– I am one of the so-called “Philly labor bosses” Republican 26th District state Senate candidate Tom McGarrigle rails against in his latest disingenuous TV commercial. The McGarrigle campaign failed to point out that I’ve worked with and supported the Delaware County Republican machine for many years.
Delco Republican gentlemen like former county Chairman Thomas Judge Sr. and former Upper Darby leader John McNichol are of a bygone era, a better time when political civility still existed. I know and count as friends several former, high-ranking Delco Republicans who ran afoul of the law. I never once said a bad word about them – not in public, not in private. In fact, I now work with a few of them. I consider them gentlemen, business associates and family.
Tom McGarrigle and the other arrogant members of the new breed of Delco Republicans aren’t gentlemen; they’re hit men. Rather than define who he is and why he is deserving of election, McGarrigle instead has spent his time and considerable campaign cash trying to tear down John Kane’s character.
For the life of me, I don’t get McGarrigle’s deceitful, pervasively negative campaign against my friend and union brother, John Kane, the Democratic state Senate nominee in the 26th District race. Tom McGarrigle snidely refers to me and the other hard-working leaders of the Building Trades as “union bosses.” He’s a hypocrite. During the 2012 St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Philadelphia, when I served as the parade’s Grand Marshal and McGarrigle was a member of Delaware County Council, he was by my side all day long. Now, he speaks of me and my union brothers and sisters with open contempt.
The Delaware County Republican Party, to which McGarrigle pledges his allegiance, has gladly accepted $1.8 million in political contributions from the Philadelphia Building Trades in the last two election cycles alone. And now we’re the bad guys? What a joke.
One last point: John Kane would never shamelessly drag his Republican opponent’s family into the middle of a heated political race. But that’s what Tom McGarrigle did, in a final, desperate attempt to smear John Kane. McGarrigle’s half-hearted denial that his camp wasn’t involved in this latest effort to embarrass John convinced no one.
John Kane has talked about creating family-sustaining jobs. He’s talked about taxing the Marcellus Gas industry to help plug the huge funding gap for our public schools. He’s talked about being a defender of Delco’s many middle class families, fighting for jobs, tax breaks and lower college tuition costs. I have sat next to John at many meetings when we talked about creating after-school programs, raising more than $1 million for United Cerebral Palsy, adopting Alex’s Lemonade Stand as a charity, building playgrounds and rec centers for under-privileged youth, participating in the Gary Papa Prostate Cancer Run, and delivering toys and turkeys every holiday season, many to families in Delaware County.
Tom McGarrigle has talked only about John Kane. Badly, dishonestly and continuously.
I hope my Delaware County friends will reject McGarrigle’s politics of negativity and vote for John Kane for state Senate on Tuesday, Nov. 4.
-John J. Dougherty, Business Manager, IBEW Local 98
