But they're still elbow-deep in the Trumpist muck.
Take a look at this from The Philadelphia Inquirer:
Lou Barletta, darling of the Republican establishment?
That might sound odd. The former congressman was among Donald Trump’s earliest supporters in 2016 — at a time when most national Republicans either didn’t take him seriously or desperately sought to elect anyone else.
But now Barletta is being anointed by some Pennsylvania Republican Party leaders as their last best chance to stop gubernatorial front-runner Doug Mastriano, the state senator from Franklin County who is perhaps even more popular among the ”Make America Great Again” faithful.
Then there's this from Sam DeMarco writing for himself (and not as Chair of the Allegheny Republican Committee) in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. It's a warning about PA State Senator becoming the GOP candidate for Governor. DeMarco writes:
Last week, I joined other leaders from across the commonwealth in seeking to prevent this disaster. The meetings were precipitated by Democrat Josh Shapiro’s cynical attempt to intervene in the Republican primary with television and direct mail advertising declaring State Sen. Doug Mastriano “one of Donald Trump’s strongest supporters.”
Anyone without a tin ear can see what’s going on: Shapiro is boosting Mastriano’s standing as a Trump conservative because he thinks Mastriano would be the easiest candidate to defeat in November. And he’s right.
Surveys have shown that Mastriano is extraordinarily weak among swing voters in the November election. The group of swing voters consisted of 42% Democrats, 35% Republicans, and 20% independents. They preferred a Republican Governor by 3 points, 42% to 39%. Considering the Democratic leaning of the swing voter universe, it is a historic high for Republicans to have any generic ballot lead in this group. It’s clear that a strong Republican candidate would be a front-runner.
However, an initial ballot test between Doug Mastriano and Josh Shapiro showed Shapiro at 49% already and Mastriano at 41%. This includes Mastriano losing an astounding 23% of the swing Republicans to Shapiro. This is an unsustainable number for a party’s general election nominee. A candidate can’t lose that many and win.
And:
After voters are informed about Mastriano’s and Shapiro’s key messages, Shapiro jumps out to a 12 point lead. He pushes over 50% of the vote.
But let's not think (even for one New York minute) that these guys, DeMarco and Barletta, are somehow squeaky clean rational Republicans. They're still Trump-guys.
How do I know?
They were to be among the Pennsylvania fake electors lined up to vote for Donald Trump once all the noise about non-existent voter fraud was used to invalidate Trump's election day loss in 2020.
As absolute proof, here are their signatures on the fake-elector certificate (pg 33 of 47 of this document):
If you'll recall, the Pennsylvania "fake electors" certificate's text was slightly different from those from, say Nevada or Wisconsin.
The fake electors on those states signed a document that contained:
WE, THE UNDERSIGNED, being the duly elected and qualified Electors for President and Vice President of the United States of America from the State of Wisconsin, do hereby certify the following...
However the document the Pennsylvania fake electors (DeMarco and Barletta, included) signed had a slightly tweaked text:
WE, THE UNDERSIGNED, on the understanding that if, as a result of a final non-appealable Court Order or other proceeding prescribed by law, we are ultimately recognized as being the duly elected and qualified Electors for President and Vice President of the United States of America from the State of Pennsylvania, hereby certify the following...[Emphasis added.]
As I wrote back then, even though it gave them some political cover, it still aligned with the coup-plan outlined by John Eastman.
They were still ready to fake elector vote for Trump.
These are the Pennsylvania GOP guys who are hoping you'll see them as among the Pennyslvania's Mastriano-alternative.
When it truth, they're just Mastriano-lite.
They were among Donald Trump's fake electors - don't forget that.
