The growing consensus is that Republicans will rally around state Representative Scott Perry, a conservative businessman and military officer who currently is a colonel in the PA National Guard.
Since I’m not from PA, all I can say is “That poor, poor man. WHAT will he do to survive?????”
Did this district go more Conservative in the redistricting? Having Harrisburg as part of the district is a real loser.
That’s good. As I recall, Platts was one of the GOP folks who championed homosexualizing the miltary. I assume Perry is opposed to that?
First of all, I’m glad that Platts is retiring. Such a conservative district did not deserve a moderate such as Platts.
The district (formerly the PA-19, now numbered the PA-04) was made 2%-3% less Republican in redistricting, when they finally placed heavily Dem Harrisburg in the district (had they done so in 2001, Tim Holden would have never beaten George Gekas in the PA-17). It is still comfortably Republican, but is no longer 100% safe.
I don’t know much about Scott Perry, but his résumé is solid and he appears to be a bona fide conservative. He’s from York County, which dominates the district and will surely benefit him in the primary (although there likely will be other York County candidates running).
Another name I thought of is Otto Banks, who is a former Harrisburg councilman who was targeted successfully for defeat by liberal groups because he had the audacity to be a black conservative seeking market-based solutions for Harrisburg’s problems. Banks is now the executive director of a Pennsylvania grassroots coalition for school choice. http://paleadershipconference.org/more/71-bio-otto-banks I have no idea whether he’d be interested in running, but he’d be a great guy to have in Congress (and it would be a great poke in the eye to all those liberals who defeated him a few years ago.