GOP official in Delco warned of Democratic 'cancer'

THE DELAWARE County GOP machine is still firing on all cylinders, but its municipal-level messaging might need a slight tune-up.

Exhibit A: The Delco cancer scare of 2013.

Faced with an expanding Democratic Party in the GOP-controlled county, Newtown Township Republican leader Michael F.X. Gillin decided to rally the troops before Tuesday's election with a "Dear Neighbor" letter claiming that tax-and-spend Philadelphia Democrats are "attempting to take over" the county government.

Gillin, the county's former elected register of wills, then went a step further - comparing Democrats to a disease that kills about half a million Americans a year.

"The Democrats are gaining strength in Upper Darby and have taken over Chester," reads Gillin's letter, which is written on Newtown Township Republican Executive Committee letterhead. "We cannot allow this cancer to enter the Courthouse."

Tony Campisi, chairman of the Marple Newtown Democratic Party, said Gillin seemed to be referring to black Democrats in particular.

"It's code language for 'bad elements' coming into Delaware County to take over. It's absurd," Campisi said. "It's to scare an older, white, Republican population."

"I think Mike Gillin owes an apology to every voter in Newtown," said Campisi, who received a copy of Gillin's letter from a voter at a polling place. "He sullied the Republican Party and stained the reputation of Abraham Lincoln. If I were a Republican in Newtown, I'd demand his resignation."

Campisi said the letter is "tea-party politics at its worst."

Gillin, who runs a law firm in Media, scoffed at the criticism, saying he was not referring to African-Americans.

"That's goofy," Gillin said of any perceived racial subtext.

As for comparing Democrats to cancer?

"My brother died of cancer," Gillin said. "It's a figure of speech."

Gillin said he was only highlighting the differences between Philadelphia, where Democrats outnumber Republicans 6-to-1, and its suburbs, where Republicans still hold considerable power.

"Look at Philadelphia: It's run by Democrats, and they're in bankruptcy, and there's corruption and everything else going on out there," Gillin said.

(The city is not bankrupt. But corruption? OK, fair point.)

Tapping into suburbanites' distrust of Philadelphia politicians has been part of the Republican playbook for generations. It includes using conspiracies about a crooked Democratic machine planning to "annex" the suburbs to expand the city's tax base.

In 1990, Republican state Rep. Steve Freind was re-elected with the help of the so-called Gray grab. A controversial GOP mailing warned that if Democrats took control of the state Legislature, they could redraw the congressional map to put part of Delaware County in the Philadelphia district of Democratic U.S. Rep. William Gray III.

Freind's Democratic opponent, Allen Polsky, said the "Gray grab" may have sealed his fate by fueling rumors that Philly was actually attempting to annex sections of Delaware County. Democrats called Freind's strategy a thinly veiled, racist ploy. Gray, the former House majority whip who died last summer, was black.

"I believe that it turned the election," Polsky told the Daily News in November 1990 after the votes were tallied, referring to the "Gray grab." "We have some people out here who are so unsophisticated that they didn't realize what was being done to them."

"There's just no truth in politics," Polsky added.

Delaware County is a longtime Republican stronghold, but Democrats this year gained a voter-registration advantage for the first time as the Philadelphia suburbs continue to trend blue. Nonetheless, Republicans ran the table Tuesday, dominating the races for county council, sheriff, register of wills and controller.

In Gillin's Newtown, the GOP's performance was particularly impressive.