Recently, Brita Von Rossum, a Democrat and resident of East Whiteland Township,  attended a Republican campaign event in Malvern for Greg McCauley and Duane Milne. Greg McCauley is running against Chrissy Houlahan to be our representative in the US House of Representatives. Duane Milne is running against Christine Howard to be our representative in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.

Here Brita’s report of the event:

I went to the Greg McCauley campaign event at Malvern Borough. The event drew maybe 100 people or less.

There were a lot of people from the Republican organization there. Several of them seemed curious about who I was. One wanted to know how I had come to hear of the meeting. I told him about seeing the flyer at the library.

There was a lot of talk from both them and the audience about how Republicans have been running Chester County forever and have made it such a great place to live. People are moving in from Delaware County and Philadelphia because of the great quality of life in Chester County. But they are bringing their “radical values with them and threatening to mess up Chester County“. “In 30 days there will be a moment in time that could change Chester County history and we have to keep Republicans in power.”

It was definitely an event aimed at enthusing hard core conservatives. They just assumed that everyone there was a Trump supporter. I really should have brought a tape recorder to record it.

Some points from Duane Milne’s talk and Q&A session:
1) “We have to build a red wall. We have got to show the democrats that the 2017 election was a fluke, otherwise they will get more enthused and more powerful‘. Milne also repeated the lines about people moving to Chester County from the city and bringing their stupid ideas with them to mess up Chester County.
2) He opposes early voting. After the election he immediately wants to push voter ID laws so that everyone has to show ID every time they vote. He says “The democrats continue to make it possible for people who should not be allowed to vote to vote“. Says he was amazed at how many negative phone calls he got after voting YES on the voter ID law. Says he knows there is illegal voting – “especially in Philadelphia“. He didn’t give any examples or specifics.
3) “It is an abomination that Hilary Clinton is not in prison” in response to a question about the importance of demonstrating that the rule of law applies to everyone.
4) In response to a man talking about gender and feeling in the minority in a crowd of women. “You are either one or the other in my view” It sounds to me like he doesn’t approve of transgender individuals.
5) “In government, having the majority is everything, that is why we have to keep the Republican majority.” He also said “I hope there are no journalists here” and “It is OK it is just us” to encourage someone who might say something politically incorrect.
6) The issue that he thinks is most effective with women voters is education. He tells them that 1/3 of the total state budget goes towards education. He says they are amazed and don’t want to believe him until he shows them a pie chart on his website.
7) He says he is surprised and somewhat humbled by how competitive his race is.

Some points from Greg McCauley’s talk and Q&A session:
1) We have to balance the budget.
2) “We have 22 million illegal immigrants in this country. Most of them aren’t working for $20 an hour… Others are here on H1B visas working for banks and tech companies making hundreds of thousands a year but they don’t want to pay their taxes. That is when they came to me for help avoiding paying their taxes.”
3) “We should allow these workers to come here but we need to charge them for their visas and also make them pay taxes. This will generate 50 billion in tax revenue that we can use to fund social security and medicare.”
4) “We need to save money by cutting duplicate governmental departments like education and environmental protection.”
5) We have to cut pensions and make it easier to fire government workers.
6) “Trump is doing a great job already. Just wait until you see what he can do once he has allies in Congress.”
7) “Next summer you will see incredible growth due to the tax cuts. The one mistake Steve Mnuchin made is that he didn’t make the tax cuts retroactive.”
8) Some one asked when we will have a national concealed carry reciprocity law. McCauley replied that he was all in favor of this and said “it is ridiculous that a jeweler carrying a gun in PA and driving into New Jersey has to stop, disassemble his gun and put it in the trunk. I guess they will just wait to rob him until he is in New Jersey.”
9) He says he is concerned about student debt. He has heard of so many young people who say they cannot afford to have children. He wants to bring student loan rates way down – “to treasury rates“.
10) McCauley talked about how he grew up in Wynnewood and saw the same thing happen there – people moving from the city, bringing their politics with them and messing the place up. “Look at how Lower Merion is now Democrat controlled“.

I asked him a question about how he would protect American with pre-existing conditions so that they were able to buy insurance that would cover their pre-existing condition. He replied with a sob-story about a woman who’s daughter got sick, lost her job and employer based insurance and now can’t get insurance, I asked what specifically he would do. He replied “I will that support legislation to protect people with pre-existing conditions“.

I told him that of the 10 hottest summers ever, 8 have occurred in the last eleven years. I asked him why he thought that was and if he thought we should do anything about it. He seemed genuinely baffled and said he wasn’t an expert on environmental issues. He believes that humans have an impact on the earth but doesn’t know much about the issue. Told me we should recycle more and asked me what I thought we should do!

I don’t know how much of this is helpful to us, but it was interesting to see how Milne and McCauley talk when they think they are among friends. Definitely not distancing themselves from Trump.