PA-07: Race Embodies The Fight For The Future Of The Democratic Party
FOGELSVILLE, Pa. ― Some 60 suburbanites, mostly women, gathered in a swim and tennis club outside Allentown on Sunday to hear from six Democratic candidates vying for an open Lehigh Valley congressional seat.
When it came time for the hopefuls to stake out their highest priority, two of the top candidates ― former Allentown city solicitor Susan Wild and Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli ― agreed that it was strengthening gun safety regulations.
“If we don’t do it with these high school students, with these millennials who are speaking out, then I fear that we will never do it, and it absolutely has to happen,” said Wild, a mainstream liberal.
Morganelli, a self-described moderate who complained in 2008 when the NRA gave him an “F” rating, now wears the gun group’s negative review like a badge of honor.
Greg Edwards, an African-American pastor running for the seat with the blessing of Bernie Sanders, identified a corrupt campaign finance system as a higher priority, because it lurked behind the lack of progress on a range of issues, gun policy chief among them.
The leading candidates’ comments reflect the national dynamics at play in Tuesday’s primary for Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District.
On one hand, all the candidates ― even Morganelli ― are clamoring to burnish their progressive bona fides for a Democratic primary electorate that has moved dramatically to the left from where it was as recently as 2016. For example, all three candidates claim they want steps toward a Medicare-for-all system, though Wild and Morganelli emphasize incremental moves.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pennsylvania-7th-district-lehigh-valley-democratic-primary-future-of-party_us_5af5b771e4b00d7e4c1a2ab9
