ORWIGSBURG — Katie McGinty, a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate, told about 75 people Thursday that she wants to bring the values from her Philadelphia Irish Catholic family to Washington.
“With good hard work and a little cheer comes community,” McGinty, 52, of Wayne, Chester County, said. “(The Irish) brought with them a great drive.”
McGinty, who served as Gov. Tom Wolf’s chief of staff before setting off on her campaign, is one of four candidates seeking the Democratic nomination in the April 26 primary to run against incumbent first-term Republican Pat Toomey, Zionsville, Lehigh County, in the Nov. 8 General Election.
Her Democratic primary opponents are Braddock Mayor John Fetterman, former U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak and businessman Joseph Vodvarka. McGinty said polls are placing her even with Sestak, a former Delaware County congressman who lost to Toomey in 2010, but she has more momentum.
She spent part of Thursday at the Schuylkill Country Club at the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick luncheon, where her bright green dress advertised her heritage and blended well with both the audience and the shamrock-festooned facility.
The group has been holding the luncheon to mark St. Patrick’s Day since 1976, former Pottsville Mayor John D.W. Reiley said.
“Today is a day when everyone is Irish,” emcee Michael A. O’Pake, a Pottsville lawyer and assistant public defender, said.
In turn, McGinty paid tribute to the heritage she shares with many who attended the luncheon.
“They helped to see this country through the Great Depression and World War II,” she said.
McGinty, a lawyer who also served as secretary of the state Department of Environmental Protection, recalled her youth as the ninth of 10 children of a Philadelphia police officer and a restaurant hostess, saying her family built the kind of character everyone should have.
“In the McGinty household, it was a 100 percent no-complaint household,” she said. “Go to work. Give it your best. They are values we need to bring back every day.”
Another value McGinty, a graduate of St. Joseph’s University, Philadelphia, and Columbia Law School, New York City, said she prizes is inclusiveness, and she said the United States needs to remember that.
“This country has been a special experiment in democracy,” she said. “The world needs us in America to be that same country that welcomes all.”
In an indirect criticism of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, McGinty said the country must maintain a basic unity and seek common ground.
“Those who set off the spark of division can set off a generation of hardship,” she said.
After the luncheon, McGinty said she will defend the middle class better than Toomey has.
“I think middle-class families need a change in Washington,” saying Toomey does not vote in their best interests on such matters as Social Security, taxes and trade agreements, she said.