Exactly 2 weeks after Trump came to Johnstown, Kamala Harris made an appearance. She came to the airport and then went to the Classic Elements bookstore for an informal get together. I wasn’t able to go but my friends took lots of pictures. The next day I went to the annual Laurel Highlands Historical Village Festival at Duman’s park. Amy Bradley was there campaigning as the Republican candidate for Pa state house. This post will focus on Kamala in Johnstown and Amy at Duman’s park.
Kamala
After Harris arrived at the Johnstown Airport to a large crowd of well-wishers she went down to Classic Elements for a private event. Then she went down Classic Elements for a very private reception. The windows were covered for security reasons with chain link fences put up on both sides of main street in from of the store.
Attendants had to submit information on the campaign website. They were then vetted by the secret service. A subset of the applicants was chosen by lottery to attend the reception.
Harris did have another rally that day in Wilkes-Barre that filled an arena. There were Gaza protesters there who disrupted the event. If they had tried to have a rally here at First Summit arena (aka War Memorial), it is unlikely that they would have filled it. If her coming to Johnstown means the difference between her getting 35% vs 30% of the vote here, it may tip the state in her favor.
Amy
At the Laurel Highlands Historical Village Festival, I took the usual video showing each vendor. One of the vendors was Republican State House candidate Amy Bradley. I spoke to her briefly about her campaign and attacks on her from her opponent’s camp. Specifically, they have been attacking her on the plan to bring refugees from Afghanistan here by Vision 2025. The plan was dropped but allies of her opponent Frank Burns have been using this to attack her as in the video below.
The video insinuates that there was a sinister plan to bring refugees here from Afghanistan to take jobs native Johnstowners. It also uses AI generated graphics to make subtle racist attacks.
https://www.facebook.com/719860274/videos/1235433307473505
On a lighter note, I took video of the other vendors at the festival. Above is a video I posted to Facebook of an Alpaca at the festival. There were medieval and civil war reenactors. Also, there were the usual arts, crafts and food vendors there. At least on the first day, there were no Democrats at the festival.
The fact that Kamala Harris was in Johnstown and Amy Bradley was at Duman’s shows how politicians interact with their constituents at different levels. I argued with the Democrats here that the campaign having exclusive events here plays into the Republican’s argument that Democrats are effete liberal snobs. The carnival nature of Trump’s rallies supports the illusion that he is a man of the people. Democrats here may be unwittingly playing into that illusion.