Related: Benninghoff Counts His Experience as Strength at Capitol
MILLHEIM — Knock, knock, knock on every door she can goes Erin Condo McCracken along with her team, getting her word out as the Democratic candidate is looking for change in the race for state representative for the 171st district.
She will be out there knocking after a long day that started with waking up her two young boys, getting them ready and on the bus for school, preparing the daily tasks for her catering business, attending a marketing meeting for her campaign, meeting with a newspaper reporter, grocery shopping for her home and her business, making campaign calls and doing prep work again for a catering event.
When the boys come home from school she cherishes spending some time with them before her husband, Josh, gets home and then she is off to knock on the doors and spread her message that it is time for a new voice in a district that has seen the same face representing them for the past 22 years.
All in the day in the life for the mom, small business owner, musician and political candidate, who doesn’t look tired at all six weeks out from Election Day. She said she is ready to keep standing up for what she believes in and bringing people together.
She knocks on the doors as part of her “people-powered campaign” with its “I’m backin’ McCracken” slogan because she wants to hear what voters on either side of the aisle have to say, and so she can get to know the people that she hopes to represent. She said that people are ready for a change and there is excitement through the district for the work she is doing.
“I love campaigning, because what it is, is talking to people, talking to constituents and finding out what is important to them,” said McCracken. “And also it is taking a break from the divisiveness that is present in social media and in public media. I don’t have TV at my house so I don’t watch the news and I feel grateful for that, because I feel like they are telling a certain story about how we are getting along as a country. And what I find is that people are really trying to get along with their neighbors. They don’t want chaos and they don’t want as much conflict as you might think there is if you were just on social media.”
And she knocks on the doors because she doesn’t believe in taking large corporate dollars for her campaign. That, in fact, is one of her focal points, something that she believes is a problem across the political spectrum.
A BROKEN SYSTEM
“I’m running for state representative because the current political system is broken. We have elected officials in Pennsylvania that do not truly serve the people of the commonwealth, but instead represent the interests of corporations,” said McCracken. “I am a candidate that is committed to serving my community, state and country.
“Our campaign is raising money but we are not accepting corporate PAC donations because we know that when you are funded by corporations, you serve the corporations. Our campaign is proud to have raised over $50,000 from over 450 unique human donors,” said McCracken.
When she decided to run, months ago, she said it immediately felt like the right thing to do. She had been discussing the state of politics with her husband and felt the need to do something because she felt like the political system has been broken for quite some time.
“We had been feeling troubled by the state of affairs in the county, in the state and even in our local community and we knew that we had to do something. And we knew that involved running for some kind of office, making change in our government,” said McCracken
Corruption in government, the targeting of people who are different and the degradation of the democratic principles that she believes in are the things that she feels are a problem in politics and she is running to change them.
The place to start is to no longer allow political candidates to take money from large business super PACs, said McCracken. She said that when politicians take money from corporations, their priorities are with the business interests instead of the people who they are representing. She said she plans to represent the working people of her district.
BRINGING PEOPLE TOGETHER
McCracken is more interested in bringing people together than in fighting with them. That is not to say she won’t stand up for what she believes in, but listening and understanding are important tools she possesses. Because she takes time to listen, she believes residents can tell that she cares when she asks about their life and their day and what other people have to say. Maybe that is because she learned from her parents (her dad was a lifelong Democrat and her mom is a Republican) that different perspectives are important and that people who care about each other sometimes disagree about politics.
“We are trying to build up our communities and support working people, and that is not a partisan issue,” said McCracken. “My whole life I had been an independent voter, until I got tired of being shut out of the primary process. So I registered as a Democrat because I lean more that way. But mostly I’m independent.”
With master’s degrees in social work and pubic administration, and jobs in government, social services and working with unions, along with being a small business owner, McCracken said she has a deep understanding of how economic, social and political systems work together to impact communities. In her work with workers unions, in education and in social work McCracken said she always has been working for people, to make their lives better, and she said it feels most natural for her to do that in a way that brings people together, not dividing them apart.
“I’ve always tried to balance having a really positive message and not be fighting against something, but instead be fighting for something,” said McCracken.
LESSONS FROM A SMALL BUSINESS
The catering business is a labor of love for Erin and Josh, and their stated mission is “to serve the local community, encourage local enterprise, support local farmers, and preserve our natural resources.” Their home base at the Bremen Town Ballroom has been part of the revitalization of Main Street in Millheim as a community gathering space. In her business venture, McCracken has learned some important lessons that she feels will translate well if she ends up in Harrisburg.
“The basic thing that I know is that in order to thrive you need to make money, you need to have revenues coming in, no matter how often you cut your costs, no matter how often you minimize the things you need, you have to bring money in in order to thrive,” said McCracken. She said that limiting taxes on large corporations leaves the state with no other option than to cut funding for important programs for the community.
Just don’t call needed programs entitlements, because she doesn’t like the negative connotation for things she believes the government should provide their citizens.
“We deserve roads, we deserve education, we deserve jobs and healthcare, these things cost money, when you continuously cut the tax burdens from corporations, these are things that we demand as citizens of this state, aren’t getting the funds that they need,” said McCracken.
Public healthcare, a strong public school system and infrastructure development are areas that she feels need strong government support, and are currently getting less money to provide tax breaks for big businesses.
“I don’t feel that programs that assist heroin or opioid addicts are wasteful. Mental health programs are not wasteful, affordable housing programs are not wasteful; food stamps, not wasteful; healthcare, not wasteful,” said McCracken, but she does feel that there are certain areas were the state is wasting money, such as in the criminal justice system, and she hopes to clean it up.
“So much of our budget in Pennsylvania is put into imprisoning people, just the cost alone of imprisoning someone is more that the average median income … so not only are we paying that, but those people then are not contributing to society in a real way. And we have laws and policies that keep people in jail that are not necessarily doing violent crime, they are in jail because they couldn’t afford the bail they were given, there are a lot of things that keep people in jail in a longer period of time than they need to be. And we have marijuana that is illegal, and that has created a bloated jail population as well, especially for people of color,” said McCracken. She proposes legislation to end cash bail systems and supports the legalization of recreational taxable marijuana.
RENEWABLE ENERGY, USABLE JOBS
“There is a story being told that we can’t have a clean environment and a strong economy, but I feel like we need to have a clean environment in order to have a strong economy,” said McCracken.
She sees ways that renewable energy can provide jobs and save businesses and homeowner’s money all around her in Millheim. Many small businesses and homeowners are installing solar panels that will save them money in the long run and creating jobs for the installers all while being better for the environment.
She cited a study that just by raising the percent of energy we produce to solar energy by 10 percent we would create 15,000 highly skilled good paying jobs as solar installers that won’t go way.
She also sees an opportunity for farms to become generators of solar power as an extra income.
Small town rural life means something to McCracken, and she sees the towns in her district as places that can thrive if they have access to markets, education and telemedicine through rural broadband and cellular connectivity. She said the broadband infrastructure is a necessary tool that needs to be built stronger for small towns to thrive.
McCracken feels that family farms are the backbone of rural communities in central Pennsylvania, and she knows how hard they work because she interacts with them every day through her business and community. She said she wants to support farmers, by fighting to preserve farmland and make sure that farmers have an ability to make a living. She said she hopes to do that by supporting new markets for local dairy products, finding ways to bring in new processing facilities into Pennsylvania and by supporting innovation in farming so that “family farms can be profitable, productive, and regenerate our environment.”
FINDING HER GROOVE
A longtime member of the local music scene under her maiden name Erin Condo, McCracken found that speaking at political events was a little different than performing her music.
“I’ve been performing for about 20 years, and I feel very comfortable playing and talking to people in that aspect where I am just talking about entertainment, and I’m playing my guitar, I have an instrument to hide behind,” said McCracken.
She said there was a learning curve on how to be herself while talking about the issues that mattered to people. But now she has found her groove on the campaign trail by being herself and connecting with people.
“Ultimately here I am back to being myself and that is what is working,” said McCracken. She said that at first music was going to be a big part of her campaign, but with everything she has going on, performances are limited. She said would be hard on her vocal cords to sing after all the speaking that she is doing.
But she said it a natural thing for musicians to be involved politically.
“The musicians I know in this town are the most civically oriented people that I’ve ever met,” she said, adding that musicians are often performing for causes without hesitation. “We are a group supporting our community in every way.
“I do think that music is a great way to connect with people and I am a story teller and that translates.”
She hopes to continue finding ways to connect with voters leading up to Nov. 6.
With endorsements from many national and state organizations such as PSEA, Emily’s List, AFL-CIO, NASW-Pa among others, McCracken feels good about her chances.
And so she is out there knocking on doors, talking to the people and listening to what they have to say. She believes that she can win this race and be a part of the change that she said she knows people are looking for, because she has been out there talking to them.
