Just Say No

Artwork from peewee.com

When he served as publisher of The Tribune-Democrat, Chris Voccio made it clear he was no fan of governmental regulation.

Now, the Upper Yoder Township resident wants to become a lawmaker for the state House of Representatives in the 72nd Legislative District.

Oh brother …

No way. Not ever.

Dear Voccio Pee Wee⁽¹⁾:

There is no way in hell I would ever vote for you. EVER. You are the most condescending, snobby, arrogant, sexist, chauvinistic person that I have every encountered in my entire life. I'd rather have George W. Bush as my state Senator Legislator, honestly. At least he gives the appearance of respecting women and those less fortunate. In actuality, he may not, but at least he puts on a good show. You, on the other hand are something else.

I remember the first day I started working for you, and I thought you were nice. It was surprising that you cared enough to know my name and say "Hello, Jaemie" every time you saw me in the Tribune building.

Reality check.

You are not nice. I don't know if you even have an ounce of respect for anyone here in Johnstown. The entire time I worked for you at the Tribune, all you ever talked about was Texas and Greenville. This is Johnstown, buddy. If you're going to be a Johnstowner, lose the back story and eat a Coney dog⁽²⁾ for good measure. Johnstown is Johnstown, not Greenville. Not Texas. Not Rhode Island.

You said:

I believe that an economy with low taxes and limited regulation will thrive, while high tax, high regulation states like Pennsylvania will suffer. We must foster job creation by giving job creators reasons to do business in Pennsylvania and making it easy, not difficult, to conduct commerce here.

Bullshit. Yes, Mother, I said bullshit. The entire time I spent at the Tribune was spent fully expecting my position to be eliminated. While I was there, several people were "let go," reasons unknown. Sure, you babbled something about performance or not bringing in enough money. That is a load of crap. Smelly, smelly crap. You were just thinking about what kind of profits you could make if you eliminated a position or two just to impress the bigwigs down in Alabama. (You can tell Alabama Blue Cross Blue Shield that they can shove their health "insurance" where the sun doesn't shine. I'm lucky that I wasn't diagnosed with cancer while I was working for you — I'd be dead by now. Instead, I am still paying for a biopsy that I had 16 months ago because they can't figure out how to send one bill and/or actually cover necessary procedures.)

Remember that time in summer 2006 when all of our employees were afraid to return from vacation? Why, you ask? Because you kept firing people when they returned. What did you think they were going to do? Thank you for letting them take a paid vacation, shake your hand, and walk out the door? Yeah, right.

Remember when I got promoted to Marketing Manager, you wouldn't acknowledge my presence? Apparently I became a moron when I got PROMOTED. You could only talk to me through other people. Did we suddenly revert back to fifth graders?

Remember that time when you hired me to do the Johnstown Magazine website for you as a freelance project? Remember? It was cool until you told me to eliminate ALL OF THE WHITE SPACE. Forgive me for not acknowledging your super graphic and web design skills skillz. How could I have been so stupid? I don't know. You thanked me for my hard work and excellent design (until you relieved me of my site maintenance duties) by later asking me if I could give you the contact information for a guy I graduated high school with so that he could help you with a "web project." Not that I would have helped you with it anyway — why would I make two conservative Republican websites? That's totally against my principles.

That was a bad networking move, Pee Wee. Perhaps some day you'll need my expertise or assistance for something, and, you know what, you will never get it. Burn those bridges, my friend. Burn those bridges. You can join my other favorite ex-boss, and she can help you with that. A-S-S-H-O-L-E-S. Say it with me now kids …

Yeah, perhaps these are poor reasons not to want to vote for you. Perhaps. But, in all seriousness, I will never vote for you because of your character. You lack the personability and compassion that my DEMOCRAT self prefers to see in candidates. As much as you proclaim to want to diminish the role of government, I beg to differ. I have seen you in action in big business, and, honestly, you suck. You're all about the money, and I would bet dollars to yeast-free donuts that you'd be the first one to vote yourself a pay raise if the opportunity presented itself.

So, in closing, I leave you with one positive comment. Thank you for leaving religion out of your campaign website (thus far). I'll give you one rusty iron star for that one. I doubt, however, that this conscious omission will be your saving grace. (Your lovely "conservative publication" with it's whopping 75 subscribers tells another story though.)

Sincerely,
The girl voting for anyone but you

P.S. Remember that time when you wanted to rename The Tribune-Democrat so that it didn't have the word Democrat in it? That turned out well, didn't it?

⁽¹⁾ On my first day of work at the newspaper, I decided Voccio looked exactly like Pee Wee Herman. He even had on a grey suit and red tie — except he was wearing cowboy boots. See for yourself.

⁽²⁾ This is a Johnstown tradition. I, however, think Coney dogs are gross.