Mastriano Won’t Run to the Center

Washington Post: “When Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano was declared the victor in Tuesday night’s Republican gubernatorial nominating contest, he gave the customary speech to mark the occasion. And in that speech, he made very clear that his general election approach would not be to tack to the political center.”

“What Mastriano promised in his first comments as the Republican nominee to lead Pennsylvania… was a phalanx of right-wing bugaboos. Traditionally, candidates who had fought off an intraparty challenge would turn their attention to the general election with a well-honed focus on what might appeal to the electorate broadly. But that tradition was broken by Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, one in which Trump ran hard to the right to win the nomination … and then ran hard to the right in the general in the hope of getting members of the apathetic right to show up at the polls.”