April 10, 2024 • 28 mins
Can Janelle Stelson's past be her undoing, or will it fuel her fire in the race for Pennsylvania's 10th Congressional District? Witness a candid unraveling of the Democratic primary as Keystone Reckoning Podcast host, Jesse White, navigates through the murky waters of political campaigns and controversies that could shift the tides in the upcoming elections. This episode takes you behind the political curtain, revealing how a resurfaced indiscretion on the Howard Stern Show has thrust Stelson's candidacy into the limelight, and how her response could spell triumph or disaster on her path to challenging Scott Perry.
Feel the intensity of the political arena as we scrutinize not only Stelson's platform but also the credentials and past records that shape the Democratic hopefuls' bids for the nomination. And it's not just the Democrats in the hot seat; a Republican candidate's surprising party switch and questionable district residency come under the microscope, shedding light on the critical choices voters hold in their hands. As the primary heats up, every move, every alliance, and every misstep could redefine what it means to be a resilient and transparent candidate ready to unify the party and face the rigors of an electoral showdown. Join us for this hard-hitting discussion that goes beyond the headlines and pierces through to the core of what's at stake in Pennsylvania's 11th.
Learn more about the Keystone Reckoning Project at www.keystonereckoning.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
To paraphrase Bob Dylan, how many roads must a
candidate go down before theycan call themselves the nominee?
Well, in the case of JanelleSteltsen in the Pennsylvania
10th Congressional District,she's got a couple, as far as
I'm concerned.
Hi, welcome to the KeystoneReckoning Podcast.
I'm Jesse White.
It is Wednesday, april 10th2024.
(00:21):
We are less than two weeks awayfrom the Pennsylvania primary
election and today we're goingto be talking about one specific
race the Pennsylvania 10thCongressional District.
That's where I live, so I'mkind of immersed in the race in
terms of seeing all the ads andeverything and the operations of
all the campaigns.
And it's against Scott Perry,who you may know from such hits
(00:42):
as hey, let's overthrow thegovernment on January 6th.
And no, you may not see my textmessages with Donald Trump.
I don't care if you have acongressional subpoena or not, I
serve with him in the statehouse.
He was a bad guy then.
He's a worse guy now.
He's got to go.
We've all are clearly on thesame page with that.
There are six candidates runningfor the privilege to unseat him
(01:02):
.
One of them is Janelle Steltsen, who was a newscaster for WGAL
TV for, I believe, 26 years 20some years and has now thrown
her hat in the ring along withfive other candidates, all of
whom, quite honestly, arequalified.
A lot of races there's alwayslike that one crackpot.
(01:24):
There was a debate last nightthat actually WGAL hosted.
You can see it online.
I would suggest to anybodycheck it out.
They all actually are prettygood.
You know, there's things I likeabout some more than others and
vice versa, but by and largethey're all.
They all pass that basecompetency test Right In terms
(01:45):
of you know whether or not theycould theoretically at least
earn my vote.
And but Janelle there's.
She has painted herself as thefront runner.
You know, kind of there's beensome I don't want to say
manipulating of headlines, butthere's been some word jujitsu
(02:07):
to allow her to paint herself asa front runner.
And OK, we'll call her, we'llcall her the front runner.
And there are some issues thathave kind of followed her
throughout the campaign thathave never really been addressed
, and I've been watching those.
And then something happenedyesterday that to me made it
rise to the level of something.
Okay, we need to talk about allof this kind of edge totality,
(02:29):
because there's a there's anunderlying purpose behind it.
So here's what we're going todo.
There are three main issuesthat I want to talk about that
are kind of questions or issuesthat are hanging out there about
Stilton's race.
We're going to talk about those.
Then we're going to talk abouthow they've been addressed or
haven't been addressed and thenwhy that's important.
Okay, so we're going to startwith kind of the most
(02:51):
sensational one first.
It just came out yesterday.
I have actually been sent thisclip several times by some other
political people in the areaand yesterday Shemaine Daniels,
one of the opponents or one ofthe candidates in the primary,
who also was the nominee in 2022and actually did quite well
(03:12):
against Perry, given that it wasnot a funded race nationally,
which it will be this year,hence why there are six
candidates trying to get thenomination Her campaign released
this clip in a press releaseand the clip I'm going to set it
up for you briefly because it'skind of crazy it's a clip from
the Howard Stern Show from about10 years ago.
(03:33):
The date doesn't really matter,it's about 10 years ago and on
the clip because I'm going toplay it for you it's about 45
seconds long and in the clip theStern Show is listening to,
they're playing a clip of wgal,so it's them listening to wgal
and in it janelle stelton isanchoring the news and her
(03:54):
co-anchor is talking about a catbar in like belgium, where,
like people bring their cats andgo and hang out or whatever I
don't know, um, and they get.
He mentions that they were alsothat cat bars are not new and
that they are also popular inparts of Asia.
To which she then said and thisis this is Janelle's quote, of
(04:17):
course, because they're makingcat tacos out of them and then
laughed and laughed and laughedand then threw it over to the
Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
This is all, by the way, laidout in.
There's a great article intoday's Penn Live by Charlie
Thompson that talks about thisand some of these other issues.
So if you're looking for adeeper dive, I would highly
recommend finding that onPennLivecom.
(04:39):
Ok, so I'm going to play theclip for you right now so you
can hear it for yourself.
It's not that long 45 secondsbut I think it bears being heard
on its own.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Anchor woman.
Now, you would think they wouldknow better.
This is an anchor woman tryingto undermine her own career.
This is a good tape.
Like you know, when you're ananchor person, you just keep
your mouth shut because it's thecushiest job.
All you have to do is read thenews.
A businessman in Brussels,belgium, has opened up a cat bar
.
People can get a drink and abite to eat while enjoying the
(05:08):
company of five resident cats.
Cat bars, by the way, are not anew idea.
The businesses are very popularacross Asia, of course, because
they're making tacos out ofthem.
That's terrible.
That's terrible.
Yeah, wow, all right, thank youfor watching News 8 at 11.
It's a night show starringJimmy Fallon.
(05:28):
We'll see you tomorrow.
She's laughing because sheknows she's probably going to
get fired.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
That was a thing that happened and the interesting
thing was then the responseRight.
So what was her response goingto be?
You know, you go through likethe typical checklist of
political responses when they'reyou know you're kind of caught
saying something you shouldn'thave.
Right, you could say, uh, youwere you misspoke.
Well, were you trying todisparage another ethnic group
(05:57):
and accidentally said asians, oryou know another animal and say
cats?
I mean, that doesn't work,right?
Um, there's not a whole lot.
There's not a lot of ways tospin that, there's just not.
My first question was when Iheard it, I was like, well,
where was the on-air apology?
Right, and because this?
I think it was like 2009 whenit happened.
(06:19):
It was a time when, like,twitter was not quite a thing,
you know, it wasn't like nowwhere something like that could
have easily gone viral veryquickly.
It just, you know we weren'tquite there yet.
You know it was.
It was a much 2009, a muchsimpler time in many ways.
But you know the thought wouldbe okay, you say something
offensive, you, you do a publicapology, you know, you do your
(06:41):
mea culpa and you move on.
There's no evidence that thatwas done and I guess, according
to the article that PennLivetried to get a comment from
Janelle and instead of actuallytalking to the reporter, they
issued a statement so they couldyou know kind of you know frame
it the way they wanted.
Ok, fine, and she says that sheapologized.
(07:05):
She said, quote my comment waswrong and I apologize for it.
At the time this was herstatement.
I was live on TV for thousandsof hours over 38 years and one
inappropriate joke from a decadeago is the worst thing they can
find and there's more to it,but I'm going to address that in
another spot.
But then PennLive goes on topoint out, quote there is no
record of the remark creatingany kind of public controversy.
(07:28):
Her apologies Stelz's campaignsaid later Tuesday, were made
privately to some viewers whohad reached out with complaints.
Call me crazy, call me aconspiracy theorist, call me
whatever.
Does anybody think that therewere private apologies made?
I'd love for that person tocome forward, like you, publicly
apologize.
It was racist.
By the way, it was not onlyracist but it's also offensive
(07:50):
to animal lovers, like.
I've worked with animals a lotin my career and that is.
You know, my cat drives mecrazy.
My wife's cat actually drivesme crazy.
I wouldn't even think aboutmaking a joke to her about
making tacos out of it, unless Iwanted to be sleeping in the
driveway for the next week Justnot cool all the way around
Instead of owning it you knowdeflection, you know, try to
(08:14):
sidestep it, whatever.
And this is kind of what I'mgetting at and this is kind of
the bigger point, right, becauseyou might think, okay, big deal
, but you'll see now there's apattern here that I think we
need to look at.
(08:34):
So let's talk about the nextthing, and these have been
around for a little while andthey're more widely known.
One is that Steltsin does notlive in the congressional
district, and congressionaldistricts are big, right, there
are not that many of them in thestate.
Each one is like over 750,000people.
So PA10 includes Dauphin,cumberland and parts of York
(08:55):
County right, big areas.
Steltsin lives in LancasterCounty.
Now Congress, federal Congressis the only office where you do
not need to reside in thedistrict to run.
So you know that's the phrasecarpetbagger, right, you know
that applies here Someone thatlives somewhere else and moves
somewhere to run for office.
She's technically not even acarpetbagger, because a
(09:18):
carpetbagger, actually, you know, bags up their carpet and moves
.
She's not moved here.
There's an article from Octoberwhen she announced,
acknowledging she didn't live inthe district and she
sidestepped it, stepped itwhether or not she would move
here.
It says I'm reading it saidthat she would address that
issue when it arose when she hadto deal with it.
(09:43):
She has not so far in theprimary, said yes, even if I win
the primary, I will move intothe district.
So we can reasonably assume Ithink the implication is here
she's not moving to the districtunless and until she's sworn in
as a member of Congress.
I think that's just reality,until she says otherwise okay,
yeah, it's Lancaster County,it's not that far away, it's not
(10:05):
all that different.
I just got done doing twoelection cycles in Lancaster
County and yeah, it is a littledifferent because it's a
different community, it's adifferent county, it's different
people, it's differentinstitutions, it's different
ways of doing things.
It is different.
(10:25):
It's different electedofficials, local elected
officials, different democraticcommittees, different
organizations.
It's different, it's not thesame.
It matters to some people, itmatters to some people.
The third one and this is maybethe most, I think, in some ways
damning right, because you canlook at some of these other ones
and be like oh, it's thatpolitical inside baseball,
(10:49):
you're trying to nitpickwhatever.
This last one I think isproblematic, trying to nitpick
whatever.
This last one I think isproblematic and it is that she
was a Stelton was a registeredRepublican until January of 2023
.
So she announced her run forCongress in October of 2023.
So she clearly, and that sheclearly knew she was doing it
(11:11):
before then.
So I matter of fact, I'm nopsychic, but I'm going to go out
on a limb and say, let's see,she changed her party
registration to Democrat inJanuary of 2023.
I'm going to bet she decided torun for Congress as a Democrat
in January 2023.
Right, I mean, come on, thisisn't hard and, by the way, this
(11:34):
is not, this isn't theoretical,this is very clearly public
record.
We know when she changed it.
So that's a real thing.
It was pointed out in the debatelast night that by Mike O'Brien
, one of the other candidates,that because she tried, so
Stelton has tried to kind ofdodge it by saying that she was
(11:56):
voting by her beliefs.
I forget exactly how she saidit, but she was trying to imply
that she said.
Here's what the PennLivearticle said from today.
It says on party registration,steltsin has explained that she
gave little thought to her partyregistration for most of her
life as a working broadcasterwho was obligated to stay out of
(12:17):
partisan politics.
She said the Democratic Partyhas matched her personal
political views for some timenow and she made the
registration switch officiallast year.
Prior to joining the race wasand it's a valid point that
because Stelton had voted in theRepublican primaries through
2022, she was, by definition,casting votes for candidate to
(12:39):
her anti-abortion, anti-union,anti-public education,
anti-climate and anti-democracyRight, because that's all there
was on the ballot.
On a Republican primary ballot.
There are no good choices.
There are no good choices.
The good choices are very, veryfew and far between.
So, by unless she didn't votewhich she did so by voting she
(12:59):
voted for some of these peoplethat were not anybody that a
Democratic primary voter wouldsupport.
That's problematic.
That's problematic.
So let's put all of thistogether.
Ok, let's synthesize it.
Now.
We've got all these ingredients, let's throw them in the
blender and see what we come upwith.
So let's put all of thistogether.
Okay, let's synthesize it.
Now We've got all theseingredients, let's throw them in
(13:20):
the blender and see what wecome up with.
To me, this is one of the bestexamples I've ever seen of
opportunism and the attempt tocreate an image of a candidate
that isn't accurate.
It is an attempt to take ashortcut.
Let's call this what it is.
You voted in the Republicanprimary and you were a
(13:41):
registered Republican.
You know what that makes you ARepublican.
You were a Republican.
Own it, own it you were.
You are running for Congress ina place you don't live because
you think you have a betterchance of winning, because you
think Scott Perry is vulnerableand you think that the race is
going to be funded nationallyand that's where you personally
(14:04):
have a better chance of beingelected in your mind.
For those that don't know, thecongressman in PA 11 is Lloyd
Smucker, who's not a whole lotbetter than Scott Perry.
He's a pretty bad guy.
What's the difference?
Well, the district is morelikely to flip in PA-10 than it
is in PA-11.
(14:24):
So instead of standing up forher own community to run for
Congress, she's running forCongress somewhere else because
that's what's better for her.
It would probably be better forPA 11 and the voters there for
her to run there.
And then we have anothercandidate in PA 10 that's
qualified and we have two goodDemocratic candidates in theory.
(14:44):
But no, we've got to slide overto where we don't live because
that's the better odds ofgetting elected Right.
So there's that kind of likenaked ambition.
That is just super obvious.
The fact that you know, andmaybe it's the fact that because
you lived in PA 11 as aRepublican, you voted for Lloyd
(15:05):
Smucker how many times did youvote for Lloyd Smucker?
Be real awkward to turn aroundand run and run against them.
Now See how this all kind ofmeshes together and run against
them.
Now See how this all kind ofmeshes together, paints a
picture that's not very, notgreat.
It's not great, and so that'sall there.
And to me even all of that isnot necessarily disqualifying.
But to me this part is thispart that's coming up, is what
(15:29):
really?
When I was like well, I guessnow I have to talk about this,
because during the debate lastnight and also in her statement
about the cat taco thing, shemade a comment.
When Mike O'Brien talked abouther voter registration, her
response was, quote you havejust given Scott Perry his dream
(15:50):
this Dem on Dem violence.
I think everybody up here isdoing a great, outstanding job
in the race.
Let's cut it out.
Let's keep our eyes on theprize and let's go after the guy
who really needs to be gottenrid of.
So that's clearly deflection,right, it's self-victimization.
You know, instead of having toaddress the issues which are
valid, right, like there arethree of them now that are legit
(16:13):
, like, having been a candidateand been an elected official, I
could tell you I've had toanswer for a lot less.
A lot less.
In one way, she's probably rightin terms of giving you know,
you talk about giving ScottPerry his dream.
Scott Perry's dream is to runagainst somebody that can easily
be slashed up politically.
(16:33):
Scott Perry's dream is to runagainst somebody that can easily
be slashed up politically.
Scott Perry's dream is to runagainst somebody who's barely a
Democrat, or is a Democrat with,you know, in name, but with no
bona fides or no evidence ofbeing doing anything fighting
for democratic causes ordemocratic ideals.
That is, you know, I thoughtabout it.
There's got to be a term forthis, right, like, what do you
call a candidate like this?
(16:54):
And to me and this isn't and Iwant to be very clear, this has
nothing to do with gender, right, it's.
It's the gender connotation, is, is Comes with this term, but
it's not what I mean by it.
It's, I feel like we're lookingat a Stepford candidate, right
Like it's manufactured.
It's being put together frompieces and we have to hope that
(17:16):
the veneer doesn't break.
And the thing about that is isthat, look, primary elections
are crucibles, are crucibles.
You put candidates in there,you put the pressure on them and
the voters then decide whoemerges from that as the best
possible candidate to run in thegeneral election.
(17:37):
We know that Scott Perry Aneeds to be defeated.
B is not going to be easy tobeat.
Now there can be many differingopinions about what kind of a
candidate it will take to beathim.
Reasonable people can differ onthat.
I think the last couple ofcycles, what we've seen in that
race with George Scott, thenEugene DiPasquale, then Shemaine
Daniels there have been a lotof theories about that which we
(18:00):
don't have time for right now.
But the point of a primary is tovet these candidates.
Point of a primary is to vetthese candidates and I'm sorry,
but when these questions arebeing asked of Janelle Steltsen
or any candidate but I'm usingJanelle because it happened, it
literally just happened whenthose questions are being asked,
(18:23):
you have an obligation toanswer them.
You owe it to the voters toanswer them.
We may not like the answers,but we deserve answers.
These are not little minornickel and dime things.
And, by the way, if you thinkthat you're if for Janelle, if
you think that this is beingtreated poorly, if you think
this is, you know, worthy ofvictimization,
(18:45):
self-victimization, I've gotsome bad news for you.
The second you become thenominee Because maybe you
haven't noticed, or maybe youhave, because you were a
Republican.
But they don't play around,they win.
They like to win by whatevermeans necessary.
So, being asked some questionsin a debate or being confronted
(19:07):
with your own words that werebroadcast to thousands and
thousands of people on livetelevision if you think that's
bad, wait until you have to dealwith the reality of running in
a general election.
It's not fun, and the wholepoint of a primary is to get
this stuff out of the way, tofind out what candidates are
best equipped and best suited,both in temperament and
(19:31):
qualifications and everything inbetween, to be able to
withstand that storm and comeout on the other side as someone
that the voters and theDemocratic Party and the
supporters will get behind andrally behind.
And with it being apresidential year.
The stakes are high becausedown-ballot fuel up ballot
results.
It matters, it matters a lot.
(19:52):
So that, to me, is a hugeproblem.
But I want to go back to thething that was truly
disqualifying was part of herresponse as the poor me,
everybody's ganging up on meturn that she took when
questioned about this and I'mgoing to read it again.
(20:14):
This Dem on Dem violence.
Violence is a term that needsto be dealt with very carefully
in politics today, for reasonswe have talked about on this
podcast, for reasons thatanybody with a working pair of
eyes and half a brain can figureout.
There is, unfortunately, realviolence in our political system
(20:38):
today.
Candidates, supporters, peopleare being subjected to violence
in ways we've never seen beforeor haven't seen in our lifetimes
, and it's been normalized bythe modern Republican Party from
Donald Trump on down, and Godknows.
There's no bigger enabler of itin Congress than Scott Perry.
Right.
This hits home.
This matters.
There is real politicalviolence in our system.
(21:00):
People have died.
People died on January 6th.
Uniformed law enforcementofficers died on January 6th as
a result of political violence.
For Janelle Steltsen to putherself in that category, as a
victim of dem-on-dem violence,is not only incredibly tone deaf
(21:21):
.
It is patently offensive topeople that have actually been
subjected to political violence.
They are not the same beingasked valid questions about your
background, your politicalhistory and your public remarks
that were clearly raciallyinsensitive.
Those are not attacks.
Those are legitimate questionsthat, if you are a serious
(21:48):
candidate for the United StatesCongress, you should damn well
be expected and prepared toanswer honestly and truly.
That's how you earn the votersrespect.
That's how you earn their votes.
But that's not what we're seeing.
We're seeing the classiccampaign of we are going to tell
you what we're seeing.
We're seeing the classiccampaign of we are going to tell
(22:09):
you what we want to tell youabout us.
We're going to ignoreeverything else.
We're going to paint ourselvesas the front runner and then
we're going to run out the clockand hope that nobody notices
the difference.
That's their narrative, by theway.
Here's how that story ends youlose in November.
You lose because your entirecampaign was built on, you know,
a house of breadsticks and itcrumbles because you have an
(22:31):
enthusiasm gap from people thatknow you're not sincere and that
you are.
You haven't done the work toshare those values, to earn the
right to say you share thosevalues.
Maybe you do share them, butyou haven't demonstrated it.
You feel you look slippery, youlook like a politician, and
that's not what people want.
So, yeah, that act sometimes,oftentimes, will get you through
a primary.
(22:52):
You'll make it through theprimary, but that's not a
victory.
The victory is winning inNovember and in winning the way
that she's trying to win.
Because there are sixcandidates in the race, you
don't need a clear majority.
You can win with a plurality,right.
But the real challenge will bethen unifying your other five
opponents and the way that arace like this is being run,
(23:16):
where those opponents are goingto.
If she wins, they're going tofeel as though it was a false
win.
It was a hollow win, not false.
We're not election deniers inthis podcast.
But if they feel as though itwas not an honest win I guess
that's the best way of puttingit they're not going to back her
(23:36):
.
And if she wins with 34% of thevote or something like that,
the narrative is very simpleWell, 60 some percent of the
voters voted for somebody else.
I don't see anything about theway this campaign is being run
and the way you look at theinteractions last night on that
stage, at debate stage, thatthere's any potential to unify.
You know there were manyinstances where the candidates
(23:57):
were actually very complimentaryof one another about certain
things.
You didn't see that around her.
Now, maybe that's because she'sperceived as the front runner,
and I get it, I'm not totallynaive but this just feels slimy.
This feels slimy and I reallyworry about, if she wins, how
(24:17):
this goes, and I don't think itgoes well.
I don't think it goes well andI think that's what we have to
think about as we're choosingour nominee.
We talk about electability.
We talked about all these.
You know we're all experts,right.
We all throw these ideas outthere about.
You know who should win and howthey can win and why they
should win.
But there's like a baselineright.
(24:38):
Like if you want to be theDemocratic nominee, there's some
basic boxes to check off, and Ijust don't see them being
checked off here.
You know I'm a huge believerthat you don't beat Republican
with Republican light, or youdon't beat Republican in 2024
with a Republican from 2023.
In this case doesn't work.
I think history will prove meout.
Maybe I'll be wrong and thenthey can pull this clip.
(25:00):
I mean, I'm not Howard Stern oranything, but you know.
So yeah, capacos not good.
Not living in the district Notgood.
(25:21):
Not living in the district notgood.
Republican till last year notgood.
I don't know how you add allthat up and say, yes, this
should be our nominee.
I just don't see it.
But I'm not the only one thatgets to vote in these things.
I have the right to saysomething about it, and I have.
I'm curious to hear yourthoughts on it.
But yeah, so that's where wesit and it'll be interesting in
two weeks to see how this allplays out.
I worry that I kind of know whatthe script is going to look
like and it's going to beproblematic.
(25:42):
But we have to be mindful ofthe purpose of a primary.
It's not to bandwagon jump.
It's to take our obligation tovet candidates seriously,
because we need serious peoplewho share our ideals, share our
values running for office.
It's got to be about the voters, it can't be about the
(26:04):
candidates, and everything aboutthis campaign feels like it's
all about the candidate and thenthey just trimmed around the
edges to make it fit, try tomake it fit, into the election
she's running in.
I don't know.
I don't know what's going tohappen, but I know that as more
of this campaign plays out downthe homestretch, I think we'll
(26:25):
see more of the same.
I don't know how engaged votersare to be able to put these
pieces together and if theymatter to them or not, but if
nothing else, I think, based onwhat we've seen from Janelle
Steltsen, I think we're going tosee a lot more blowing in the
wind.
This has been the Keys toReckoning podcast.
I'm Jesse White.
We'll do it again tomorrow.
To paraphrase Bob Dylan, how many roads must a
candidate go down before theycan call themselves the nominee?
Well, in the case of JanelleSteltsen in the Pennsylvania
10th Congressional District,she's got a couple, as far as
I'm concerned.
Hi, welcome to the KeystoneReckoning Podcast.
I'm Jesse White.
It is Wednesday, april 10th2024.
(00:21):
We are less than two weeks awayfrom the Pennsylvania primary
election and today we're goingto be talking about one specific
race the Pennsylvania 10thCongressional District.
That's where I live, so I'mkind of immersed in the race in
terms of seeing all the ads andeverything and the operations of
all the campaigns.
And it's against Scott Perry,who you may know from such hits
(00:42):
as hey, let's overthrow thegovernment on January 6th.
And no, you may not see my textmessages with Donald Trump.
I don't care if you have acongressional subpoena or not, I
serve with him in the statehouse.
He was a bad guy then.
He's a worse guy now.
He's got to go.
We've all are clearly on thesame page with that.
There are six candidates runningfor the privilege to unseat him
(01:02):
.
One of them is Janelle Steltsen, who was a newscaster for WGAL
TV for, I believe, 26 years 20some years and has now thrown
her hat in the ring along withfive other candidates, all of
whom, quite honestly, arequalified.
A lot of races there's alwayslike that one crackpot.
(01:24):
There was a debate last nightthat actually WGAL hosted.
You can see it online.
I would suggest to anybodycheck it out.
They all actually are prettygood.
You know, there's things I likeabout some more than others and
vice versa, but by and largethey're all.
They all pass that basecompetency test Right In terms
(01:45):
of you know whether or not theycould theoretically at least
earn my vote.
And but Janelle there's.
She has painted herself as thefront runner.
You know, kind of there's beensome I don't want to say
manipulating of headlines, butthere's been some word jujitsu
(02:07):
to allow her to paint herself asa front runner.
And OK, we'll call her, we'llcall her the front runner.
And there are some issues thathave kind of followed her
throughout the campaign thathave never really been addressed
, and I've been watching those.
And then something happenedyesterday that to me made it
rise to the level of something.
Okay, we need to talk about allof this kind of edge totality,
(02:29):
because there's a there's anunderlying purpose behind it.
So here's what we're going todo.
There are three main issuesthat I want to talk about that
are kind of questions or issuesthat are hanging out there about
Stilton's race.
We're going to talk about those.
Then we're going to talk abouthow they've been addressed or
haven't been addressed and thenwhy that's important.
Okay, so we're going to startwith kind of the most
(02:51):
sensational one first.
It just came out yesterday.
I have actually been sent thisclip several times by some other
political people in the areaand yesterday Shemaine Daniels,
one of the opponents or one ofthe candidates in the primary,
who also was the nominee in 2022and actually did quite well
(03:12):
against Perry, given that it wasnot a funded race nationally,
which it will be this year,hence why there are six
candidates trying to get thenomination Her campaign released
this clip in a press releaseand the clip I'm going to set it
up for you briefly because it'skind of crazy it's a clip from
the Howard Stern Show from about10 years ago.
(03:33):
The date doesn't really matter,it's about 10 years ago and on
the clip because I'm going toplay it for you it's about 45
seconds long and in the clip theStern Show is listening to,
they're playing a clip of wgal,so it's them listening to wgal
and in it janelle stelton isanchoring the news and her
(03:54):
co-anchor is talking about a catbar in like belgium, where,
like people bring their cats andgo and hang out or whatever I
don't know, um, and they get.
He mentions that they were alsothat cat bars are not new and
that they are also popular inparts of Asia.
To which she then said and thisis this is Janelle's quote, of
(04:17):
course, because they're makingcat tacos out of them and then
laughed and laughed and laughedand then threw it over to the
Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
This is all, by the way, laidout in.
There's a great article intoday's Penn Live by Charlie
Thompson that talks about thisand some of these other issues.
So if you're looking for adeeper dive, I would highly
recommend finding that onPennLivecom.
(04:39):
Ok, so I'm going to play theclip for you right now so you
can hear it for yourself.
It's not that long 45 secondsbut I think it bears being heard
on its own.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Anchor woman.
Now, you would think they wouldknow better.
This is an anchor woman tryingto undermine her own career.
This is a good tape.
Like you know, when you're ananchor person, you just keep
your mouth shut because it's thecushiest job.
All you have to do is read thenews.
A businessman in Brussels,belgium, has opened up a cat bar
.
People can get a drink and abite to eat while enjoying the
(05:08):
company of five resident cats.
Cat bars, by the way, are not anew idea.
The businesses are very popularacross Asia, of course, because
they're making tacos out ofthem.
That's terrible.
That's terrible.
Yeah, wow, all right, thank youfor watching News 8 at 11.
It's a night show starringJimmy Fallon.
(05:28):
We'll see you tomorrow.
She's laughing because sheknows she's probably going to
get fired.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
That was a thing that happened and the interesting
thing was then the responseRight.
So what was her response goingto be?
You know, you go through likethe typical checklist of
political responses when they'reyou know you're kind of caught
saying something you shouldn'thave.
Right, you could say, uh, youwere you misspoke.
Well, were you trying todisparage another ethnic group
(05:57):
and accidentally said asians, oryou know another animal and say
cats?
I mean, that doesn't work,right?
Um, there's not a whole lot.
There's not a lot of ways tospin that, there's just not.
My first question was when Iheard it, I was like, well,
where was the on-air apology?
Right, and because this?
I think it was like 2009 whenit happened.
(06:19):
It was a time when, like,twitter was not quite a thing,
you know, it wasn't like nowwhere something like that could
have easily gone viral veryquickly.
It just, you know we weren'tquite there yet.
You know it was.
It was a much 2009, a muchsimpler time in many ways.
But you know the thought wouldbe okay, you say something
offensive, you, you do a publicapology, you know, you do your
(06:41):
mea culpa and you move on.
There's no evidence that thatwas done and I guess, according
to the article that PennLivetried to get a comment from
Janelle and instead of actuallytalking to the reporter, they
issued a statement so they couldyou know kind of you know frame
it the way they wanted.
Ok, fine, and she says that sheapologized.
(07:05):
She said, quote my comment waswrong and I apologize for it.
At the time this was herstatement.
I was live on TV for thousandsof hours over 38 years and one
inappropriate joke from a decadeago is the worst thing they can
find and there's more to it,but I'm going to address that in
another spot.
But then PennLive goes on topoint out, quote there is no
record of the remark creatingany kind of public controversy.
(07:28):
Her apologies Stelz's campaignsaid later Tuesday, were made
privately to some viewers whohad reached out with complaints.
Call me crazy, call me aconspiracy theorist, call me
whatever.
Does anybody think that therewere private apologies made?
I'd love for that person tocome forward, like you, publicly
apologize.
It was racist.
By the way, it was not onlyracist but it's also offensive
(07:50):
to animal lovers, like.
I've worked with animals a lotin my career and that is.
You know, my cat drives mecrazy.
My wife's cat actually drivesme crazy.
I wouldn't even think aboutmaking a joke to her about
making tacos out of it, unless Iwanted to be sleeping in the
driveway for the next week Justnot cool all the way around
Instead of owning it you knowdeflection, you know, try to
(08:14):
sidestep it, whatever.
And this is kind of what I'mgetting at and this is kind of
the bigger point, right, becauseyou might think, okay, big deal
, but you'll see now there's apattern here that I think we
need to look at.
(08:34):
So let's talk about the nextthing, and these have been
around for a little while andthey're more widely known.
One is that Steltsin does notlive in the congressional
district, and congressionaldistricts are big, right, there
are not that many of them in thestate.
Each one is like over 750,000people.
So PA10 includes Dauphin,cumberland and parts of York
(08:55):
County right, big areas.
Steltsin lives in LancasterCounty.
Now Congress, federal Congressis the only office where you do
not need to reside in thedistrict to run.
So you know that's the phrasecarpetbagger, right, you know
that applies here Someone thatlives somewhere else and moves
somewhere to run for office.
She's technically not even acarpetbagger, because a
(09:18):
carpetbagger, actually, you know, bags up their carpet and moves
.
She's not moved here.
There's an article from Octoberwhen she announced,
acknowledging she didn't live inthe district and she
sidestepped it, stepped itwhether or not she would move
here.
It says I'm reading it saidthat she would address that
issue when it arose when she hadto deal with it.
(09:43):
She has not so far in theprimary, said yes, even if I win
the primary, I will move intothe district.
So we can reasonably assume Ithink the implication is here
she's not moving to the districtunless and until she's sworn in
as a member of Congress.
I think that's just reality,until she says otherwise okay,
yeah, it's Lancaster County,it's not that far away, it's not
(10:05):
all that different.
I just got done doing twoelection cycles in Lancaster
County and yeah, it is a littledifferent because it's a
different community, it's adifferent county, it's different
people, it's differentinstitutions, it's different
ways of doing things.
It is different.
(10:25):
It's different electedofficials, local elected
officials, different democraticcommittees, different
organizations.
It's different, it's not thesame.
It matters to some people, itmatters to some people.
The third one and this is maybethe most, I think, in some ways
damning right, because you canlook at some of these other ones
and be like oh, it's thatpolitical inside baseball,
(10:49):
you're trying to nitpickwhatever.
This last one I think isproblematic, trying to nitpick
whatever.
This last one I think isproblematic and it is that she
was a Stelton was a registeredRepublican until January of 2023
.
So she announced her run forCongress in October of 2023.
So she clearly, and that sheclearly knew she was doing it
(11:11):
before then.
So I matter of fact, I'm nopsychic, but I'm going to go out
on a limb and say, let's see,she changed her party
registration to Democrat inJanuary of 2023.
I'm going to bet she decided torun for Congress as a Democrat
in January 2023.
Right, I mean, come on, thisisn't hard and, by the way, this
(11:34):
is not, this isn't theoretical,this is very clearly public
record.
We know when she changed it.
So that's a real thing.
It was pointed out in the debatelast night that by Mike O'Brien
, one of the other candidates,that because she tried, so
Stelton has tried to kind ofdodge it by saying that she was
(11:56):
voting by her beliefs.
I forget exactly how she saidit, but she was trying to imply
that she said.
Here's what the PennLivearticle said from today.
It says on party registration,steltsin has explained that she
gave little thought to her partyregistration for most of her
life as a working broadcasterwho was obligated to stay out of
(12:17):
partisan politics.
She said the Democratic Partyhas matched her personal
political views for some timenow and she made the
registration switch officiallast year.
Prior to joining the race wasand it's a valid point that
because Stelton had voted in theRepublican primaries through
2022, she was, by definition,casting votes for candidate to
(12:39):
her anti-abortion, anti-union,anti-public education,
anti-climate and anti-democracyRight, because that's all there
was on the ballot.
On a Republican primary ballot.
There are no good choices.
There are no good choices.
The good choices are very, veryfew and far between.
So, by unless she didn't votewhich she did so by voting she
(12:59):
voted for some of these peoplethat were not anybody that a
Democratic primary voter wouldsupport.
That's problematic.
That's problematic.
So let's put all of thistogether.
Ok, let's synthesize it.
Now.
We've got all these ingredients, let's throw them in the
blender and see what we come upwith.
So let's put all of thistogether.
Okay, let's synthesize it.
Now We've got all theseingredients, let's throw them in
(13:20):
the blender and see what wecome up with.
To me, this is one of the bestexamples I've ever seen of
opportunism and the attempt tocreate an image of a candidate
that isn't accurate.
It is an attempt to take ashortcut.
Let's call this what it is.
You voted in the Republicanprimary and you were a
(13:41):
registered Republican.
You know what that makes you ARepublican.
You were a Republican.
Own it, own it you were.
You are running for Congress ina place you don't live because
you think you have a betterchance of winning, because you
think Scott Perry is vulnerableand you think that the race is
going to be funded nationallyand that's where you personally
(14:04):
have a better chance of beingelected in your mind.
For those that don't know, thecongressman in PA 11 is Lloyd
Smucker, who's not a whole lotbetter than Scott Perry.
He's a pretty bad guy.
What's the difference?
Well, the district is morelikely to flip in PA-10 than it
is in PA-11.
(14:24):
So instead of standing up forher own community to run for
Congress, she's running forCongress somewhere else because
that's what's better for her.
It would probably be better forPA 11 and the voters there for
her to run there.
And then we have anothercandidate in PA 10 that's
qualified and we have two goodDemocratic candidates in theory.
(14:44):
But no, we've got to slide overto where we don't live because
that's the better odds ofgetting elected Right.
So there's that kind of likenaked ambition.
That is just super obvious.
The fact that you know, andmaybe it's the fact that because
you lived in PA 11 as aRepublican, you voted for Lloyd
(15:05):
Smucker how many times did youvote for Lloyd Smucker?
Be real awkward to turn aroundand run and run against them.
Now See how this all kind ofmeshes together and run against
them.
Now See how this all kind ofmeshes together, paints a
picture that's not very, notgreat.
It's not great, and so that'sall there.
And to me even all of that isnot necessarily disqualifying.
But to me this part is thispart that's coming up, is what
(15:29):
really?
When I was like well, I guessnow I have to talk about this,
because during the debate lastnight and also in her statement
about the cat taco thing, shemade a comment.
When Mike O'Brien talked abouther voter registration, her
response was, quote you havejust given Scott Perry his dream
(15:50):
this Dem on Dem violence.
I think everybody up here isdoing a great, outstanding job
in the race.
Let's cut it out.
Let's keep our eyes on theprize and let's go after the guy
who really needs to be gottenrid of.
So that's clearly deflection,right, it's self-victimization.
You know, instead of having toaddress the issues which are
valid, right, like there arethree of them now that are legit
(16:13):
, like, having been a candidateand been an elected official, I
could tell you I've had toanswer for a lot less.
A lot less.
In one way, she's probably rightin terms of giving you know,
you talk about giving ScottPerry his dream.
Scott Perry's dream is to runagainst somebody that can easily
be slashed up politically.
(16:33):
Scott Perry's dream is to runagainst somebody that can easily
be slashed up politically.
Scott Perry's dream is to runagainst somebody who's barely a
Democrat, or is a Democrat with,you know, in name, but with no
bona fides or no evidence ofbeing doing anything fighting
for democratic causes ordemocratic ideals.
That is, you know, I thoughtabout it.
There's got to be a term forthis, right, like, what do you
call a candidate like this?
(16:54):
And to me and this isn't and Iwant to be very clear, this has
nothing to do with gender, right, it's.
It's the gender connotation, is, is Comes with this term, but
it's not what I mean by it.
It's, I feel like we're lookingat a Stepford candidate, right
Like it's manufactured.
It's being put together frompieces and we have to hope that
(17:16):
the veneer doesn't break.
And the thing about that is isthat, look, primary elections
are crucibles, are crucibles.
You put candidates in there,you put the pressure on them and
the voters then decide whoemerges from that as the best
possible candidate to run in thegeneral election.
(17:37):
We know that Scott Perry Aneeds to be defeated.
B is not going to be easy tobeat.
Now there can be many differingopinions about what kind of a
candidate it will take to beathim.
Reasonable people can differ onthat.
I think the last couple ofcycles, what we've seen in that
race with George Scott, thenEugene DiPasquale, then Shemaine
Daniels there have been a lotof theories about that which we
(18:00):
don't have time for right now.
But the point of a primary is tovet these candidates.
Point of a primary is to vetthese candidates and I'm sorry,
but when these questions arebeing asked of Janelle Steltsen
or any candidate but I'm usingJanelle because it happened, it
literally just happened whenthose questions are being asked,
(18:23):
you have an obligation toanswer them.
You owe it to the voters toanswer them.
We may not like the answers,but we deserve answers.
These are not little minornickel and dime things.
And, by the way, if you thinkthat you're if for Janelle, if
you think that this is beingtreated poorly, if you think
this is, you know, worthy ofvictimization,
(18:45):
self-victimization, I've gotsome bad news for you.
The second you become thenominee Because maybe you
haven't noticed, or maybe youhave, because you were a
Republican.
But they don't play around,they win.
They like to win by whatevermeans necessary.
So, being asked some questionsin a debate or being confronted
(19:07):
with your own words that werebroadcast to thousands and
thousands of people on livetelevision if you think that's
bad, wait until you have to dealwith the reality of running in
a general election.
It's not fun, and the wholepoint of a primary is to get
this stuff out of the way, tofind out what candidates are
best equipped and best suited,both in temperament and
(19:31):
qualifications and everything inbetween, to be able to
withstand that storm and comeout on the other side as someone
that the voters and theDemocratic Party and the
supporters will get behind andrally behind.
And with it being apresidential year.
The stakes are high becausedown-ballot fuel up ballot
results.
It matters, it matters a lot.
(19:52):
So that, to me, is a hugeproblem.
But I want to go back to thething that was truly
disqualifying was part of herresponse as the poor me,
everybody's ganging up on meturn that she took when
questioned about this and I'mgoing to read it again.
(20:14):
This Dem on Dem violence.
Violence is a term that needsto be dealt with very carefully
in politics today, for reasonswe have talked about on this
podcast, for reasons thatanybody with a working pair of
eyes and half a brain can figureout.
There is, unfortunately, realviolence in our political system
(20:38):
today.
Candidates, supporters, peopleare being subjected to violence
in ways we've never seen beforeor haven't seen in our lifetimes
, and it's been normalized bythe modern Republican Party from
Donald Trump on down, and Godknows.
There's no bigger enabler of itin Congress than Scott Perry.
Right.
This hits home.
This matters.
There is real politicalviolence in our system.
(21:00):
People have died.
People died on January 6th.
Uniformed law enforcementofficers died on January 6th as
a result of political violence.
For Janelle Steltsen to putherself in that category, as a
victim of dem-on-dem violence,is not only incredibly tone deaf
(21:21):
.
It is patently offensive topeople that have actually been
subjected to political violence.
They are not the same beingasked valid questions about your
background, your politicalhistory and your public remarks
that were clearly raciallyinsensitive.
Those are not attacks.
Those are legitimate questionsthat, if you are a serious
(21:48):
candidate for the United StatesCongress, you should damn well
be expected and prepared toanswer honestly and truly.
That's how you earn the votersrespect.
That's how you earn their votes.
But that's not what we're seeing.
We're seeing the classiccampaign of we are going to tell
you what we're seeing.
We're seeing the classiccampaign of we are going to tell
(22:09):
you what we want to tell youabout us.
We're going to ignoreeverything else.
We're going to paint ourselvesas the front runner and then
we're going to run out the clockand hope that nobody notices
the difference.
That's their narrative, by theway.
Here's how that story ends youlose in November.
You lose because your entirecampaign was built on, you know,
a house of breadsticks and itcrumbles because you have an
(22:31):
enthusiasm gap from people thatknow you're not sincere and that
you are.
You haven't done the work toshare those values, to earn the
right to say you share thosevalues.
Maybe you do share them, butyou haven't demonstrated it.
You feel you look slippery, youlook like a politician, and
that's not what people want.
So, yeah, that act sometimes,oftentimes, will get you through
a primary.
(22:52):
You'll make it through theprimary, but that's not a
victory.
The victory is winning inNovember and in winning the way
that she's trying to win.
Because there are sixcandidates in the race, you
don't need a clear majority.
You can win with a plurality,right.
But the real challenge will bethen unifying your other five
opponents and the way that arace like this is being run,
(23:16):
where those opponents are goingto.
If she wins, they're going tofeel as though it was a false
win.
It was a hollow win, not false.
We're not election deniers inthis podcast.
But if they feel as though itwas not an honest win I guess
that's the best way of puttingit they're not going to back her
(23:36):
.
And if she wins with 34% of thevote or something like that,
the narrative is very simpleWell, 60 some percent of the
voters voted for somebody else.
I don't see anything about theway this campaign is being run
and the way you look at theinteractions last night on that
stage, at debate stage, thatthere's any potential to unify.
You know there were manyinstances where the candidates
(23:57):
were actually very complimentaryof one another about certain
things.
You didn't see that around her.
Now, maybe that's because she'sperceived as the front runner,
and I get it, I'm not totallynaive but this just feels slimy.
This feels slimy and I reallyworry about, if she wins, how
(24:17):
this goes, and I don't think itgoes well.
I don't think it goes well andI think that's what we have to
think about as we're choosingour nominee.
We talk about electability.
We talked about all these.
You know we're all experts,right.
We all throw these ideas outthere about.
You know who should win and howthey can win and why they
should win.
But there's like a baselineright.
(24:38):
Like if you want to be theDemocratic nominee, there's some
basic boxes to check off, and Ijust don't see them being
checked off here.
You know I'm a huge believerthat you don't beat Republican
with Republican light, or youdon't beat Republican in 2024
with a Republican from 2023.
In this case doesn't work.
I think history will prove meout.
Maybe I'll be wrong and thenthey can pull this clip.
(25:00):
I mean, I'm not Howard Stern oranything, but you know.
So yeah, capacos not good.
Not living in the district Notgood.
(25:21):
Not living in the district notgood.
Republican till last year notgood.
I don't know how you add allthat up and say, yes, this
should be our nominee.
I just don't see it.
But I'm not the only one thatgets to vote in these things.
I have the right to saysomething about it, and I have.
I'm curious to hear yourthoughts on it.
But yeah, so that's where wesit and it'll be interesting in
two weeks to see how this allplays out.
I worry that I kind of know whatthe script is going to look
like and it's going to beproblematic.
(25:42):
But we have to be mindful ofthe purpose of a primary.
It's not to bandwagon jump.
It's to take our obligation tovet candidates seriously,
because we need serious peoplewho share our ideals, share our
values running for office.
It's got to be about the voters, it can't be about the
(26:04):
candidates, and everything aboutthis campaign feels like it's
all about the candidate and thenthey just trimmed around the
edges to make it fit, try tomake it fit, into the election
she's running in.
I don't know.
I don't know what's going tohappen, but I know that as more
of this campaign plays out downthe homestretch, I think we'll
(26:25):
see more of the same.
I don't know how engaged votersare to be able to put these
pieces together and if theymatter to them or not, but if
nothing else, I think, based onwhat we've seen from Janelle
Steltsen, I think we're going tosee a lot more blowing in the
wind.
This has been the Keys toReckoning podcast.
I'm Jesse White.
We'll do it again tomorrow.
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