The GOP Is Not Philly’s Problem Party
Are Philly Democrats really in a position to lecture Republicans? | Shutterstock.com
(Editor’s note: This op-ed submission from Joseph DeFelice is in response to Citified insider Jay McCalla’s critique of the city’s Republican party. DeFelice is executive director of the Philadelphia Republican Party.)
Recently, your website posted an opinion piece from former Democrat City Councilman Rick Mariano (yes, that Rick Mariano) Chief of Staff Jay McCalla about how bad the Philadelphia Republican Party sucks. While I appreciate his snark and sarcasm, he may want to look inside his own party to see who truly “sucks.”
McCalla, who excoriates patronage but whose own resume reads like a “who’s who” of patronage employers, should be well aware of bad government, himself a former Chief of Staff to a convicted criminal. As a matter of fact, in the last few years, we have seen the following Democrats investigated (or worse) by state and federal authorities: State Sen. LeAnna Washington, State Rep. J.P. Miranda, State Rep. Vanessa Brown, State Rep. Ron Waters, State Rep. Michelle Brownlee, Rep. Louise Bishop, Treasurer Rob McCord, Attorney General Kathleen Kane, Justice Seamus McCaffrey, Judge Thomasine Tynes, Judge Robert Mulgrew, Judge Joe Waters, and of course, U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah.
Rather than focus on city Republicans’ inefficiencies, and there are some, why not focus on the utter corruption of the city’s Democratic Party?
As a matter of fact, it was our candidate for District Attorney, Daniel Alvarez, that pressed Seth Williams on his lack of prosecutions for public corruption and lo and behold, Williams was spurred into action this past year, after decades of prosecutorial inaction by him and predecessor Lynne Abraham, now a Democratic mayoral candidate. Continuing on that theme, the current mayoral bunch on the D side reads like a list of B and C team players.
Tell me again who is doing the people of Philadelphia a disservice?
Nevertheless, we—the Philadelphia Republican City Committee—are attacking Democratic disservice the same way one would eat an apple; one bite at a time. For our city to have more sway and not need a lobbyist for City Council to “talk” to the State, we must start electing more Republicans when we “suit up.” Philadelphians will have their first chance at this prior to the May Primary on March 24, 2015 when the residents of the 170th District (Somerton, Bustleton, Parkwood and Morrell Park) go to the polls and hopefully elect 26-year-old Republican Martina White to fill the remainder of the term of now Congressman Brendan Boyle. Hopefully doubling our city’s Republican representation in Harrisburg will result in this renaissance that Mr. McCalla so yearns for, because it’s plain the 24 city Democrats in the state House have zero influence.