Can anyone please explain to me what, exactly, the Democrats mean when they talk about empowered women?

Are they women who are strong, self-assured and capable, or are they whiners who cower in the face of a primary challenge from a man?  Are they happy that legions of women are now “woke” and assertively marching to the polls, or are they worried that their fellow pussyhats are not smart enough to vote for anything other than name recognition?

In liberal circles, there has been much clutching at pearls and calling for the swoon bottle in response to poor old Joe Hoeffel merely doing what Joe Hoeffel does, which is: run for office.  The tone from supposedly empowered females is almost universally accusatory towards Joe:  Why are you playing the spoiler in this election? Why are you putting your mean old name recognition up against our strong, independent, capable women?

You are denying our ladyparts a seat at the table!  How DARE you!

As if the only reason that Joe Hoeffel is running for office is so that it doesn’t fall into the grasping little hands of Madeleine Dean.  Joe Hoeffel could no sooner deny his nature as breathe.

Joe Hoeffel, a Democrat Party stalwart in Montgomery County since, well, as long as I can remember, is now being asked to leave the race by Montco Commissioner Val Arkoosh in a way that can only be described as the airing of dirty Democrat laundry.  WHYY:

Arkoosh said Hoeffel’s name recognition from his years in politics could attract voters, but she said she remembers what county government was like after Hoeffel finished his last term as commissioner in 2012.

“I was very disappointed to find the mess that Joe left behind at the county, and I continue to this day to clean that mess up,” Arkoosh said in the video.

She cited the depletion of the county’s financial reserves, its failure to make payments to the pension fund, a bond downgrade, and “a grand jury report that raised serious ethical questions about Joe’s behavior.”

Arkoosh’s facebook video can be viewed in it’s entirety below.

It’s interesting that Val is co-opting that tired tag line of Josh Shapiro’s, a MAN, in order to make her point about Joe Hoeffel’s maleness getting in the way of the ladies, especially since the bulk of that “mess” was “cleaned up” long before Val was appointed to the Board as a result of Leslie Richards departure to become head of PennDOT under Governor Wolf.

But I am always more than willing to revisit that chapter of Montgomery County history, and I’m grateful to Val for bringing it up.  Democrats have always escaped scrutiny during this era, thanks primarily to the high volume of The Bruce Castor Show, a non-stop media circus that kept the press focused on Castor’s personal internecine Republican Party wars as opposed to what his Board of County Commissioners was actually doing.

Hoeffel was one of three Montgomery County Commissioners during that term, along with Jim Matthews and Bruce Castor.  Even though there was much contention on that particular Board, (the press nicknamed them “the Bickersons,”) the vote was unanimous to invest $24 million of Montgomery County taxpayer money into the Norristown Studio Centre at Logan Square, a project that was being billed with much fanfare as “the Hollywood of the East.”  The “completed” project didn’t come close to living up to the hype and amounted only to a refurbished Sears/Ports of the World building and a parking garage.

In Montco circles, it is only quietly remembered that the Studio Centre project was Hoeffel’s baby, and that the former chairman of the Montgomery County Democratic Party, (and, until just recently, the chairman of the PA State Democratic Party) Marcel Groen was the attorney for the project developer Charles Gallub.

Of the $56 million that was spent on this project, $24 million dollars of that was Montgomery County taxpayer money, all of which was lost when the developer claimed bankruptcy in October 2013.

In March 2014, Josh Shapiro, Bruce Castor and Leslie Richards voted unanimously to sell 220 acres of county-designated open space to fill the budget hole and cure the resultant downgrade of Montco’s bond rating that was created by the bankruptcy of the Studio Centre project.

The grand jury investigation into wrongdoing by County officials predictably went nowhere.  How all of that money was actually spent was never answered, and the whole sordid mess was neatly swept into the memory hole.

That is, until Val Arkoosh, to the abject horror of some Montco Dems, decided to bring it all up again.  This is the first time I can remember any Democrat calling out Joe Hoeffel by name for his part in his pet project going south.  I doubt there are many folks in Montco who even knew that there was a grand jury investigation into that administration, let alone that it raised “serious ethical questions about Joe’s behavior.”

Perhaps we should re-open this investigation.

In the meantime, I think Joe should stay in the race.