Jeff Bartos, Candidate For Lieutenant Governor, Visits Penn State For a Townhall
Story posted September 18, 2018 in CommRadio, News by Tyler Olson
Republican candidate for lieutenant governor Jeff Bartos held a town hall at University Park Monday, as candidates from both sides of the aisle compete for votes with election day less than two months away.
The Penn State College Republicans sponsored the talk, and president Reagan McCarthy said she was happy to bring a high-profile candidate to speak to students, and that she enjoyed the back and forth members of the audience had with Bartos.
"It was important to bring someone running a statewide campaign to campus. I think it was kind of a unique event because normally when you see a politician come to campus they talk for an hour, and it's probably very boring," she said. "Having a townhall format was really unique and something we really haven't seen on campus before."
Bartos' town hall was an informal event, which he started off with jokes about creamery ice cream, his kids and his age, drawing laughs from the audience.
He then got into his campaign pitch, highlighting Pennsylvania's economic resources, and saying current governor Tom Wolf is missing opportunities for the state to compete with neighbors like New Jersey, Delaware and New York.
In response to questions from the about 30 people in attendance, Bartos also addressed issues from pensions to discrimination against the LGBT community to gun control. He also said he favored appointing a Penn State student to the university's board of trustees.
"The first rule of business is listen to your customers," he said. "If we're going to continue to have this amazing state university system and all the resources we invest in it, we should be listening to our customers."
Bartos closed his talk by comparing his view of the world to that of his political opponents.
"Statists, leftists, they view the world as a static pie, and how you carve up the pie is the role of government," he said in an interview after the event. "The more conservative view of the world … is let's grow the pie, let's keep growing the pie and more and more people can participate in this growth."
The Penn State College Democrats will host John Fetterman, the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, next Wednesday at 8 p.m. in 262 Willard.
Tyler Olson is a junior majoring in broadcast journalism and political science. To contact him, email tso5043@psu.edu.
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