Nutritionally speaking, Thursday\u2019s debate between U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan and Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti was mostly a \u201cbaloney\u201d sandwich with no mustard.<\/p>\n
Their bases in the bag, both candidates sought to win the middle slice of the electorate that ultimately decides elections, capping a spicy race with a strategically bland last course palatable to the precious few voters who didn\u2019t pick their preferred candidate months ago.<\/p>\n
In a mean season of candidate debates marked by finger-pointing and fiery exchanges, the lone Bresnahan\/Cognetti \u201cshowdown\u201d played out like a polite dispute over a parking space between a pair of moderate Republicans.<\/p>\n
\u201cPurple Paige\u201d appealed to the mounting buyer\u2019s remorse of Republicans, \u201cMAGAcrats\u201d and independents who voted for Trump and his spineless Congressional enablers.<\/p>\n
\u201cModerate Rob\u201d ran away from his record of voting for Trump\u2019s cruelest, costliest policies and the insider stock trading the first-term congressman theatrically denounced while banking the benefits.<\/p>\n
Purple Paige praised police, pledged support for voter ID, acknowledged that the Biden administration \u201cfailed\u201d to secure our borders and allowed cities to be \u201coverrun by illegal immigrants\u201d and shared the fun she had shootin\u2019 guns with her cousins in Montana.<\/p>\n
Moderate Rob said Trump\u2019s war of choice on Iran has \u201cgone on far too long\u201d and that immigration law should be \u201ca big fence with a wide gate.\u201d He branded Trump\u2019s pal Putin a \u201cviolent, horrible dictator,\u201d pledged support for Ukraine and said ensuring guns don\u2019t fall into the wrong hands is \u201cabsolutely necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bresnahan also stood up for soft-drink safety, saying \u201cyou can turn a Snapple bottle into a weapon if it falls into the wrong person\u2019s hands.\u201d<\/p>\n
I am not making that up.<\/p>\n
Both candidates maintained their composure throughout the debate, which was expertly hosted by our friends at WVIA News. Moderator Tracey Matisak implored the audience to refrain from applause or outbursts until the end of the debate. The request proved unnecessary. The crowd was stunned into silence by the civility and centrist postures of the candidates.<\/p>\n
Halfway through the program, the expressions on many dazed faces in the crowd suggested some were internally asking, \u201cAre we at the right debate?\u201d<\/p>\n
Both candidates are incumbents, but Moderate Rob has the job and the baggage that comes with it. Bresnahan is up against three opponents \u2014 Cognetti, his own voting record and Trump, who is a raving, half-ton monkey on the backs of every Republican running in the midterms.<\/p>\n
Apparently aware that the economic and social consequences of his disastrous decisions are driving even diehard MAGAs to flee his cult, the Oaf of Office has been stumping for imperiled Republicans in deep-red states like Mississippi. At every stop, Trump makes every Republican candidate\u2019s pitch sound like overpriced \u201cbaloney.\u201d<\/p>\n
OK Kelly, what\u2019s with the \u201cbaloney\u201d shtick? I got it from the Bresnahan campaign. Possibly influenced by the powerful Cold Cuts Lobby, several Bresnahan ads featured actual bologna as props. The gag is that Paige is full of \u201cbaloney.\u201d Get it?<\/p>\n
(Also, I grew up in Southwestern Pennsylvania, where a \u201cfried jumbo\u201d sandwich is a delicacy. I love bologna. \u201cBaloney,\u201d not so much.)<\/p>\n
Cheesy as they were, the \u201cbaloney\u201d ads were among the least stomach-churning of the race. The worst, most nauseating spots were produced by dark money PACs, courtesy of the Supreme Court selling out our democracy to billionaire sociopaths like Elon Musk via the Citizens United decision.<\/p>\n
Independent advocates for both candidates ran negative ads that ranged from mildly misleading to grossly false. Voters who choose candidates based on such ads are key contributors to the corruption, cronyism and institutional incompetence they complain about ad nauseum. We get what we vote for.<\/p>\n
Questions in Thursday\u2019s debate addressed immigration, healthcare, the Iran war, voter ID, Ukraine, guns and crime, and the most urgent, politically volatile and bipartisan issue in recent memory \u2014 the AI hyperscale data center invasion targeting small towns and rural areas across the country, state and nation. For the details of the debate, read Sunday Times Staff Writer Jeff Horvath\u2019s comprehensive account<\/a>. Watch the video of the debate at wvia.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n Purple Paige and Moderate Rob agreed that \u201clocal control\u201d over data center development must be preserved and protected, but accused each other of waffling on data centers and worse. Cognetti accused Bresnahan of \u201cinviting\u201d developers to pave over the 8th District with data centers and power plants, pointing to the congressman\u2019s early cheerleading for the industry.<\/p>\n Bresnahan countered that Scranton data center regulations proposed by the mayor\u2019s administration have languished unadopted since March. He said Cognetti\u2019s proposal would leave up to 7% of the city open to data center development. Bresnahan noted he was the first member of Congress to pen a local-control bill, the \u201cLocal Control Protection Act,\u201d which opened the door for Cognetti to mock the bill for what it is \u2014 an entirely performative charade that never made it out of committee and will never become law.<\/p>\n Either candidate could have won this race months ago by supporting a moratorium on data center development like the three-year pause proposed by state Sen. Katie Muth, D-44. Neither did. Purple Paige took the position that data centers can \u201cwork\u201d when sited on land zoned for heavy industry, but attended several public hearings in which she joined the opposition to outrageously inappropriate projects like the Wildcat Ridge Data Center Campus recently rejected by Archbald Borough Council.<\/p>\n To my knowledge, Moderate Rob has never attended a hearing or meeting on data centers in Archbald or anywhere else in the Midvalley. He did, however, use the people who live there in a political ad in which he bizarrely claimed \u201cArchbald fought back and won\u201d weeks before the Wildcat Ridge proposal was rejected.<\/p>\n The ad inflamed the resistance throughout the Midvalley. A subsequent Bresnahan Facebook post congratulating Archbald on the Wildcat Ridge victory only reminded voters there that Moderate Rob made no contribution to the win.<\/p>\n While Purple Paige and Moderate Rob civilly sliced centrist baloney on a soundstage, Sunday Times Staff Writer Frank Wilkes Lesnefsky was at his keyboard tapping out a pair of bombshell scoops every voter should read before going to the polls Tuesday.<\/p>\n