Pennsylvania Democrat won’t distance herself from socialists who endorsed a pro-Palestinian rally
Salena Zito
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PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania — In politics, office-seekers form associations with movements and organizations in their bid to win elections. Those associations help them knit enough disparate groups together to form a coalition that will lift them to victory in a general election.
But those associations can become problematic, especially if they were formed during a closed primary race in which candidates reach the furthest left or right to give them just enough votes to help cross the finish line. In those primaries, candidates are taking the chance that no one will care in a general election in which you have to win votes from members of the other party to win.
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Before looking at a current case of problematic associations, consider an example from 2022.
Last year, Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano was clobbered in the media and by Democrats when reports emerged he had paid the far-right social media platform Gab for campaign consulting and accepted the founder’s endorsement as a Christian nationalist candidate.
Democrats from across the state, including state Rep. Dan Frankel from Allegheny County, held a news conference at Philadelphia’s Holocaust memorial, where they renounced Mastriano and warned Republican voters they would regret supporting him.
“There’s no coming back from this,” said Frankel, whose district is where the anti-Jewish terrorist attack happened at the Tree of Life Synagogue. The killer used Gab to issue antisemitic rants ahead of the shooting.
Frankel said if you associate and embrace antisemites, you are one of them.
In response, Mastriano acknowledged it was bad optics to seek votes from Gab users, removed his profile from the site, and issued a statement that said Gab and its founder do not represent or speak for his campaign.
Who you associate with matters in politics. It telegraphs to voters that this is part of your belief system and that these movements and organizations share your values. If that shared value either stops existing or becomes problematic, most people seeking elected office find themselves having to walk it back or denounce it.
Yes, they suffer a few rough days in the press, but most are able to move on.
Back to today:
Sometimes, candidates with dicey associations just hope they can ignore the press and never answer for their alliances. This is exactly how former state Rep. Sara Innamorato, a Democratic candidate for county executive, is playing her cards regarding her association with the Democratic Socialists of America.
In 2018, Innamorato campaigned as a member of the DSA. She won in a low-turnout primary election with the help of enthusiasm from the group’s left-wing voters. In doing so, she upended a member of a legacy-Democratic family who had held the seat for years. Her win made her one of the first socialists to join the Pennsylvania state legislature in nearly a century, along with two newly elected socialists — state Reps. Elizabeth Fiedler and Summer Lee.
Innamorato’s association with the DSA was of her free will and, without any doubt, helped her win in that primary contest. She took photos with the group, mentioned it in print interviews, and, to date, has never distanced herself from it.
There is nothing wrong with that: If you share its values and platform, then you should not walk away from it. Voters wanting to make an informed decision should, however, be able to know if you still identify with the group’s core beliefs.
On Sunday, the DSA endorsed a pro-Palestinian rally in Times Square. Within short order, many leading Democrats, including Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY), slammed the DSA’s support of the rally as “abhorrent and morally repugnant.”
So did Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who knocked the “bigotry and callousness” of the Times Square rally for Palestinians and said, “It should not be hard to shut down hatred and antisemitism where we see it. That is a core tenet of solidarity.”
Innamorato was pressed on Monday when KDKA host Marty Griffin asked where she stood on the DSA’s support. Her team said she was too busy to go on the show between now and the November election and texted the radio host, saying it would respond with a tweet. In turn, that tweet said she “strongly condemned Hamas.”
However, she did not disassociate herself from the DSA, nor did she condemn the rally.
On Tuesday, the local DSA in Pittsburgh gave full-throated support for the Palestinians and called for “the end of all U.S. military aid to Israel and all military cooperation with Israel, an end to all training exchanges between U.S. police forces and police and military in Israel.”
Even Mastriano disassociated himself from Gab and its controversial founder. But Innamorato has not done likewise from the DSA.
Voters in western Pennsylvania are less than a month away from choosing who will be the next county executive to run Allegheny County, the third most powerful elected office in the state. The last three, one Republican 20 years ago followed by two Democrats, have all been pragmatic managers and problem solvers who focused on government reform and economic development.
All three rarely wore their ideology on their sleeves.
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By not disassociating herself from the DSA or condemning its support for the rally, Innamorato told voters who she is and what her values are — and it gives them clarity as to whom they are voting for next month.
Frankel wasn’t wrong when he said of Mastriano that “there’s no coming back from this.” It would be interesting to know if he shares that sentiment about fellow Democrat Innamorato.