Democratic Party Establishment in Panic Over Colonial School Board Race

We weren’t planning to cover the day-to-day of the upcoming local campaigns until mid-April, but it has become necessary. It has become quite obvious that the local Democratic Party establishment, led Jason Salus (this guy), is in a total panic over the race for Colonial School Board.

To provide some background, the current political makeup of the school board is nine Democrats. They were elected in two prior elections. Four in 2017 and five in 2015.

The five seats last elected in 2015 are the ones currently up for election in 2019. All five of the current seat holders were endorsed in 2015 by the local Democratic Party.

This includes Susan Moore and Cathy Peduzzi, who are running for re-election, and Mel Brodsky who is not. Moore and Peduzzi are now on the outs with Democratic Party establishment and are running without the party’s endorsement (they have joined up with two other Democrats and one Republican under the Protecting Colonial’s Future banner).

Current board President and Vice President Felix Raimondo and Leslie Finegold, are running for re-election with three other Democrats under the Leading Colonial Forward – The Democrats for School Board banner).

If you look at the current Colonial Democratic’s website, it lists all the elected officials who are Democrats. That list previously included Moore, Peduzzi, and Brodsky, but their names have now been scrubbed from the site. Moore, Peduzzi, and Brodsky are Democrats and they are elected officials, but if you don’t follow the edicts of the party, you will get treated as if you don’t exist (note to all the elected Democrats locally, if you don’t listen to Salus, this is what happens to you).

There are nine elected Democrats on the Colonial School Board. Where are the other three? *Photo: Screengrab from ColonialDemocrats.com. Red circle added by MoreThanTheCurve.com.*

When you Google any of three names with “colonial,” “Democrats,” “school” and “board” you clearly see that the site has been recently edited to not include their names. A Google search still shows the complete list. *Photo: Collection of screengrabs from Google.com. Red boxes added by MoreThanTheCurve.com.*

In another panicky action, yesterday the local Democratic Party Facebook pages made a post pointing out that Susan Moore was a Republican prior to her re-election to the school board in 2015 (The Colonial Democrats page is even paying to sponsor this post).

Did Salus even think this one through? In the 2015 election, just after Moore had switched parties, Susan Moore ran as the endorsed candidate of the Colonial Democrats (Brodsky had also recently switched parties and ran as the endorsed candidate). So in 2015, two of the five endorsed Democraitc Party candidates were former Republicans.

In this Facebook post, the Conshohocken Democrats congratulate Moore (front right), Brodsky (center back), and Peduzzi (right back) on their election victory. Please note that Facebook pages for the Colonial, Conshohocken, Plymouth, and Whitemarsh Democrats are all controlled by the same small group of people. Photo: Screengrab from Conshohocken Democrats Facebook page.

Now consider this, the majority of the endorsed Democrats who ran and were elected to the Colonial School Board in 2015 have now been erased from history. You can’t make this stuff up.

This isn’t the only recent example of Colonial Democrats endorsing a former Republican. In 2017, Fran McCusker, who had previously run for Whitemarsh Supervisor as a Republican, was the endorsed candidate for Whitemarsh Supervisor as a Democrat.

The now Democrat McCusker (right) with running mate Michael Drossner. *Photo: Screengrab from the Whitemarsh Democrats Facebook page.*

McCusker’s campaign sign with his fellow Republican candidates from the 2015 election. *Photo: Fran McCusker’s Facebook page.*

It seems the local Democratic Party establishment has forgotten its history of endorsing and supporting former Republicans.

There is a lot more to get into, which we will. More to come.