The Pennsylvania governor's race is (or should be) front and center for those watching politics in 2022, and not just for Pennsylvanians. PA is about as much of a "swing state" as you can get and was front and center in the fight over alleged "voter fraud" in 2020. Moreover, the major party candidates take diametrically opposed views on the matter: Sharpio (Democrat) maintains the election was generally free and fair; Mastriano (Trump-endorsed Republican) maintains the election was "stolen" and was present in DC on Jan. 6. The winner will have considerable power to determine election law and proceedings for the 2024 election. So, this is not some fringe, out-of-the-way contest; the stakes are high. And yet...Mastriano seems not to have noticed. Or maybe he's set on some very unorthodox campaign strategy and is planning to shock us all in November? Mastriano has run almost NO televised campaign ads since the primaries. He's sent out hardly any mailers. His televised appearances and interviews have been almost exclusively with far-right media outlets, which, while friendly to his campaign, only reach people who have probably already decided to vote for him. And this isn't because he isn't invited to talk to more mainstream media: he actively turns them down. Similarly, he regularly refuses to talk with any but far-right media at campaign events. He rejected the invitation to debate Shapiro before the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry (which has hosted gubernatorial debates for decades). And THEN he ALSO rejected the alternative invitation to have a "fireside chat" Q&A with business leaders (meaning the PCBI will get to hear privately from Shapiro, who accepted that invite, but not from Mastriano). By all accounts he's also been relatively reluctant to participate in his campaign's phonebank fundraisers. All this has led to a MASSIVE discrepancy in campaign funds. Mastriano is sitting on about $400,000 for the home stretch before the election; Shapiro has north of $13 million. Mastriano's campaign complains that national Republicans have refused to fund him, which is certainly true, but the rejoinder from those national Republicans is that they aren't going to fund a candidate that refuses to campaign for himself. In the words of the R.G.A. co-chairman: "We don’t fund lost causes...You have to show us something, you have to demonstrate that you can move numbers and you can raise resources.” It's also worth noting that Mastriano has received much rhetoric but almost no funding from Donald J. Trump, the man whose endorsement put him on the ticket. Most candidates in Mastriano's position do everything in their power to take advantage of the "free" airtime provided by news media. Anything that gets your message, your name, out there, even if it's antagonistic, is better than nothing. Which of course makes Mastriano's refusal to engage with the media all the more perplexing. My own take is that he's got it into his head that he can win PA solely by relying on his hardcore base. And he's so convinced of this that he doesn't see the point in even TRYING to expand his base of support or convert moderates and independents. Maybe he's right; all conventional wisdom is open for debate these days. What do you think? https://www.pennlive.com/politics/2...fundraising-mastriano-breaks-conventions.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/26/us/politics/doug-mastriano-campaign-pennsylvania.html
