Moe Lane

The new redrawn Pennsylvania Congressional map is out, and it’s… well.  If you ever wondered whether elections have consequences, then wonder no more.

Executive summary: two of the least powerful PA Democratic Congressmen have been thrown into Thunderdome and told to fight each other; the other five PA Democrats have been, ah, reassured that their seats are safe; and the nine PA Republicans have had their seats generally tweaked and shored up to minimize any possibility of losing their seats any time soon.

And the best adjective to describe PA Democrats’ reaction to this one is probably ‘impotent.’ (more…)

Both Vodkapundit and AoSHQ are weighing in the apparent news that Pennsylvania is getting farther and farther away from the Democrats.  I bring this up not because I disagree with that assessment, but because I wanted to point something out: individual state assessments do not exist in a vacuum.  It is very difficult to envision a situation where PA is tilting to the Republicans, but FL, NC, & VA are still in play’ for that matter, it is impossible to envision a situation where PA is truly in play and IA, NH, MI, OH, & WI are not.

This does not mean that the GOP candidate is a shoo-in.  It does mean that the predictions of pundits who are relying too heavily on demographic trends should probably be taken with a grain of salt.  Or the whole shaker.

Last week Scott Ott, Lisa Scheller, and Vic Mazziotti all won their elections to Lehigh County, Pennsylvania’s board of commissioners.  And, folks?  That’s what we need.  More of us actually elected at the local and state level.  Go in from the bottom, work your way up, influence the people around you as you rise.

…sayeth the guy who just sits around on a computer and types away all day.  Still, it is good advice.

Please vote for reform candidates Scott Ott, Vic Mazziotti, and Lisa Scheller in the Lehigh County Commissioner race.  Scott Ott is, of course, the blogger behind Scrappleface, and a good guy who is going through the hassle of running for office (which, honestly, more of us should be doing).

Shock.
Surprise.
Inconceivable!

Last week’s release of FBI documents finally put in writing what nobody had ever said on the record: The FBI suspected that former Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) and lobbyists close to him were running a scheme to funnel earmarks to sham companies and nonprofits to benefit the lawmaker’s friends and former staffers.

Bits and pieces of this story were kicked around for years before Murtha died in February 2010. The Los Angeles Times, Roll Call, the Washington Post and others had documented the odd appearance of earmarks for tiny defense contractors that just happened to open an office in western Pennsylvania and just happened to hire one of the lobbying firms close to Murtha and just happened to begin making campaign donations to Murtha and other Members of Congress close to him.

Yes, that was sarcasm. (more…)

Alternate title: Politically flabby Democrat (in comfortably Democratic seat) suddenly remembers that home state is losing a Congressional District; and that the redistricting process is fully in the hands of the other party*.

Which is probably too long a title, at that.  Anyway, Mikey Doyle is very, very sorry that the Tea Party thought that he was talking about them when he started spouting off about terrorists:

U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Forest Hills, said he wasn’t comparing Tea Party members with terrorists when he used the word during a closed-door caucus meeting Monday, but was expressing frustration at President Obama’s negotiating tactics, which he said gave in too quickly to GOP demands in the debt ceiling debate.

“Had I simply said hostage-taker, there wouldn’t be this reaction. I certainly wasn’t out to defame anybody,” said Doyle, who couldn’t recall the exact statement he made. (more…)

This Washington Post article (“Does Redstate blogger Erick Erickson matter?”) is generally not worth commenting on (mostly because the answer is pretty much “Apparently, yes, given that they wrote an article”), but I can’t let this paragraph pass without comment*:

Let me just note the mistakes on that one: (more…)

State Representative Daryl Metcalfe is one of the state legislators behind the Pennsylvania Open Workforce Initiative, which is a set of four bills designed to essentially transform Pennsyvlania into a Right-to-Work state (you can see a summary of the bills here).  Rep. Metcalfe has been pushing for this elementary bit of labor union reform for some time; only usually not when both the governorship and both houses of the state legislature were decisively controlled by Republicans.  We talked for a bit on the Initiative:

The high costs involved with Big Labor – particularly in the public sector – means that labor union reform is a hot topic on the state level right now.  I encourage readers to get involved in the issue.  Certainly the opposition is doing precisely that…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

This would be the Scott Ott of Scrappleface and PJTV: you might remember that he ran for Lehigh County Executive (Pennsylvania) last year, and came pretty close to winning.  He’s running for Lehigh County Commissioner this year; there are several seats up, so Scott’s part of a team this time.  Their goal is to put enough Republicans on the Commission to override the county Executive’s veto.

Speaking for myself (hopefully, not just for myself)… this is what needs to happen across the country, folks: changing the way the government does things requires not only activity on the federal level, or even the federal and state.  We’ve got to get in on the process at every level, from the bottom up.  Somebody’s got to do the heavy lifting, and the people doing it for the unglamorous jobs particularly deserve our attention and aid.  Because if they don’t do it and if you don’t do it, who will?

And… end of sermon.  Scott’s campaign website is here.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

One gets the feeling that Matt Patterson does not like Arlen Specter:

One of the most ignominious political careers of the modern era will at last sputter to a pitiful end when the 111^th Congress finally relinquishes its strangle-hold on the American Republic.

Then again, who does?  I’d like to say that it was a disappointment that Specter lost the primary – it would have been fun to beat him in the general – but, truth be told, it was just as much fun to beat Joe Sestak, and this way we got to drink the Other Side’s pain, too.  The wild hope added a certain piquancy to the mix.

Moe Lane

Last week it came out that Pennsylvania residents received fake letters from the Pennsylvania Voter Assistance Office (otherwise known as ‘the Democratic party of Bucks County, PA’) soliciting absentee ballot applications from targeted voters.  What made the situation very troubling is that the letters included a prepaid envelope that did not send completed applications to the appropriate Pennsylvanian election office; the applications instead were to go to a private post office box, and anybody who claims to not see the potential there for blatant electoral fraud is either deeply stupid, or a bald-faced liar.

Now NRO has learned that Patrick Murphy’s campaign manager (Tim Persico) was one of the people with access to this post office box, which implies that Murphy was aware of the entire situation.  Murphy has been generally trailing challenger Mike Fitzpatrick; there’s more than a faint whiff of desperation here, even if one discounts the idea of voter fraud.  Although, given the historical record, why one would want to give a Democratic politician in a tough race any slack when it comes to voter fraud eludes me…

Moe Lane

Mike is running against Patrick Murphy, and by ‘running against’ I mean ‘beating.’ Still, that’s why we have elections and races, and we talked about both today:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hNJP3LDHxE[/youtube]

Mike’s site is here.

Moe Lane (crosspost)