David McCormick’s origin story goes something like this: He grew up in rural Pennsylvania, southwest of Scranton. He baled hay, trimmed Christmas trees and otherwise worked on his family’s farm. And from those humble beginnings, he rose to achieve the American dream.“I spent most of my life in Pennsylvania, growing up in Bloomsburg on my family’s farm,” Mr. McCormick, now a Republican candidate for Senate, told Pittsburgh Quarterly in 2022.
“I’ve truly lived the American dream,” he wrote in a fund-raising appeal in October. “My life’s journey — from growing up on a farm in Bloomsburg, to graduating from West Point and serving in the 82nd Airborne Division, growing a business in Pittsburgh, and serving at the highest levels of government — reflects that.”
“I grew up on a family farm from the time I was a kid,” he said at the Pennsylvania farm show in January.
He has explicitly said and strongly implied that he grew up on a farm, claimed in 2022 that he had “started with nothing” and that he “didn’t have anything,” and he and his campaign have recently described his parents as schoolteachers.
In fact, Mr. McCormick is the son of a well-regarded college president who later became chancellor of higher education systems in Pennsylvania and Minnesota. He largely grew up in the president’s sprawling hilltop residence, which students called the president’s mansion, at what is now Bloomsburg University.
The family did own a farm several miles from the school, which Mr. McCormick called the “McCormick Tree Farm” in a holiday-themed ad released before his 2022 Senate bid. But it was also often known locally as a place where his mother raised Arabian horses, something of a family hobby, according to local news reports from the 1970s and ’80s. (Mr. McCormick still owns the farm, he has said. But he rents out part of it, according to a woman who said she had rented from the family for roughly three decades.)
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@ThrushePeteDemocrat2wks2W
McCormick rewrites his upper-middle-class, well-educated, and well-connected background so he can appeal to people who never had his advantages. In other words, he lied. I hope voters have had enough of the "embellishments", as George Santos called his rewrite.
You gotta love these guys who claim to have risen from nothing— in this instance, risen from the leaky shambles of a college president’s mansion. My father, a research chemist, was born in a coal camp with no electricity or indoor bathrooms… and he was luckier than most kids in those days.
@BustardAlexaSocialist2wks2W
Sounds a little slippery, to me. But since many GOP voters don't appear to be bothered by The Donald's outrageous lies, then it makes sense they can overlook Mr. McCormick's little fabrications. Reminds me of an old joke: "He doesn't have bad breath.... For a dog."
Why can't the man just be proud of his real life? Sounds like it was nice, but not extravagant, humble but not fake. Why does he have to sort of pretend he's something less? He didn't grow up on a farm. He wasn't the son of farmers. He wasn't the son of just "schoolteachers" and the salary they made allowed them to have a gentleman's farm where he could enjoy the outdoors.
What's wrong with telling it like it really is?
@WakefulUnanim0usGreen2wks2W
Hmmm.... A Republican politician who lies for political gain? How unusual! I would have hoped the honor code at West Point would have sunk in a little deeper and had more staying power.
I worked at Bridgewater for a number of years while McCormick was co-CEO. He was a decent leader there, albeit a bit of a political character -- where his answers often hedged down the middle, such that it was a little difficult to get a sense of who he was and where he truly stood or what he truly thought.
I don't care much whether he grew up on a farm or not. The bigger question in my mind is why someone like McCormick -- who's had access to high quality education and career experience -- would parlay that background into allying himself with the current Republican party.
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@N0minati0nBoaDemocrat2wks2W
He's no more a PA resident than Dr. Oz was. On tax returns, Mr. McCormick still names Connecticut as his primary residence. He bought a house in Pittsburgh so that he could run for Senate, but then he turned down a tax break that he could have taken if the new house were indeed his primary residence.
When questioned about that, his spokesperson cited the family farm as proof that he lives in Pennsylvania. But that was a lie too.
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