My novel is fiction.
But this blog is fact.
And the truth is that Paige Cognetti is the best Scranton mayoral candidate to ever run for the office.
Smart, living here by choice, raising a family with her husband, and committed to restoring the public trust, she poses problems for the crooked status quo that rules Scranton politics. Backslappers and bloated neighborhood lackeys are already calling in crafty favors from whatever yes-men and yes-women they can scare, hinting at political or economic retribution and leaning on whatever elected and appointed political insiders they can influence to rig the Nov. 5 election outcome.
These fearful toadies worry Paige will clean out City Hall and replace party hacks with qualified public servants who want to serve the people rather than serving themselves.
They’re right.
They have reason to worry.
Still, these bad old boys treat the upcoming election like it’s something from the Depression – which, in a way, it is. Last night I heard somebody say that this accomplished 39-year-old woman needs Irish votes. Ethnicity always matters in the minds of our throwback political finaglers. So today I stuck one of Paige’s campaign signs in front of my house.
I have five generations of my family in Scranton since my grandfather left Ireland at the turn of the last century to mine coal in Scranton. As proud of my heritage as anybody, I figured I would add my ancestral legacy to this courageous cause. I’m sure I’m not alone.
Roots matter in Scranton, of course, a great place to raise a family. Ask any caring mother or expectant mother if she believes respect for family values matter. Ask her if personal honor matters in rejecting the who-you-know political rackets that send too many young people looking elsewhere for work and other opportunity rather than staying home and building on a fair future.
Paige petrifies the nests of bootlickers who panic at the prospect of independent thinking disrupting their behind-closed-doors deceit. That’s why professional flunkies are lined up against her, trying to sabotage her grassroots campaign with unfounded smears and outright sexism.
I’ve actually heard people question her commitment to serving as mayor because she’s pregnant. Nobody rejects a male candidate when his wife gets pregnant. They just throw a shower with a cash bar and a basket-of-cheer raffle.
Our last mayor, Bill Courtright, recently pleaded guilty to three federal felony counts of public corruption and faces sentencing next month He’ll likely go to prison for quite a few years. For too long, he and those like him used the city and its resources for their own benefit.
No integrity exists in public corruption.
We now have a chance to reject the long line of swindlers for what they are – thieves without conscience who steal our dreams and the promise of a respectable tomorrow.
Most Scranton residents want to make our city better, not worse. Most residents want to root out payola, rackets and the overall shadiness that kills economic and cultural progress.
So far, Republicans failed to fix it. Democrats failed. Former Republicans turned Democrats and former Democrats turned Republicans failed. They made it worse by helping themselves and those who paid their way into their dark inner circle.
I spent decades as a journalist skeptical of most politicians and candidates for public office. Most were shallow, manipulators of public opinion, overwhelmingly men who broke far more promises than they kept. When writing “Blood Red Syrah,” I highlighted degenerate politicians and the damage they do because of the lasting impression their unscrupulous crimes left on me.
Paige is one of the best political candidates I have ever met, a person in whom I am willing to place faith and whose word I am willing to trust.
Taking on this system isn’t easy, especially when this system took more than 168 years to mutate into the political city sewer it is today. Paige will disrupt business as usual. And when she does, we who believe in Scranton will face a new day from which to awaken and move forward, a stellar birth of innovation and unique opportunity to grow into a far better place to live, a hometown for decent people to live with honor.
It’s time to turn to Paige.
Paige Cognetti is our best choice for mayor.