PITTSBURGH (TNS) — Doug Mastriano betrayed his party, because he didn’t try to win. He refused to speak to the mainstream media. He didn’t work very hard to raise money. He never tried to translate his views into a vision for Pennsylvania that could attract voters across the spectrum, and he couldn’t be bothered to set many actual policies.
He didn’t seek endorsements and supporters outside the fringes whose celebrities you’ve probably never heard of. He didn’t campaign much. He held rallies in safe places with safe crowds.
I don’t know why he didn’t try to win. He won’t talk to the mainstream media likes of me. Plus we called him “too dangerous; too extreme” and “cowardly” in an editorial endorsing his opponent. I don’t really blame him for not talking, now that he’s lost.
People around him have given two explanations. One is that he believed that God called him to run and God would supply the victory. His job was just to witness to the truth. The other is that he was afraid to mix it up in public. He didn’t want to risk the embarrassment that comes with constant exposure to people who want you to lose.
In any case, Mr. Mastriano betrayed his party. (I’ll get to how he let down his country later.) When you take a party’s nomination, especially for a position as important as governor, you agree to try to win the office using every legitimate and moral method available.
You promise to get out on the campaign trail, shaking hands, slapping backs, eating weird foods, giving talk after talk after talk. You agree to let the press and the other party slap you around. You meet the people you meet, some of whom hate you and want to tell you why.
That’s the rule you agree to play by when you accept the nomination. To campaign the way Mr. Mastriano did is like being drafted in the first round to be the team’s main running back, signing the big contract and then running straight out of bounds every time you get the ball.
You’re playing to lose. You’re saving yourself, screw the team. The team trusted you. Now they’re worse off than if they had drafted the slow kid from the small college.
People in your party trust you to do your best. They gave you the gift of the nomination, and often a lot of time and money as well. They expect you to work very hard to represent them and make their case in the political world. They trust you to try to win, because why else would you run?
You betray them when you don’t try to win. You took the nomination under false pretenses.
By betraying his party, Doug Mastriano let down his country. Our political system depends on the Mastrianos being as much themselves as they can be. And the Shapiros being as Shapiro as they can be.
One may have, as I do, severe doubts about how well the American political system serves the common good. But it’s the only political system we’ve got, and the only way to direct the power of the government to making the nation better.
And it is, whether or not we like it, a two-party system whose politics play out along a left-right spectrum, representing two broadly different visions of America. (The spectrum leaves out visions that don’t fall along the spectrum, and these sometimes see truths no one else sees, but that’s another problem for another day.)
Both see some truths better than the other, and both are blind to truths the other sees clearly. Each has its own temptations, its own characteristic failings, its own foolishnesses and extremes. Both do a better job policing the people on the other side than they do themselves.
The right has only the left to challenge and correct it. The left has only the right. The greatest possibility for progress is that each changes the other.
(David Mills is the associate editorial page editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.)
