"We won big-time"
Gleason:"My name is out there"
Posted on 11/13/2010 11:15:13 AM PST by smoothsailing
Crash Course: Pennsylvania Political Corruption 101; The Legacy of Murtha & Gleason
In Major League Baseball, sometimes the after game fireworks are of more interest than the game itself, and sometimes the behind the scenes conduct of one of its players far over shadows whatever victories that player may have brought to his team. In baseball, this was the truth that confronted Pete Rose. In Pennsylvania politics, it is my intention for this truth to confront Republican State Committee Chairman, Robert Gleason – especially now that he wants to Chairman of the Republican National Committee.
The front page of the November 4, 2010 Tribune Democrat shows a picture of the State GOP Committee Chairman Robert Gleason gloating below the headline “We Won Big-Time.” While the article refers to the victories of Tom Corbett as the new Governor of Pennsylvania, Pat Toomey as its new US Senator, and races for a number of other congressional seats across the Commonwealth, Gleason’s greatest victory was right here in the 12th Congressional District. The biggest winner of all was his own company, Gleason Insurance.
The victor in the 12th Congressional District was not a Republican, but the incumbent Democrat, Mark Critz. Most readers will be asking, what is the link between a sitting Democratic Congressman and an insurance company owned by the Chairman of the Pennsylvania Republican Committee?
The answer lies with Mr Critz’s nineteen term predecessor, John Murtha. Mr Murtha was a long standing member of CREW’s (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) Most Corrupt List. For those who wonder how politicians like Murtha kept getting reelected, the answer is a simple one: they co-opted the opposition. Mr Murtha’s popularity was based on his “bringing home the bacon.” He made no secret of the fact, and was even proud to campaign on it. But what got less attention, was the fact that the companies Murtha coaxed, cajoled, or coerced into moving into southwest Pennsylvania in exchange for congressional earmarks, all needed insurance. What better company to underwrite those policies than Gleason Insurance of Johnstown?
Any prudent individual would avoid such a flagrant conflict of interest, if for no other reason than to avoid the questions to their integrity while performing duties in a position of public trust. But it must be said that the simple existence of such a conflict of interest does not necessarily mean that someone who is steadfastly honest will succumb to the temptations created by the conflict and act against the interests of their party or community for personal gain. One must step back and look at the evidence of that person’s actions.
During the reign of Murtha, any person who appeared to be a political threat to him was co-opted, marginalized, or destroyed. Anything that could be used, was used to leverage people into line: awarding of contracts, the loss of contracts, threats to use the power of office, even threats against families. The evidence of this on the Democrat side is the fact that there was no “heir apparent,” nor long time rival, waiting in the wings when Murtha passed away. On the Republican side, there was a long history of token resistance to Murtha. Not because there were not brave people willing to take a stand, but because the party apparatus would not support them with the necessary resources. It was nearly impossible for Republican candidates to raise money because of the threats of job or contract loss against donors whose names appeared on FEC reports. For many years, Bill Choby railed against the corruption issues, but in the end was marginalized. In 2006 Diana Irey also made a valiant effort, in spite of threats to her family and being undercut behind the scenes. In the meantime, Robert Gleason maintained a close personal relationship with John Murtha, having family barbeques and keeping Murtha’s picture with him posted to his company’s website along with a long list of customer companies who also benefited from their relationships with Murtha (all have since been removed).
But my own experience with Robert Gleason is what I can best detail. When I left the Army in late 2007 to enter the race against Murtha, the first person I was warned about was Robert Gleason. Given the political lay of the land, I recognized that Murtha had great influence in the Republican Establishment in the district and that fund raising and support from it would be limited based on my newness to the area, the practices of granting and taking of earmarks in the district, and the ruthlessness with which that power was wielded. This really hit home when I started the ballot petition process and was told by approximately fifteen different people that they could not sign my ballot petitions or donate to my campaign because they or their spouse might get fired. I was also told by many people, some of them intimately familiar with the company, that Gleason Insurance wrote the insurance policies for many of the earmark companies which Murtha brought into the district.
The effort to get on the ballot in 2008 was challenging. Pennsylvania requires congressional candidates to gather 1000 signatures from the district’s registered voters of their party. My budding campaign staff (consisting of my campaign manager, Peg, whichever of her family members were available that day, and some stout-hearted grassroots volunteers) managed to make the minimum required number of signatures. Although there were no other Republicans running, the former Republican Mayor of Johnstown, Donatto Zucco (who had signed my ballot petition and later called me and asked me to remove his signature because he was a “Murtha man”) and Jeanne McKelvey, sued to have my petition signatures stricken and my name removed from the ballot. As I did not have enough signatures, nor the money, to withstand the suit represented by a Philadelphia power house law firm, my name was removed from the ballot. The Republican establishment had done its duty to Murtha.
But the strategy backfired. My campaign was required to run a write-in campaign in the primary to get back on the ballot. Fortunately, my campaign manager, who had come on board just a couple of days before the ballot petition process began, was able to organize a strong write-in campaign. As a result, I became the first Congressional Candidate in Pennsylvania history to win a primary with a write-in campaign (with over 4000 votes), and was back on the ballot for the general election after the primary victory. Michelle Malkin led the media in turning my campaign into a national one. Blog talk radio interviews were followed by interviews with national radio headliners. Campaign contributions poured in from individuals within the district and all across the country. I had ten times more donors in Pennsylvania than John Murtha, -- but almost nothing from the State or National Republican Committees -- the district was still considered “safe” for the Democratic incumbent.
But there was a problem for Mr Gleason. My campaign against Murtha was not only aimed at holding him accountable for his Haditha Marine comments, it also included a vision of breaking the cycle of economic dependence on earmarks in the region and developing an economy based on developing our natural resources. Since I was back on the ballot and the Republican nominee, Mr Gleason could not attack my campaign directly as Mr Zucco did. He had to use more passive measures to undercut my campaign. This was done through a lack of support on many levels. The most notable feature of this lack of support took effect in the lack of invitations to speak at the three McCain/Palin Rallies held in Washington, Latrobe, and Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Common sense would dictate that such rallies, at which the all the local candidates were invited to speak as warm up speakers for the headliners, that a party’s nominee for Congress, running against a national lightning-rod incumbent, would also be invited to speak. Well, not so much. Of course, the most egregious of these was the Palin Rally in Johnstown. After not inviting me to the Washington rally, Mr Gleason told Peg on the day before the Johnstown rally that I was specifically not invited to speak. That was when she went directly to the McCain Campaign and got that changed. At 10:30 PM on the night before the rally to be held in John Murtha’s hometown, I was suddenly invited to speak.
In spite of not being invited to share the stage, except when we forced the issue, our campaign made the most of all three rallies by handing out water, coffee, and hot chocolate to the crowds waiting to get in. This allowed me to shake hands and introduce myself to almost everyone entering the events, and gave a big boost to our grass roots effort.
In spite of turning such snubs into successes for our team, our grass roots effort remained below the radar screen as a potential upset in the year of Obama, until Mr Murtha’s “redneck-racist” gaffe became his salvation. When Mr Murtha called our constituents racists two weeks before the election, no one (besides Peg) knew I was even close in the polls. But when the “redneck” scandal erupted, someone suddenly did and independent poll and the nation discovered it had a horse race on in Southwestern Pennsylvania. With some polls showing me anywhere from 4 to 13 points ahead with the likely voters, the Democratic national machine had to be turned on to save Murtha, and all political hell broke loose.
With less than fourteen days to mount a re-election campaign, the Murtha camp had no time to finesse the situation. There was only time for a massive application of brute force & ignorance, and lies. The first effort was two major lies put out by Murtha’s press secretary. Flyers and press releases were sent out stating that I did not live in the district (including the ones sent to my home address in Johnstown) and that I had paid myself $185,000 from campaign funds (easily proven false from a review of my FEC reports). Bill Clinton was brought into the district twice to call me a carpet bagger. Hillary Clinton did six telephone calls, and Barrack Obama was parachuted in at the last minute also. Gleason even did his part: my name was conveniently left off the Republican slate card handed out at the polls.
The results of the Democratic onslaught riding the wave of Obamamania and a more than 2 to 1 voter registration edge in the district were too great to overcome. I was not known well enough in the district (with half the buildings and streets named after my opponent) to counter the carpetbagger and salary smears with the late breaking voters. But even with a sixteen point defeat, the results of my campaign’s performance in the year of Obama surpassed any other general election attempt to unseat Murtha since 1974.
After the 2008 election, I continued running for the 2010 general election, which presented a problem for both Gleason and Murtha. In spite of the wave of enthusiasm that swept Obama and massive Democratic majorities into power in both Houses of Congress, the political tide was quickly turning and the tea parties were beginning to rise. Murtha continued to be plagued by scandals and gaffes, the worst of which was a public threat by his Chief of Staff, John Hugya, to use the power of their office to have me recalled to active duty.
In the spring of 2009 I was approached by several potential candidates who were thinking about getting into the primary, including Tim Burns. While I believe that Tim Burns entered the race of his own volition, his entry could not have come at a more opportune time for Mr Gleason. I had received word through the grapevine that Mr Gleason was actively seeking a primary opponent to run against me and that his biggest regret of 2008 was “letting Russell out of the box.” But in a straight up primary, there was not a whole lot that Gleason could do stop a popular grass roots effort.
As the primary season of 2010 approached, my campaign was confident that we had built a strong enough base and name recognition to overcome the Democratic smears of 2008 to win the primary and ultimately beat Murtha in 2010. But life has a way of throwing all of us curves, and the game was changed when Mr Murtha passed away on February 8, 2010.
Mr Murtha’s passing created the requirement for a Special Election to fill the 12th District’s seat. The problem for the Democrats in facing my campaign is they had already thrown all they had at me, and the lies they had used in 2008 (remember the flyer sent to my home address) were being turned against them. I had out raised Murtha in every reporting period by two to three times. But the Special Election process presented the opportunity for Gleason to switch from passive non-support to my campaign into using the full strength of the Republican Party apparatus against me to support Tim Burns.
The Special Election process required each party to use its by-laws to nominate a candidate for the Special Election. After the fiasco in NY-23, Mr Gleason recognized the danger of using too small a group of the State Committee, so a Conferee process was chosen to select the nominee. The conferee process brought together 139 representatives from all nine of the counties in the 12th District. Each county was given a number of votes for the number of registered Republicans from the county who lived in the District plus an additional rep for each 1000 votes that had gone to the Republican Presidential nominee in the last election. The process was touted as being honest and fair because it involved 139 Conferees. The problem with the process was that Gleason and the County Committee Chairmen could control WHO was selected to serve as Conferees, and that the Conferees would have to stand and cast public votes in front of Gleason. In Cambria County, more than 10% of the Conferees shared the Gleason name. A much larger number had a direct employer –employee relationship with Gleason through the party or through his insurance company. Many others had long standing business or political associations with Gleason. Other county chairmen whose committees where strongly supporting my campaign, were called by Gleason or the State Committee and told to make sure to allow some Burns supporters into their Conferee lists so that it would not appear they were trying pull things for Russell. But no such calls were made to county committees who appointed unanimous Burns supporters. At a county committee meeting I attended shortly before the conferee meeting, a state committee member stood up and publicly stated that “the fix is in” and that state committee members were being told by the State Committee leadership that they had to attend as Conferees and to vote for Burns. That same committee person went on to say that those with legislation pending in the State Legislature were having that legislation threatened if they did not comply.
In the lead up to the Conferee meeting, Gleason began publicly talking about how the Special Election would require a candidate who was “self-funded,” and that Burns was definitely the kind of successful business man (worth over $100 Million). Of course, Mr Gleason usually ignored the fact that after my runs against Murtha, I was the largest non-incumbent fundraiser in the nation, with over 60,000 donors to my campaign. When pressed on the issue, he always cast the most negative snapshot possible of my fundraising success. The other major fact he ignored was that I was ahead by 30 point in the polls at the time.
Behind the scenes, Mr Gleason opened all possible doors to local, state, and national Republican Committees for Mr Burns, giving him immediate introductions and access to resources and endorsements. Many of these were the same doors I had knocked on as a popularly elected nominee in the 2008 campaign, but had learned to by-pass because they were never answered.
The Conferee selection followed the course we had expected. During my question and answer period with the Conferees, the Murtha lies & smears were resurrected by Gleason/Burns supporters. After Tim Burns was selected as the nominee for the special election, Rob Gleason approached me and my wife and tried to state that there was no difference between me and Burns policy wise and that it was “just politics” and that Burns was just the better candidate. I looked him straight in the eye, told him that I would not attack Burns in his race against Critz, but that he was a liar and that I would hold him responsible for his betrayal of the Republican Party and the people of the district. Needless to say, we did not plan any future family barbeques.
The Party’s resource support to Burns in the Special Election flowed as if someone had broken open a water main. In addition to massive funding, the Party brought out all the big names to endorse him: Newt, George Pataki, Scott Brown, Dick Armey, and Presidential wannabe Rick Santorum (of course the party always ignored the fact that there was also a primary going). – Even Sarah Palin was coaxed into a shout out to Burn’s effort in the Special, even though she had already endorsed me in the primary through the Combat Veterans for Congress.
Of course, the Republican Party also used the Special Election to effectively act as if it was also a primary endorsement. My campaign was telling voters to vote for Burns in the Special Election and for me in the Primary, because it would be necessary for the Republicans to have a fresh horse for the November General Election. (The worst possible scenario for Republicans would be for Burns to lose the Special and win the Primary, thus having to run as a loser against the man who had beaten him five months before). But Gleason’s Western Field Director, Ben Wren, worked tirelessly to shut my campaign and its supporters out from all County Republican Committee offices. Emails from State Committee were sent out declaring that I was running a write-in campaign against the Republican Nominee in the Special and instructed all committee members to not support my campaign. Rick Santorum continued the crescendo, publicly attacking me for not getting out of the Primary when he guest hosted on Bill Bennett’s radio show. Santorum also stated that I had run a terrible campaign in 2008, even though I did better as a first time challenger to Murtha in the year of Obama, than he did in his own reelection bid for Senate in 2006.
The results of the Primary and Special Elections were disappointing --the numbers were just not there. I clearly lost the Primary and the Republicans ended up with the worst possible outcome. There are those who have counseled me that the primary election was stolen and that the results from the machine counts did not match the reaction our poll workers received from voters entering and exiting the polls, and the county by county results were also the opposite of what we expected. But the vote numbers balance and the only way it would have been possible to steal the election would have been with a sophisticated programming effort targeting 11 different types of machines across the nine counties in the district. Unless some major evidence of systematic machine tampering were to come to light, the far more plausible explanation is that enough voters were turned by the full weight and efforts of the Republican machine to promote Burns in the Special Election, effectively treating him as the endorsed candidate in the primary, and to smear and shut out my campaign from all Republican resources.
Ever since the Conferee selection for the Special Election last March, people have been asking why the Republican Party Leadership rejected the 2008 Republican nominee, who did better against John Murtha (in the year of Obama) than any other challenger in the previous 30 years, and selected his unknown primary challenger who was 30 points behind in the polls. Robert Gleason will tell you it was because Burns could “self fund” and was just an overall better candidate. But when we look at the outcome of last week’s General Election and its lackluster campaign in the 12th with noticeable scarcity of Republican resources and support to Mr Burns after his Special Election loss, one must ask why were all those resources from the Special Election suddenly turned off? Mr Gleason will tell you the Party’s focus had to go toward winning the Governor and Senate seats and that Mr Burns was chosen because he could self-fund.
The only answer I can come up with for these questions is that Robert Gleason fully intended to lose the 12th Congressional District Special and Primary elections in order to protect his company’s insurance contracts with the earmark companies that John Murtha brought in, and Mark Critz promised to protect. Mr Gleason did not pour in the massive resources of the Republican Party behind Tim Burns to win the seat. – The reality is that it would have been next to impossible for any Republican to defeat the Murtha sympathy vote in this massively Democratic district. – Gleason turned on the full power of the Republican machine to ensure that I was defeated in the Primary. Mr Gleason knows how I feel about Congressional earmarks, that I would not be beholden to him in any way, and that it would be bad for his financial future.
From this candidate’s perspective, Mr Gleason’s conduct as Chairman of the Pennsylvania Republican Committee clearly shows that he was acting for his own personal financial interest, by keeping John Murtha, and now Mark Critz, in office. His personal benefit from this strategy is clear; he prevented the interruption of his insurance contracts through 2012. This gives him enough time to maximize his profits, diversify his investments, and find other income streams.
I cannot think of more devastating decision for our party, the conservative movement, or our nation, than to award Mr Gleason with the Chairmanship of the Republican National Committee.
I am always amazed by irony in life and politics. Pete Rose received a life time ban from baseball and was denied entry into the Baseball Hall of Fame, even though he was Major League Baseball’s all time career hit leader, for betting on MLB games. Pete Rose never bet against his own team, and never threw a game to win a bet. Mr Gleason, on the other had has also placed bets on the outcomes of games he was actively playing in. But in a game that is much more serious than baseball, and affects the security of our nation and the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of people in Southwestern Pennsylvania, Robert Gleason is far from being the leading hitter for the Republican Party. Unlike Pete Rose, he has repeatedly bet against his own team and thrown the elections in the 12th District to the Democrats through dropped balls, forced errors, and manipulating the line-up of heavy hitters. I firmly believe he did this to advance his own financial gain.
In contrast to Major League Baseball’s actions with Pete Rose, the Republican Party of Pennsylvania has made Gleason its State Committee Chairman, instead of banning him for life. This must change. Gleason must resign or be thrown out of his leadership positions if the Republican Party is ever to regain and maintain the respect of the voters in Pennsylvania.
William T Russell is a former Republican Congressional Candidate in the 12th Congressional District of Pennsylvania. He is an internationally published columnist and has been a featured guest on a number of national television and radio news shows. He is a retired Lieutenant Colonel from the US Army and has served in Desert Storm, the Iraq War, and the Balkans. He and his wife, Kasia, were both in the Pentagon on 9/11. Their website is www.TheHomeArmy.com.
Thanks. Bump for later.
ping
OOOOO please add me to that ping list!!!
You bet I do and I'll ping the Murtha Watch list as well so more voters in PA will know about the RAT GLEASON if they already don't!
Great piece!
You’re on, though it probably won’t be too active for a time. :)
GLEASON MUST BE STOPPED ONCE AND FOR ALL!
Thanks for the ping jaz.
BFL
Thanks for posting this—it is very enlightening.
All you folks out there with details of similar corruption, speak up now, while real (good) change is gaining momentum.
Gleason paid off big time in supporting Murtha when he was in office.
There’s a rumor flying around that Gleason has withdrawn his name from consideration. I don’t buy it for a minute.
http://blog.billlawrenceonline.com/2010/11/13/no-to-gleason-says-ex-candidate.aspx
I certainly hope it’s true but like you I’m skeptical.
Good article, glad to see the word is getting out.
LTC Russell will be on Freedom Radio tonight to discuss this.
I am sooooooo fired up!
Freedom Radio Sunday 11/14 8 PM ET: Lt Col Bill Russell, Dr Zuhdi Jasser, and a KSM trial update
BUMP!
Way to go, HC!
Morniing HC..I will have to listen...Gleason has go to go..we need to rebuild The Pennsylvanian Republican Party..the cockroaches must go!!!!
Opps will have to listen to the archives...
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