For the second time in approximately three weeks, Matt McCullough, the Republican candidate running to unseat State Senator Steve Santarsiero in Bucks County’s 10th District, is attracting attention for all the wrong reasons.
First, news of McCullough’s prior arrest for public intoxication outside a strip club in Tennessee (charges were dismissed) – with the police report including an allegation of allegedly groping an employee – was reported by The Bucks County Courier Times on Sept. 23. While admitting to disorderly conduct, he denies the groping allegation included in the report.
McCullough now finds himself on the hot seat again, this time for posting eyebrow raising content on his FaceBook page.
Patrick Brennan, campaign manager for incumbent Santarsiero, issued a statement on Wednesday concerning a photo on McCullough’s social media account that has since been deleted, but not before a screenshot memorialized its content.
“These views are absolutely abhorrent and inconsistent with the values of Bucks County. The fact that Matt Mccullough would feature this person in his campaign ads shows how extreme and out of touch he is. It also begs the question whether he agrees with them,” stated Brennan.
“Every area run by blacks is a messy dump. Give me white men to manage things any day!” Fiori wrote in a FaceBook post.
“I believe this shooting, and most school, religious and political shootings are set ups for gun control,” she said in another entry.
She also made bigoted remarks against Islam and the Prophet Mohammed.
Fiori was in Washington, D.C., on January 6.
She told the following to the Bucks County Courier Times about her experience at the Capitol:
“I was grieved that windows had to be broken to enter the Capitol building. I was not upset that they interrupted the congressional hearing. That’s what we wanted to happen. I was hoping VP would take a more active role in denouncing the fraud. I was very upset he did not do that. All of the senators who initially objected caved and took back their objections. Why bother voting anymore.”
She also ran a failed campaign for a seat on the Pennsbury School Board in 2019. According to LevittownNow, Fiori’s loss was due, in part, to conspiracy theories and racist content on her FaceBook page. Controversy continued to swirl around Fiori in 2019 when, as a candidate, she worked as a majority poll inspector during the May primary.
“David Fiori Jr., the judge of election for the polling district and her husband, confirmed his wife was working as the majority poll inspector. He said there was an oversight and it appeared to him that the rules did not allow her to work while on the ballot,” wrote LevittownNow’s Tom Sofield.
At the end of the day, dog whistles aren’t needed when political candidates post content on social media that says the quiet part out loud.
