A right-wing celeb is running for Congress in Bucks County. Scott Perry played a role (sort of).

A flash of intraparty intrigue this week in Pennsylvania’s 1st Congressional District, held by Bucks County Republican U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, has Clout mulling two possible explanations.

One — U.S. Rep. Scott Perry encouraged political novice Mark Houck, a conservative cause célèbre after being acquitted earlier this year on federal charges of intimidating workers at a Philadelphia clinic that performs abortions, to challenge Fitzpatrick in next May’s primary.

Or two — Perry, a hard-right conservative from York County, was supportive when Houck asked for advice about running for office but didn’t specifically push him to run in a primary against Fitzpatrick.

Perry’s camp went with the second option.

Houck, invited by Perry in February to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech, told Clout it was a mix of the two.

This all went public in a Tuesday newsletter from Punchbowl News, which quoted Houck saying Perry encouraged him to run.

Perry’s campaign told Clout the same thing it told Punchbowl News: He respects Houck’s “tireless dedication” as an antiabortion activist but only advised him to pray while considering a run.

Fitzpatrick did what he usually does when there is a whiff of controversy and ducked requests for comment.

Houck told Clout he wasn’t trying to get Perry in political trouble or attempting to pit him against Fitzpatrick. But he considered Perry’s advice encouragement to run when they spoke in June.

“Scott said, ’If you’re going to run, you need to make a decision fast,’” Houck said. “He wasn’t negative. He wasn’t against it.”

Houck filed paperwork to challenge Fitzpatrick on Aug. 10, and said in an interview then that he opposed abortion, even in cases of rape or incest.

Punchbowl News doubled down Thursday with a newsletter that included an audio clip of Houck saying Perry encouraged him and citing five instances when he told conservative outlets something similar.

Enjoying all this: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which accused Perry of “meddling in his GOP colleague’s primary,” and cast that as “a major embarrassment” for Fitzpatrick.

Not enjoying all this: The Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, which plans to back Fitzpatrick in his primary and didn’t have much more to say about that.

The Bucks County district held by Fitzpatrick since 2017 has been a bipartisan source of frustration.

Conservatives see Fitzpatrick as too moderate for a county where Democrats took control in 2019 and Biden won in 2020. Meanwhile progressives call Fitzpatrick a secret conservative posing as a moderate.

Fitzpatrick, a former FBI agent, easily fended off Republican primary and Democratic general election challengers in 2020 and 2022.

Democrat Ashley Ehasz, a former U.S. Army helicopter pilot who lost to Fitzpatrick last year by 9 points, is back for a 2024 rematch.

David Oh, the three-term Philadelphia City Council member who is now the Republican nominee for mayor, told about 50 supporters at the Union League on Tuesday that he’s done the math and now needs their money to be successful in November.

He predicted that about 300,000 of the city’s million-plus voters will actually cast a ballot, with about 250,000 of them being Democrats. Oh said he is in the process of identifying about 20% of those Democrats — 50,000 voters — who want a change in city leadership after seven decades of Democratic mayors.

His former Council colleague Cherelle Parker is the Democratic nominee.

Oh also said about 30,000 Republicans and 20,000 independents typically would vote for mayor.

“My goal is to double that to 60,000 Republicans and 40,000 independents,” he said. “Is that a doable goal? In my mind, it is.”

For Oh’s math to work, voters need to be more enthused about November’s election than they were about May’s primary, along with the 2015 primary and general elections.

Philadelphia has nearly 775,000 registered Democrats, just under 115,000 Republicans and about 135,000 independents and members of smaller political parties.

Turnout for May’s primary hit just 281,763 — 27.5% of the city’s registered voters — for a competitive Democratic race in which millions of dollars were pumped into television ads and get-out-the-vote efforts.

In 2015, the last time an incumbent was not running for mayor, 247,000 voters cast ballots in the Democratic and Republican primaries. Even fewer voters — 238,664 — cast ballots for mayor in the general election that year.

Still, Oh kept at the optimistic pitch Tuesday.

“That number is within reach,” he said after defining his goal. “And I would basically say that what I need from you is this: I need money.”

“Donald Trump is now under indictment in every NL East city other than Philadelphia.”

— Ben Kamens, a staffer for U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, a Democrat from Ohio, posting Monday on X, the hellscape previously known as Twitter.

Major League Baseball’s National League East includes the New York Mets (Manhattan District Attorney’s Office), the Atlanta Braves (Fulton County District Attorney’s Office), the Washington Nationals (the District of Columbia), and the Miami Marlins (the Southern District of Florida.) Call that the four corners of Trump’s legal woes.

Kamens, a Temple University graduate, watched his notion go viral.

“As someone who grew up a lifelong Phillies fan and obviously a little deep in the world of politics, it just kind of came to me,” he said.

Fellow Philly guy Jake Tapper gave the post a shout-out on CNN.

“It was completely unexpected,” Kamens said. “I guess the tweet was going around enough that he saw it.”

Clout provides often irreverent news and analysis about people, power, and politics.