCLUSIVE: Lower Merion commish might join 6th District Dem primary

Democratic insiders across the 6th Congressional District have increasingly been seeing next year’s primary as a pLower Merion Township Commissioner Brian Gordon confirmed Thursday that he is seriously considering a run and will make a final decision within a week. In an interview with empa2010.com/em, Gordon said he was moving “quickly because I…

December 10, 2009 at 9:25 pm | Comments (10)

A dispatch from MontCo, featuring Specter and Sestak

An alert Montgomery County reader “Bonnie” e-mails pa2010.com with this report from Sunday night’s Montgomery County Democratic Committee dinner:

Marcel Groen, Montgomery County Democratic Committee chairman, presided over a dinner at the Crowne Plaza in King of Prussia with 400 guests in attendance! Congressman Joe Sestak spoke early in the evening, then raced out to the Chester County Democratic dinner. Senator Arlen Specter went to the Chester County dinner first, then came and…

October 5, 2009 at 10:12 am | Comments (2)

An open house and an open party?

Friday afternoon I stopped by the open house at the new Montgomery County Republican Committee offices in Norristown. I lasted about an hour, rather above average for me at a political event, and came home with a nice stash of old campaign buttons. During that time I saw a great deal of what’s right about the suburban GOP—and a lot of what isn’t.

The offices are bright and spacious, and the…

May 11, 2009 at 9:00 am | Comments (1)

MontCo GOP feud could spill into Lt. Gov. race

BLUE BELL—For more than a year, Montgomery County’s Republican Commissioners have been at each other’s throats politically. Commissioners Jim Matthews and Bruce Castor were elected by county voters in late 2007, promising the GOP control over county policy even as is struggled to hold onto voters. But Matthews infuriated Republicans by shunning Castor, instead forming a power-sharing agreement with Democratic Commissioner Joe Hoeffel. This has effectively locked Castor out of power, and embroiled the county GOP in bitter dispute.

Soon, that toxic climate—and the vitriol Matthews and Castor regularly hurl at each other—could move to a statewide stage, with both Commissioners interested in the party’s nomination for Lieutenant Governor.

April 21, 2009 at 2:36 pm | Comments (13)

Where’s my party?

Well, time moves quickly. Last Spring I was trying desperately to get attention from the local political blogs. Now I’m writing for one.

Some of you may remember me from that race. I had the crazy idea that someone might actually pay attention to a moderate Republican running in the fourth most Democratic district in the country. They didn’t, and I dropped out in the summer. The incumbent, Congressman Chaka Fattah (D-2), didn’t bother campaigning against my replacement.

All of that seems like a long time ago. Now I’m writing a blog whose main question is simple: Is there intelligent life in the Republican Party, and among moderates-to-conservatives generally, in Pennsylvania? Is our state destined to become bluer and bluer, or will it remain the purple state—not quite one way, not quite the other—that it has usually been? Or, to put it in slightly different terms . . . will the GOP’s seemingly all-out effort to make itself irrelevant finally succeed?

As my title suggests, I’m something of a moderate. At Rutgers University, teaching tax and comparative law as I do makes me a wild-eyed conservative. In the national Republican Party, that makes me something of a liberal weirdo. In Cheltenham, Montgomery County, where I live with my wife and two children . . . well, it isn’t entirely clear that the MontCo Republicans have much of an ideology, and as we’ll see, that’s part of the problem.

I’ll be writing about the 2010 races, but also about the political and cultural background in which they transpire. What do the demographic trends in Pennsylvania—its becoming more New Jersey and less Ohio, as The Inquirer put it—mean for our future politics? Can the city of Philadelphia have a serious Republican Party, and can it escape the pay-to-play culture that it always takes about overcoming but never quite does? Will the suburbs continue their red-to-purple tradition, or will the line between the parties move to, say, somewhere between York and Harrisburg?

Over the next 18 months, we’ll find out. Maybe.

April 19, 2009 at 7:00 pm | Comments (0)