and boy has McSwain twisted himself into a position to be thrown under the bus by his own party - from both sides - mainly trying to throw a seasoned criminal degenerate - Bill Barr - under the bus to curry favor.
When I heard about what he was doing to possibly throw his hat in the governor's race here, I was wondering why and how he was going to compete against 2 complete and utter loons (Mastriano and Barletta) in a primary.
Bill McSwain tried to walk a political tightrope on Trump’s election lies. Bill Barr just cut it.
by Chris Brennan, Jeremy Roebuck, and Jonathan Tamari
Updated Jul 13, 2021
For Bill McSwain, writing a letter to former President Donald Trump was supposed to help him maneuver toward a run for governor of Pennsylvania. McSwain, the former U.S. attorney in Philadelphia, wrote to Trump last month claiming he had been blocked from going public about allegations of 2020 election problems in Pennsylvania — handing Trump a new talking point for false claims that the election was stolen as McSwain sought the former president’s endorsement. But in the 24 hours after Trump blasted out the letter Monday night, McSwain found himself whipsawed between political forces.
His former boss, ex-Attorney General Bill Barr, fiercely disputed McSwain’s claims, saying the letter was intentionally deceptive. He said McSwain admitted to sending it to curry favor with Trump, and wanted to “flap his gums” for the political attention in the contentious days after the election. Meanwhile, a likely Democratic opponent in the governor’s race, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, questioned why McSwain hadn’t forwarded any of the supposed fraud allegations — as McSwain wrote that he was ordered to do. And Republican insiders wondered whether McSwain had delivered a self-inflicted wound before even formally launching his campaign.
“He told me that he had to do this because he was under pressure from Trump and for him to have a viable candidacy he couldn’t have Trump attacking him,” Barr told The Inquirer on Tuesday, recounting a conversation with McSwain. The former attorney general said he called McSwain on Monday night upset over several claims he made in his letter to Trump, including that Barr had instructed him to pass on investigations of fraud and election irregularities to Shapiro instead of investigating them himself — an assertion Barr flatly rejected. Barr said he had instead given all U.S. attorneys discretion to investigate “specific, credible” allegations, but stopped McSwain from making broad “political statements” about the election.
Barr added that McSwain said he needed Trump’s support, or at least for him stay neutral in the 2022 race, so he wrote a letter that “tried to thread the needle” by laying out “things that were technically true” while not giving “support to Trump’s stolen election narrative.” “The letter is written in a very deceptive way that is intended to convey an impression, it’s a false one, that he was restrained from looking into election fraud,” Barr said.
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/bill-mcswain-josh-shapiro-trump-20210713.html
What he attempted to do is coming from the cowardly "Kevin McCarthy school of kowtowing to save one's hide" wing, in an effort to avoid the virulent attacks by the very monster that THEY created and nurtured that were designed to be sicced on Democrats. That wing then became the peanut gallery on the side egging the monster on.
So basically you have 3 types of Republicans - the egotistical crazies, the cowardly self-preservationists, and the too-few who are trying to reclaim their party. Meaning that you still have 2/3rds of their party that are Q-publicans, whether by choice or by fake embracing the mentality to win accolades and avoid attacks by the 1/3rd. Of course the cowards could outnumber the loons if they would join their brethren who have protested the nonsense, but they can't seem to do it.
For Democrats in this state - with the anticipated run by (D) AG Josh Shapiro (and hopefully no strong spoiler candidates), we have a good chance of retaining the governorship, which would be spectacular AND necessary given the current majority-GOP legislature and the shenanigans that they are steadily cooking up to destroy democracy here.
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