“PHILADELPHIA — Bryan Lentz, toting an Army-issue duffel bag, slips into the booth.
Over the din of a bustling downtown coffee shop, the 41-year-old infantry officer and lawyer leans across the table, and outlines his latest mission.
”You either have to buy into the rhetoric or stand up. I am standing up.”
Lentz, who as a major in the 82d Airborne helped to rebuild the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, is running for Congress. He is one of at least nine veterans vying to become the first soldiers of the post-9/11 military to be elected to the House of Representatives, according to party leaders.
They say their experience makes them well-suited to help successfully extricate the United States from Iraq and to more effectively fight the war on terrorism, which they fear is being lost in the Muslim world’s court of public opinion.
Eight of the nine are running as Democrats. At least three are lawyers. Most went to the front lines from the Reserves or the National Guard. Some have been recruited for office by party leaders; others say they are trying to get the national parties to pay attention to them.
But they are all running on their wartime experience and against the prevailing political hierarchy in Washington — both Republican and Democrat.”-from the story last fall in The Boston Globe. Majority Report Radio and Daily Kos are now featuring these candidates in an on-going series of posts and shows, using the tag-line, “Back from Front Lines and Headed to Congress.”
Why shouldn’t the Dems put these people front and center in this year’s battle for Congress?
Wart-O-Crats — the people on our side against the fascists who manage to keep taking our money and our time, and who manage to keep losing elections and crapalitos and everything else,
and who manage to stay in charge in DC ?
Wart-0-Crats can’t have the fighting dems out front cuz how else could our valiant Wart-0-Crats stay in charge of losing and living large?
need an answer? follow the money.
if it is thug behavior ya need an answer for, follow the money and expect the most despicable thing possible, and you’ll never be disappointed.
if it is Dem behavior ya need an answer for, follow the money and expect incompetent behavior, and you’ll rarely be disappointed.
rmm.
It is important that the vets of the war and the vets of our intelligence agencies are aligning themselves in opposition to the Bush Crime Family.
We should welcome our new allies with open arms.
I think that this is a good idea because we need more veterans to counter their Dems are un-American BS. I want these guys to go after their GOP rivals with both fists and attack. We need to put these guys on O’Reilly and hannity to attack then. We need to put these guys as the anti-Bush voice.
right:
New York Times/CBS News poll.
I don’t know about anybody else, but I’d be a lot more comfortable with that idea if so many of these “Fighting Dems” weren’t anti-choice. At this point, the first thing I do when I see someone billed as a “Fighting Dem” is google their name plus pro-life…and wind up getting lots of hits for folks like Tim Dunn and Bryan Wentz…it’s disappointing, to say the least.
CabinGirl: I’d be more comfortable if they were pro-choice, too. But I still think we should consider giving them the opportunity to voice their concerns about the rovian’s “war on terror” and to respond when the “fear card” is thrown on the table.The Dems desperately need credible messengers on this issue.
I’m not saying it isn’t great that these military guys are coming home and running as Dems and exposing the truth about the WoT. I agree with that. I just wish that more of these guys supported choice (Patrick Murphy comes to mind), and I have major concerns about the overarching Dem strategy of abandoning reproductive rights in general.
I know some of the Fighting Dems are from southern states where anti-choice is more “popular”, but not all of them are.
I just want a slate of good candidates that support the right issues. I couldnt care less if they are ex-military, carrer politicians, draft dodgers or whatever. What they stand for on a broad platform is more important.
Who is Bryan Lentz? What are his qualifications to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives? He is an Iraq War veteran. That’s great. Really. But does it qualify him to represent us in Congress?
He is widely unknown here in PA-7. His campaign is run out of a P.O. Box. There are questions as to how often, if ever, he has even voted here. He is pro-life– that much I know.
He has become a darling of the DK crowd, apparently, because of this obsession with the “Fighting Dem” concept. But few, if any, of his on-line supporters have given any other rationale for their support of Lentz and his ilk. This sounds suspiciously like the reasoning that I was hearing (from BooMan, among others) during the spring and summer of 2004, why Howard Dean was a dangerous choice, and why John Kerry (the VETERAN) was so much more ‘electable.’
Lentz is challenging Paul Scoles, M.D., for the Democratic nomination in PA-7. Scoles, unlike Lentz, has had a long career in Delaware County politics, and is well-known and respected across the district. He is currently the Chairman of the Haverford Township Democratic Party and has received the endorsement of the Democratic Party of Delaware County, Chester County, and Montgomery County. He ran respectably against Curt Weldon in 2004 (receiving 42% of the vote despite only running a 12-week campaign and having virtually no funding), and in preparation for 2006 has been campaigning and fundraising virtually since that time.
I am attaching a list of current and former Democratic office-holders who endorse Paul Scoles for Congress. I think there needs to be a place for loyalty in the party. Scoles has paid his dues and deserves to be the nominee to challenge, and defeat, Curt Weldon in November.
Mary Fran Ballard, Radnor, Democratic State
Committee
Nancy Baulis, Democratic State Committee
Marty Berger, Democratic State Committee,
President, PA Retired Citizens Council
Hon. Tom Broido, Haverford Township
Commissioner
Anthony Campisi, Vice Chair, Delaware County,
Chair, Marple-Newton
Anthony Campuzano, Chair, Lansdowne Democratic
Committee
Angela D’Alessandro, Chair, Upper Darby
Democratic Party
Rev. Marie E. deYoung, Secretary, Lansdowne
Democrats and Halliburton Whistleblower
James Donahue, Chair, Ridley Democratic
Committee
Hon. Barney Frank, U.S. Congress
Dorothy Gallagher, Democratic State Committee
Marcel Groen, Esq, Chair, Montgomery County
Democratic Party
Mary Ann Balchunis Harris, Vice-Chair, Delaware
County Democratic Party
Patrick Hart, Swarthmore College Democrats
Alice Hoffman, Co-Chair, Delco Action Seniors
Hon. Larry Holmes, Haverford Township
Commissioner
Charlotte Hummel, Director, William Penn School
District
John Innelli, Esq, Rose Valley, State Committee
J. Peter Jesson, Chair, Chadds Ford Democratic Party
Hon. Thaddeus Kirkland, State Representative
Gerald Lawrence, Delco Election
Committee
Hon. Daylin Leach, State Representative
Lawrence Puchalski, President, Delco Young
Democrats
Abu Rahman, Newtown Square, Chair, Delco Asian
American Democrats
Shelley H. Rahman, Newtown Square, State
Committee
Raymond Santarelli, Springfield, Delco Democratic
Party Solicitor
Bill Smith, Treasurer, Delco Democrats, Lansdowne
Borough Councilman
Livia Smith, Chester City Democratic Committee
Bill Spingler, Radnor Democratic Committee
Hon. Rob Trumbull, Haverford Township Commissioner
Hon. Greg Vitali, State Representative
Hon. Connie Williams, State Senator
Clifford E. Wilson, Chair, Delaware County Democratic
Party
Hon. Harris Wofford, former U.S. Senator
Dorothy Wyman, Delco Voter Registration
Commissioner
Hon. Jayne Young, Mayor of Lansdowne