TOWAMENCIN- At the North Penn High School Democrats Club on Thursday April 26, the former 7th district congressional seat democrat candidate, Drew McGinty, came to talk to members of the club about involvement in politics and essentially why he dropped out of the race.  

In April 2017, the Philadelphia information technology consultant, McGinty, decided to join the Democratic party in the running for the 7th congressional district seat to take down Republican, Patrick Maheen.

In the past McGinty was not heavily involved in politics. He was an independent but would call himself a “closet democrat.” He was very big on volunteering and helping others. It wasn’t until he helped the Irish American democrats, that he got involved with politics and wanted to help Hillary Clinton. Once President Trump won the election in November 2016, McGinty decided he wanted to use his talents for to do something.

McGinty feels that some of the decisions President Trump makes are pretty impulsive and that we need people in the houses to put a buffer on some of the things he’s doing. Also, he feels both parties need to be managing checks and balances with Mr. Trump as the president.

Feeling that the democrats in the 7th district weren’t doing enough to win, McGinty decided to enter the running. With the knowledge that it would take years to try to undo all the unfavorable things President Trump has done, McGinty feels appealing to both parties is the way to work together and get more done.

The best thing going for McGinty in the race was his status as a moderate. Numbers show that you need 17% of the republican vote to win, which is one of McGinty’s main purposes of being moderate so he’d appeal to republicans. He felt if he were to constantly hate republicans nothing would get done, and if he were to criticize them he would not get 17% of the vote he needed. Doing this he did alienate some of the far left liberals, but his strategy was to not go for the far left or right, but for the moderates in the middle.

In February 2018 the Pennsylvania Supreme Court adopted a new congressional district map. With this redistricting, McGinty knew he had no chance in the race and decided to drop out. McGinty ties much of politics to money. Party leaderships are all about money, but he didn’t want to win for the money, he wanted to stop President Trump.

McGinty now fairly stays involved in politics. Politics left a bad taste in his mouth he says with all the sabotaging. He stays moderate but has met with candidates in the 5th district and is helping some democrats with their campaigns.

Advice for someone going into politics:

1. “You have to have the courage to do that. It’s a different type of courage when I say that though. You have to be willing to go and have people be angry at you. You have to be willing and able to accept that not everyone’s going to like you. You have to be willing and able to accept that people are going to hate you. Even in your own party, some people won’t like you. You have to have a thick skin. Most of the party leaders in the party were more vicious to me than the Republicans,” said McGinty.

1. “In my opinion you have to maintain your integrity. You have to be a person that can’t compromise your integrity. To me that’s personally critical for this. Going in, you have to look at the data and what the data tells you. If a moderate, such as myself, going into another district wouldn’t have a chance whatsoever. I’m not saying don’t try, but you have to really want to do it to have a chance for success. Look at the information going in, and ask yourself what can you do. I don’t think you need any background information. What you need is common sense and to look at things practically. I think, unfortunately, the hardest thing is the money situation. I hope the stranglehold on both parties gets better on how they are run, but right now, you have to be on the inside group and be able to raise money personally. A lot of people come from a lot of money. One candidate talked about how he struggled through his undergrad at Harvard and his grad at Yale. I looked at all his campaign donors which looked like all relatives names, donating huge amounts of money, so he didn’t struggle. Money is big right now. If we could take money out of politics that would be wonderful,” said Mcginty.

1. “You have to be genuine. When you look at what happened in 2016, both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump appeared very genuine. Bernie Sanders is, Mr. Trump is a conman. It appealed to people because people are sick of begin disingenuous and hypocritical. They know not everyone is perfect, but they want someone to be honest and open. They want a straightforward person to be there for the right reason. You have to have this if you are going to win,” said Mcginty.

Things McGinty learned outside of politics while running:

“I knew this going in but it reaffirmed. Most people are good, but they will go into a mob situation and morph into someone who’s close minded. Talking to them one on one you will know they are nothing like that at all. I think I’ve learned, if you go and say hi and not be threatening, people will talk to you and build a rapport and get things done. I wouldn’t have the career I’ve had without being able to do that. I think the thing is social media is big now. Social media has the tendency to remove us from face to face conversations. Now I love that people will tell you stuff on social media that they wouldn’t tell to your face but they were thinking it. I love that. I would throw stuff out there to see what people would say. They are probably gonna tell me something that probably 8/10 of the people in the room are thinking. It also has a tendency to make those online mobs become in-person mobs. I’ve been trying to sit down and talk people. We are going out and meeting people, so we can understand each other. This is nothing new in human nature to solve problems. We are getting worse and worse at this. Mr. Trump isn’t accelerating the problem, but he is a symptom of it. You have to sit down with people and learn how the feel about things,” said Mcginty.