Political campaigns increasingly bring out the worst in people. With fewer than 100 days remaining until the November election, mean-spirited supporters of Democratic Scranton Mayor and 8th Congressional District candidate Paige Cognetti comprise some of the worst of this bastardized bunch.
Their target?
Leila Hazou, a 58-year-old woman of Palestinian descent whose good character and reputation Cognetti’s supporters defamed even before Hazou publicly announced her 8th Congressional District candidacy and the deadline ran out for Hazou to collect signatures to get on the ballot.
That deadline has passed.
Hazou is not on the ballot.
I’m voting for Hazou anyway, writing in her name as the best candidate to represent the people with honor and courage. So will countless other independent voters, Democrats and maybe even Republicans who recognize cruel hypocrisy in a rigged cash-fueled system and smear campaign undertaken by Team Cognetti against Hazou, a principled and authentic feminist underdog.
So-called liberal Democrats unleashed their savage backbiting against Hazou to try to intimidate her and bamboozle voters into voting for Democrats even if the Democrats are lousy candidates. Democrat Cognetti is a lousy candidate.
Technocrat Cognetti uses photos of her two young daughters in a mailed campaign brochure to draw votes as a “mom.” But she has boasted of her staunch support for sending more American public money and weapons of war to continue the Israeli genocide against Palestinian children and other innocent civilians rather than spending public money to help struggling families here at home. Cognetti cowers rather than call out ICE violence that terrorizes immigrant children and their families. Cognetti supports and trusts hyperscale AI data center developers who offer mere lip service promises to protect the health and welfare of at-risk children and their families.
No person with integrity could vote for Cognetti with a clear conscience.
Hazou stands as the polar moral opposite of Cognetti, exactly why Cognetti supporters mounted such a vicious attack against her. Ridiculed online and elsewhere as a “Trojan Horse,” a fusillade of hateful, disparaging and unconfirmed Facebook posts falsely accused Hazou of entering the race to help Cognetti’s incumbent Republican opponent U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan. Cognetti’s supporters mercilessly maligned Hazou.
Led by a rabid bevy of cultish Blue MAGA Democrats, some of whom unscrupulously vilified other opposition candidates and their supporters over the years, the uncorroborated accusations even insinuated Republicans paid Hazou to help sink Cognetti.
No evidence exists to support any such defamatory accusation.
Did Cognetti know about these erroneous smears? If so, did Cognetti approve of these libelous charges? If not, how could Cognetti not know her supporters were publicly spreading such untrue and hurtful rumors about another woman in the race?
I chose not to contact Cognetti or her campaign because neither she nor her campaign manager responds to my questions. Of course, mainstream media fails to ask Cognetti any hard questions. Still, Cognetti and her well-heeled campaign coalition are always welcome to reply to my serious concerns that severely tarnish Cognetti and her morally corrupt supporters.
Innumerable voters should reject Cognetti and her greasy Democratic Party machine politics.
Write in “Leila Hazou” as your candidate of choice in the 8th Congressional District.
Free Palestine.
No data centers.
Abolish ICE.
Vote for Leila Hazou.
