Local Boy Bruce Castor – What’s His Story?
Starting on Tuesday, when the Senate begins to conduct the second impeachment trial of the 45th president, a former perennial and sometimes successful Montgomery County Republican political candidate named Bruce Castor, will become a national household name – at least during the week or two that the trial lasts.
According to his Ballotpedia profile, Castor began working in the Montgomery County D.A.’s office in 1985, even before graduating from Washington and Lee University Law School in 1986. He eventually became First Assistant D.A.
Lower Merion residents might recall a highly publicized 1997 case that Castor prosecuted against Merion Park resident Craig Rabinowitz, whose wife Stephanie Rabinowitz was “found dead” in the bathtub. It turned out that before Stephanie found herself dead in the bathtub, Craig had strangled her.
Elected Montgomery D.A. in 1999
In 1999, Castor was elected for the first time as Montgomery County D.A., winning 63% of the vote. During that campaign, Susan Burt Collins, his unsuccessful Democratic opponent, critized the district attorney’s office for dropping charges against a man who was accused of raping a child more than 100 times over six years. Castor was re-elected in 2003, by a substantial, but slightly smaller margin than in 1999.
Failed Run for Attorney General in 2004
In 2004, Tom Corbett defeated Castor in a bitter Republican primary election for Pennsylvania Attorney General. In that race, Corbett won the support of the Pennsylvania Republican Committee, and perhaps more importantly, Corbett was backed by powerful Montgomery County GOP fundraiser and Republican National Committee member, Bob Asher.
During the campaign, Castor repeatedly called attention to Asher’s 1986 felony conviction for bribery. Corbett and his supporters countered by reminding voters that Castor had accepted a $600,000 contribution from former GOP Republican gubernatorial candidate Drew Lewis. The Corbett Camp claimed that Lewis’s Contribution was a payback to Castor for the Montgomery County D.A.’s enabling Lewis to avoid jail time when Lewis was facing a DUI charge.
Wins County Commissioner Race in 2007
Castor ran successfully for county commissioner in 2007, but as the Inquirer noted on Monday (February 1), “His first term was fraught. The other two members, Democrat Joe Hoeffel and Republican Jim Matthews, established an agreement that essentially iced Castor out of policy decisions.”
The political winds of Montgomery County had shifted dramatically by the time Castor ran for re-election in 2011. Democrats Josh Shapiro and Leslie Richards ran first and second. Castor managed to run third and became the first ever Republican minority commissioner in Montgomery County’s 140-year history.
Defeated by Kevin Steele and Bill Cosby in 2015 D.A. Race
Castor attempted a political comeback in 2015 when he ran for D.A., and was defeated convincingly by Democrat Kevin Steele (who just a few years prior to running for D.A. had been a Lower Merion Republican Committee Person).The centerpiece of Steele’s campaign was Castor’s unwillingness to prosecute Bill Cosby, after it was reported that he had sexually assaulted a woman.
In 2016 Castor served very, very briefly as attorney general
For about a week, between the time when then Attorney General Kathleen Kane had been convicted of perjury, and resigned; and when Governor Tom Wolf named Bruce Beemer to be acting attorney general; Castor, at least theoretically, was acting attorney general.
And Joe Gale says…
Joe Gale, another perennial Montgomery County Republican political candidate, was elected in 2015 and replaced Castor as the Minority Montgomery County Commissioner.
On Monday (February 1), Politico’s Holly Otterbein wrote –“In the four years that Castor served on the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners with Shapiro, he was nothing more than a GOP rubber-stamp for the Democrat agenda,” Gale said of Castor. “Frankly, President Trump should represent himself or skip this kangaroo court impeachment hearing altogether and dare 17 hack Republican senators to convict him of these bogus charges.”
On his Vote Joe Gale Facebook Page, Gale wrote, President Trump’s sudden decision to hire Bruce Castor as his lead defense attorney against impeachment is just another example that he is receiving advice from establishment Republicans who have infiltrated his inner-circle.
[…] Tuesday (February 9), former Montgomery County Commissioner and D.A., Bruce Castor seemed to be testing the limits of that old saw, there’s no such thing as bad […]