| Yesterday was the filing deadline for candidates. I parked myself outside Room 104 at the Department of State following my Planned Parenthood Board meeting and had a nice discussion with Scott Conklin about the Lt. Governor's race and spoke briefly with many others including Rep. Kenyatta Johnson, Mark Cohen and Steve Samuelson, staffers for both Arlen Specter and Joe Sestak and many others. Rep. Daryl Metcalf was one of nine Republicans who filed to run for Lt. Governor. Can you imagine the glee Democrats will have if he's on the ticket with Corbett? Talk about a wealth of material for which to attack... Metcalf is as extreme as it gets in politics.
Contrary to rumors put out by Specter supporters Joe Sestak did not circulate petitions for Congress.
Six Republicans filed for the 3rd Congressional District (Kathy Dahlkemper). Patrick Henry Sellers filed in the 6th against Jim Gerlach in the GOP primary. Bill Shuster is unopposed in the 9th, Tom Marino in the 10th left his copy of his candidate's filing on a chair in the hallway and Paul Kanjorski has four opponents in the 11th. Brian Kelly and Corey O'Brien filed as Dems and Lou Barletta and Chris Paige as Republicans. The open 12th District has a slew of candidates: Ryan Bucchianeri, Mark Critz, Ronald Mackell, Ed Cernik Jr, Barbara Hafer, Tim Burns and William Russell. The big names there are Critz, Hafer and Russell. Considering the short time period between Jack Murtha's death and the filing deadline a lot of people were able to organize and mount efforts.
Congressional Districts not usually in play are seeing action this year and that includes the 17th. Sheila Dow-Ford filed against incumbent Tim Holden and four Republicans did so including Dave Argall, Frank Ryan, Allen Griffith and Josh First. I doubt he'll finish there.
Lots of people are hedging their bets by filing for two seats including Conklin, Tony Williams, Steve Urban and Metcalfe.
Former Montco Comissioner Ruth Damsker is running for State Senate against Stewart Greenleaf, Jerry Policoff and Ryan Aument will square off in the 41st Legislative District for Katie True's open seat, Bill DeWeese filed to run again in spite of his name being mentioned during the BonusGate trial daily, Kate Harper wants to continue double dipping at taxpayer expense, Gene Stilp filed for the 104th, Phyllis Bennett in the 106th, Bryan Boughter (D) will run against Jeff Horrocks and Mark Gillen (R's) for Sam Rohrer's open seat, and four candidates, two Dem and two Repubs for Rich Grucela's open seat. They are Charles Dertinger (D), Frank Scagliotta (D), Joe Emrick (R) and Donald Albanese (R). Paul Clymer did rescind his retirement announcement and filed for the 145th in Bucks County.
Todd Stephens will again challenge Rick Taylor in the 151st. I hope Stephens stops fixing his parking tickets, that could come back to haunt him. Four Dems filed to run against indicted former Speaker John Perzel: Tim Kearney, Dan Collins, Karen Rotondo and Kevin Boyle. Perzel sees a challenge from within the GOP from Joe Gaynor. Perzel was indicted on 80 counts of corruption last year.
It's going to be another interesting year. There's no way I can cover everything but we'll see how it goes. There are more Congressional races in play this year than I can remember. The question looming over all of them is simple: will rank and file Democrats turn out in November and how will Democratic candidates motivate them to vote? Can they?
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