Candidate Street calls Trump and Netanyahu war criminals

Prediction: The winner of the May 19 Democratic primary in the 3rd Congressional District — perhaps the most blue in the nation — will be progressive.

It’s no shock — it’s a lock, because all three candidates — Chris Rabb, Dr. Ala Stanford, Sharif Street — are progressive.

Oops. I forgot the fourth, as do most of the media — the invisible man, attorney Shaun Griffith. Call him the Rodney Dangerfield candidate, who don’t get no respect. 

The Inquirer talks about a three-person race. The City & State  political magazine talks about a three-way race even when a staffer was preparing to interview him, he says. WHYY bars him from a candidates’ forum, and others ghost him. “It’s extremely frustrating,” he says.

This demonstrates “we have a political system that is built for the haves. . . To exclude people like myself who really are in it just to serve my neighbors,” says Griffith.

He tells me he is progressive too, the most progressive on economic issues, maybe less so on social issues.

With choices limited to progressives, what’s a moderate Democrat like me supposed to do?

Take a look at a field running hard to port (that’s maritime talk for Left) and see which one is closest to the center.

Farthest Left is State Rep Rabb, who calls to mind this adage: To tell me who you are, show me who your friends are.

Rabb did that recently when he invited a repulsive radical to campaign with him. 

Hasan Piker, an influencer hate merchant with some 11 million followers, is so extreme he seems like parody, like a bad SNL sketch.

He has said America “deserved” 9/11, he prefers terrorist group Hamas to U.S. ally Israel, and has voiced  anti-Semitic, anti-U.S., anti-women, and anti-LGBTQ views.

Want more? He commented that millionaires’ children should “date rape” each other, denied widespread rape during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre in southern Israel, minimized the Holocaust and even attacked his dear demi-god Bernie Sanders. 

Rabb’s embrace of Piker makes him toxic to me, not to mention his vote earlier this week against two bills to increase penalties on people who sexually abuse or traffic children.

Street walks a tightrope on Israel — he supports the Jewish State’s right to exist alongside a Palestinian state. He won’t touch the word “genocide,” but believes Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu is guilty of “war crimes,” as is President Donald J. Trump.

Griffith, along with Rabb, declares Israel has committed “genocide.”

They are wrong. The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide requires an intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a people. 

While Israel has killed a tremendous number of Arabs in its retaliation after the Hamas Oct. 7 massacre, it has not attempted to kill all Arabs, as proven by the 20% of Israel’s population that is Arab, and full citizens of Israel.

Like Street, Stanford declines to use what she calls “the G-word” regarding Israel’s actions in Gaza.

A pediatric surgeon, Stanford is a totally admirable person with a fabulous bootstrap biography, but she is a political novice, and it shows.

She was fast out of the blocks with TV commercials that set out to define her. TV helped her then, but then hurt her when she asked for a pause  during an interview when NBC10’s Lauren Mayk asked her what would replace ICE, which she would abolish. There are no time-outs in interviews, and Stanford fumbled and stumbled on what should have been a softball question.

She also dropped out of a WHYY forum two hours before it started, floating unsubstantiated claims of “misogyny,” and then was embarrassed when it was reported that her Black Doctors Consortium omitted details about her income that were required to be included on nonprofit tax forms filed with the IRS.

On the slippery ICE issue, both Street and Griffith would replace it and turn enforcement over to other agencies, such as Border Patrol, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the FBI. That’s the answer Stanford should have had ready.

Outgoing 3rd District Congressman Dwight Evans has endorsed Stanford, Bernie Sanders has endorsed Rabb, almost every elected official and most big unions have endorsed Street. Who has endorsed Griffith? 

“My friends,” he says with a sheepish grin.

An outsider running with almost no financial support, he says he’s glad he doesn’t have the support of the Democrat machine, which tried to knock him off the ballot, and which failed to beat Trump twice.

An attorney by trade, Griffith says only he and Stanford grew up in working class families, with no silver spoons.

So, yeah, he opposes the Establishment, which is how he defines Street, a veteran elected official and the son of former Mayor John Street.

Rather than Establishment, Street defines himself as “the candidate for getting things done.” He was the prime sponsor of the bill that implemented the Obamacare exchange in Philly, which lowered costs and expanded access to a half million Pennsylvanians.

He also secured $300 million in funding for anti vioence programs, and more for job training. 

He may despise Trump, but he has a reputation for getting along with many Harrisburg Republicans.

“I both know how to fight and I know how to work with people,” he says.

He was late getting on TV, focusing his early efforts on a ground game — getting signatures, knocking on doors, signing up people. 

He’s on TV now, and the ads are good — stressing his roots in the district, and what he has accomplished in his 10 years as a state senator, and a community activist before that.

Feeling a bit puckish, putting on my faux Woke hat, I ask Griffith if he feels any guilt, as a white man, running against three Black candidates in a majority minority district.

Griffiths laughs. He feels no guilt and suspects his race might hurt him. He thinks “at least some white voters. . . may want to demonstrate that ‘I am not racist, therefore I better vote for the minority candidate,’” Griffith says,  “without realizing that making a race-based decision is racist.”

Yes, yes it is, regardless who does it, or why.

So what’s a moderate to do?

I see nothing that Griffith — or anyone else — would like to do that Sharif Street couldn’t do better. And for a progressive, most of Street’s ideas are well within the Democratic mainstream.