Dave McCormick’s Battle Plan to Renew Pennsylvania – and America
According to a recent survey of the 50 States, Pennsylvania is home to the 49th-worst education opportunity gap between high-income and low-income school children. As evidenced by the recent collapse of I-95, the Commonwealth’s infrastructure isn’t faring much better: the American Society of Civil Engineers recently gave Pennsylvania’s infrastructure a C- grade.
Just as Pennsylvania struggles in comparison with its peer states with respect to crucial policy areas like education and infrastructure, the United States as a whole lags behind China. Chinese schoolchildren are outscoring their American peers in math, science, and reading. And in recent years, China’s share of its GDP spent on infrastructure has tripled that of the U.S.
Contrasts like these lend credence to books like Dave McCormick’s “Superpower in Peril: A Battle Plan to Renew America.” A former Republican candidate for one of Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate seats in 2022 and a likely candidate for the other seat come 2024, McCormick does not mince words about the most pressing problems we face today: the rise of China, a loss of confidence in ourselves as a country, our political polarization and dysfunction, the failures of our education system, and the fading of our economic dynamism. But as the late Charles Krauthammer wrote, “decline is a choice”; it isn’t inevitable. So McCormick lays out a battle plan to reverse these trends. He focuses on achieving “global supremacy” in three areas: talent, technology, and data. And to realize these goals, he emphasizes the need to confront China and revive our institutions.
McCormick aims to wake the U.S. up to competition with China without severance of all economic ties. He told RealClearPennsylvania that “vague rhetoric of decoupling” from China is unhelpful. “We’re too interdependent to sever all economic engagement,” he says. Instead, McCormick offers a “concentric circles” approach to “decoupling strategically.” In the first circle, we should produce essential goods necessary for our national security here at home. In the second, we may rely on trusted trade partners for vital goods like semiconductors. And in the third, we can continue trading with China for nonstrategic goods.
But confronting the China challenge requires more than strategic trade (and investment) policy. “A big part of our strategic dilemma with China is our failure to maintain our dynamism and leadership at home with respect to technology and education,” he says. “Whether we rise to the occasion is completely and solely in our own hands.”
It doesn’t feel like we’re up to that task at the moment. We’re consumed with our internal divides. McCormick spoke of the “visceral anger” many Pennsylvanians rightly feel towards Washington.
McCormick campaigned last year in a divided Commonwealth nested within a divided nation. At first blush, the divides run deep, and they extend beyond polarized policy views and conflicting, hyperbolic rhetoric. There are two Pennsylvanias, just as there are two Americas.
In one Pennsylvania, concentrated in rural regions and cities, people’s real incomes have remained flat, they have disproportionately sent their children to fight in the nation’s wars, and fentanyl has become the leading cause of death. The New York Times once dubbed the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia “the largest open-air narcotics market for heroin on the East Coast.” By 2016, as Pew Research found, Philadelphia’s drug-overdose rate was the second highest among the 44 largest counties in the U.S. The only county that outranked Philadelphia was Allegheny County. While Philadelphia and Pittsburgh may top the overdose-rate list when it comes to big cities, other parts of Pennsylvania’s overdose rates are even worse. According to a 2023 report by the Center for Rural Pennsylvania, Tioga County’s overdose rate nearly doubles that of Allegheny County. Erie County’s nearly quadruples it.
Meanwhile, in the other Pennsylvania, assets have appreciated and 401(k)s have ballooned. The Philadelphia suburbs are a prime example: they have literally expanded in recent years, and the collar counties are the four richest in the Keystone State.
They’ve also been voting Democratic. That suburban shift points to the task McCormick faces as a forward-thinking Republican: to channel the frustration from the one Pennsylvania toward positive change without losing touch with the other Pennsylvania. This entails both a policy challenge and a political challenge.
Start with the policy challenge. “Superpower in Peril” stands for the proposition that citizens’ frustration can’t be allowed to destroy the fundamentals: the market economy is a good thing. American leadership in the world is a good thing. Attracting immigrants is a good thing. But at the same time, these principles are not absolutes. McCormick’s goal is to mold these flexible principles to fit our present reality.
For example: McCormick explains that trade, tax, and other economic policies must not dampen “our economic dynamism,” but they also must address the fact that many Americans have not been positioned to take advantage of the “economic benefits that flow from the free market.” Government has a role to play here. The federal government should spend more on ensuring that Americans possess the technical and trade skills that the modern economy requires. Neither “free market absolutism” nor socialism is the answer; molding timeless market principles to fit our present reality is the way to go. The federal government should not overregulate, but it can make smarter investments in Americans to better equip them with the skills they need to flourish.
Immigration policy also calls for some nuance. McCormick slams the Biden administration for its border policies: “We can’t have a functional legal immigration system unless we gain control of our sovereignty,” he writes. But he also parts ways with those on the right who question not only illegal immigration but also legal immigration. McCormick supports legal, “high-skilled immigration” that will help “accelerate America’s renewal.”
Whether it be economic policy or immigration policy, translating timeless principles to address the messiness of the real world today requires leadership. “Our social problems and our leadership failures are interdependent.” Take Congress, an institution manned by supposed leaders in word but followers in deed. On the one hand, McCormick notes that Congress’s dysfunction is a “byproduct” of divisions on the ground. On the other, McCormick is confident that a place remains for leadership that looks “forward, not backward.” But as things stand now, it seems that members of Congress are allergic to such leadership.
Whether McCormick has the chance to test the viability of his proposals in office remains to be seen. He lost the Republican primary for Pennsylvania’s open Senate seat in 2022 by a few hundred votes to a Trump-endorsed daytime TV star, Dr. Mehmet Oz. Oz proceeded to lose the general election to Democrat John Fetterman.
In order to avoid another defeat in 2024, McCormick must connect with both Pennsylvanias. His policy proposals are primed to do that by spreading economic gains and bridging gaps without chipping away at the market economy’s foundations. But ideas aside, it is the right mood, not the right policy program, that often wins American elections today. Pennsylvania politics is no different.
Luckily for McCormick, his policy wonkishness and fresh thinking might be the right vibe at the right time come 2024. If McCormick wins the GOP primary, he’ll be running against the namesake of a Pennsylvania political dynasty just as a presidential rematch that few genuinely desire could be taking shape. McCormick can frame U.S. Sen. Bob Casey as the same old, same old that few voters really want, while positioning himself as a candidate offering a new path forward. If general election voters confront a 2020 rerun on the presidential stage, they might find themselves tiring of the same old schticks. McCormick’s brand of novelty and fresh thinking might strike a chord. He can speak in the language of dynamism and progress as well as fidelity to core principles. The contrast could be striking.
In short, McCormick can speak to both Pennsylvanias in 2024. If he does, he’ll have a chance to put his battle plan for renewal into action. And he’ll demonstrate that the two Pennsylvanias – and by extension, the two Americas – aren’t as fundamentally separate as the statistics often suggest. One need only read “Superpower in Peril” to know that McCormick believes this at his core. He just has to convince the rest of us that it’s still true.
