The weirdest campaign in the country is happening in Pennsylvania

For as long as there have been campaigns, they have worked like this: You run to appeal to your party’s base to win the primary and then, with that task done, you immediately begin to round off the hard edges of your policies to appeal to the centrist voters who tend to be the deciding votes in general elections.

That has been the settled conventional wisdom surrounding campaigns for eons because, well, it has been proven to work.

Which is what makes the campaign that Doug Mastriano is running for Pennsylvania governor all the more odd.

See, Mastriano, who came to national attention for his vehement election denialism and his presence in Washington on January 6, 2021, doesn’t appear to have any interest in hedging any of his positions or doing any sort of outreach to groups beyond his hardcore base of supporters. Quite the opposite, in fact.

A recent article from the Philadelphia Inquirer makes plain just how different the campaign that Mastriano is running really is. Here’s the key bit:

“As he tours the Commonwealth, Mastriano has essentially walled himself off from the general public, traveling within a bubble of security guards and jittery aides who aim to not only keep him safe, but ensure he only comes into contact with true believers …

“… Republican leaders around the state had hoped that Mastriano’s unorthodox campaign would evolve over the summer and begin reaching out to undecided voters. Instead, the opposite has happened. Labor Day came and went.

“His slogan is ‘walk as free people,’ but the retired Army colonel and his enforcers, at times, operate as if under siege in their home state, employing strong-arm tactics more reminiscent of authoritarian regimes.”

Mastriano also rarely engages with any media that is not overtly friendly to him. He conducts Facebook Live events and does interviews in places like the One America News Network but simply refuses to talk to any more mainstream outlets. (Mastriano used Facebook Live to fuel his rise amid the coronavirus pandemic.) As The New York Times noted last month: “[Mastriano] employs political neophytes in key positions and has for months refused to interact with mainstream national and local reporters beyond expelling them from events.”