I went to a fundraiser for Pat Murphy last night. I’m getting to know Pat and his campaign staff pretty well. He is a great candidate and his staff is filled with excellent people. If they keep buying me drinks, I may even endorse him. LOL.
Pat is running for Congress in the 8th district of Pennsylvania. The district covers most of Bucks County, which is a very affluent county that runs along the picturesque Delaware River. The river serves as the border with New Jersey.
His opponent Mike Fitzpatrick is one of Tom DeLay’s flunkies:
If you want to contribute to the BooMan bar tab you can do so here.
From Pat’s bio:
With this background, it is no surprise that Patrick went on to become a West Point professor, airborne and air assault qualified, a JAG Corps attorney, and that he served two deployments after 9/11 — the first to Bosnia in 2002 and the second to Baghdad, Iraq in 2003-2004 as a paratrooper with the 82d Airborne Division.
In Iraq, Captain Murphy advised on offensive operations, initiated reconstruction efforts within the justice system, trained the new Iraqi Civil Defense Corps on the rules of engagement and was instrumental in the prosecution of Sheik Moyad, a radical lieutenant of Muqtada Sadr. For his service, Patrick earned the Bronze Star and his unit earned the Presidential Unit Citation.
It warms my heart to see Tom DeLay sitting in a courtroom.
so you get a chance to talk to Pat Murphy? Where does he stand on women’s reproductive rights? i just looked at his website and can’t see anything.
and yeah, did you see delay’s mugshot? horrid.
Pat supports a woman’s right to choose. He talked a little about it last night. He was raise Irish/Italian Catholic, and he still is a practicing Catholic. His opponent is also Irish Catholic and takes the side of the Church. He talked about how it was difficult to buck the church, but he doesn’t think it is his business, or the business of the government. He was brief but more eloquent than I am making him sound.
good that he’s talking about it, and thanks for letting me know. im glad he was eloquent too but could forgo that as long as he supports the right to choose! both is always nice, though 😉
Just clicked on his website and thought, gosh he looks familiar; here’s why: LINK
He was great at the forum, and I’d vote for him if I still lived in Bucks…
I emailed my representative, Nancy Johnson (5th district-CT) and told her I thought she should return pac money from Tom DeLay’s trough. But I don’t think it’s fair to suggest Fitzpatrick or Johnson is a flunkie because they took cash from DeLay. Money makes from strange bedfellows sometimes. If Fitzpatrick is a flunkie I’d like to read why.
how about the fact that he votes with DeLay 95% of the time?
Our country has become a partisan divide and it’s commonplace to read about one party voting “together” one way. I think that makes most of our politicians flunkies, including Fitzgerald.
What we saw in 04 was that middle class and working class districts who tended to be “social conservatives” would vote for a Democrat if the Democrat was clearly a better choice and campaigned effectively.
At the state lege level, we lost a heartbreaker – Kelly White, and amazing and wonderful lady (read about her here) lost to Todd Baxter by 147 votes out of almost 70,000 cast.
Baxter is also in DeLay’s pocket:
District 48 is the wealthiest area of Austin. It seems to me that these areas will vote Republican no matter how sleazy the R candidate and how wonderful the D candidate. Voting R means “protect my wealth” and this trumps everything.
Like you, I’m feeling 1974 in the wind, so this is probably an ideal time for Murphy, but since you say he’s running in a “very affluent” county, it probably won’t be easy.
Mark Strama (D and a great guy – the kind of Democrat many of us are hoping to see a lot more of) won his race, despite being hugely outspent by his Republican opponent. He talked about how he did it at DemFest and lookinforward transcribed his talk and posted it at MyDD. You might want to pass this along to Pat – he might find some of it useful.
article is in the hands of his campaign manager. See how fast this works? Thanks Janet.
Boo, thanks so much for this story. These candidates are our hope. Our future! Our kids’ future.
These posts don’t seem to get many comments but PLEASE keep them coming. Be rude, and interrupt our regular CIA Leak programming with these stories! This is an example of what we can do constructively to change things in Washington, D.C.
I’m easy. Give me hors’ dourves and a beer and I’m yours.
Unless you’re a republican. Then I need cash, small unmarked bills… in a briefcase that locks.
My bite-size cheeseballs are to die for. Go great with beer. I’d prefer Canadian cider, please.
Cool! Entirely appropriate that the MyDD story is “Using technology to win elections…” and by gum, here we are doing it. Can you imagine a candidate in PA looking at a winning strategy used by a TX state rep before we had these internets and bloggy thingies?
And re Susan’s comment above, I keep thinking that there needs to be a diary or story “Who’s running in your district?” A challenge to all BooTribbers to find out who’s running where they are in 06 – US Sen (if this is their year for it), US Rep, State lege. And to research something about them – is this the kind of candidate you’d be willing to support? I think – because of the shock of the 04 elections and the coming “1974 moment” that there are a lot more real progressives willing to stick their necks out and actually run this time. But a lot of people don’t realize it yet.
AND, if there really is no one in their district they can support, perhaps they could send a little love (money if they have it, time at the keyboard if they don’t, or both if they have both money and time) to a candidate in another district that they like – and that they learn about on such a story. For example – I sent Pennachio some money just because I was pissed at the PA party’s refusal to give him any support – in fact, it appears, to actually work against him (yes?) in the primary. (I’m with you – fight like hell for progressives in the primary, vote for Casey – or local equivalent – in the general if I have to.)
I know, I know, I should do a diary. But I may not be able to find the time, so I’m just tossing this out there.