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“Handpicked.” It’s an adjective we like when we’re talking about birthday gifts, one that can double the price of a bag of coffee beans. But when it comes to politics? Few labels are worse.
Calling something “handpicked” is usually a way to say it wasn’t gathered mechanically. But in politics, it’s often a sneer to describe choices by party machines and those who run them.
Democrats and Republicans alike get accused of relying on “handpicked” judges to serve their interests. Any time vacancies are filled by an official whose party you oppose, the replacements won’t merely be chosen — they will be “handpicked.” And the label makes it worse when your preferred candidates lose, as Donald Trump’s “handpicked” candidates in Pennsylvania and other states did last year.
Or take the contest to replace state Sen. Jim Brewster in the Monongahela Valley and environs. Within hours after Brewster disclosed that he would not be running for another term in the 45th Senate district, state Rep. Nick Pisciottano announced he would run for the seat, with Brewster’s blessing. Hours after that, a candidate to take Pisciottano’s 38th House District seat, John Ingles, stepped forward with Pisciottano’s support.
Republicans were apoplectic.
“The Mon Valley politics of yesterday strike again as they try to anoint a handpicked successor to Senator Brewster,” the Republican Committee of Allegheny County groused in a release. It accused Pisciottano of “sitting in the back rooms for months preparing for this run.”
Days later, the GOP seized on campaign paperwork Pisciottano filed in early December indicating his plans to run for state Senate.
“It is further evidence of the backroom deals orchestrated by Senator Brewster to handpick his successor,” the party fumed.
“You had Brewster announce his intent one day, and then you have an announcement the next day that Pisciottano is running,” said Sam DeMarco, who chairs the local Republican Party. “And not only is he trying to set himself up for the Brewster seat, but he maneuvered his cousin to run for the 38th House seat.”
It’s true you don’t see a political two-step like this orchestrated every day. And although there was considerable speculation about Brewster’s 2024 plans within Democratic circles late last year, not knowing an incumbent’s plans can keep hopefuls in limbo.
And because the seats belong not to the incumbent but to the voters, it’s no surprise when rivals try to stir up resentment at the idea that choices are being made for you.
All that said: If Democrats sought to clear the field of rivals, they could have done a more thorough job. Brewster and Pisciottano made their announcements well before the date on which candidates could even start circulating petitions for candidacy, let alone be required to file them. And both Pisciottano and John Inglis, Pisciottano's choice to replace him, have already drawn opponents in the Democratic primary.
As first reported here last week, Anthony “AJ” Olasz is seeking to challenge Inglis for Pisciottano’s House seat. And he’s backed by some Mon Valley leaders of his own. One of those is Brewster himself, which suggests these back rooms may not be quite so cozy after all.
Social worker and community activist Makenzie White jumped into the Senate race last fall — before Pisciottano did. White said she was not surprised by last week’s announcements: “This is how politics has been done for a long time” she said. But she added that running for office requires a lot of preparation and “not giving time for people to consider a run makes it even harder. … We’ve had a lot of change in the past few years, and people don’t want their leaders chosen that way any more.”
Still, she said she was bemused to see the GOP’s presumably less-than-entirely-sincere expression of “sympathy” for her prospects.
“I never thought I’d be in the good graces of the Republican Party,” she said in a tone that also struck me as being not entirely in earnest.
In fact, Republicans say they’ll roll out their own candidates in both races within the next couple of weeks. DeMarco candidly acknowledges that he’s helped to recruit them.
For that matter, the GOP chose candidates to run in a handful of special elections in nearby legislative races last year. While Democrats staged open debates involving hopefuls in those contests and chose them in a voting process the media was invited to attend, the GOP selected its nominees in a closed-door process that involved a small group of leaders.
You could call those candidates “handpicked,” too. But DeMarco said the party is doing what it must to provide voters with a choice in November.
With Republican voters outnumbered two-to-one in Allegheny County, he said, “I’m asking folks to step up and put themselves forward to run for a seat. Democrats have larger and more active primaries. Me going out to recruit someone is not handpicking a candidate.”
In the 45th District, DeMarco said, Republicans had no reason to defer to Brewster’s re-election plans.
"People have had four years to express an interest,” he said.”If someone had declared for it previously, we wouldn't need to recruit."
In any case, DeMarco said, part of the job of a party leader is to find “the candidate whose resume and record gives them the most appeal in the general election based on your knowledge of the district and the political environment.”
Democrats will still detect hypocrisy here: After all, they’re backing Pisciottano because they believe he is just such a candidate, which is why a broad cross-section of Democratic office-holders rushed to endorse him last week. In any case, our political environment is marked by bipartisan distrust of institutions, the two-party system most of all. That’s what Republican gripes about “handpicking” tap into.
But this year, anyway, voters in the Mon Valley and the South Hills seem likely to have meaningful choices in the spring and fall alike. You couldn’t get a better outcome if you picked it yourself.
