For the last 14 years, the Congressman ostensibly representing the northwestern corner of Pennsylvania has been Phil English, a Republican who personifies all that is wrong with the modern Republican Party. He has been a reliable rubber stamp throughout Bush's presidency. During his tenure, he has passed only four bills into law, three of which renamed post offices. He makes an occasional vote in the right direction, but usually for the wrong reasons. If he has any principles, he has kept them well hidden. Meanwhile, the people of PA-03 have been suffering. Jobs have flown from this region in recent years, and English has done little to relieve his constituents' distress.
PA-03 has a Cook PVI of R+0.9, a virtual wash. English was reelected in 2006 with 53.6 % of the vote versus Democrat Steven Porter's 42.1 %, despite English outspending Porter by 5 to 1. Add to these facts the disgust that many voters in this area feel toward English, and one comes to the conclusion that against the right candidate with sufficient funding, he would be extremely vulnerable. But who would be the right candidate? There are four Democrats vying for the nomination, and I can't make up my mind. Will you please help me? There's lots of information over the fold.
What follows are facts that I've learned by visiting the four candidates websites, and the impressions that the candidates made on my during a candidate's forum in Meadville, PA, on Tuesday, Feb. 26. There are many similarities among the candidates--indeed, it's sometimes difficult to find differences on certain issues. All of them are against the war in Iraq and want to redeploy the troops one way or another. All of them recognize the great need to provide health care to those who currently have no access to it. All of them pledge to protect the environment and to support ways to reverse global warming. All of them are critical of various trade treaties (NAFTA, CAFTA), and the perceived damage they have done to the local economy. All believe that the economic salvation of the area could come in the form of green technologies and other high tech ventures. All of them had only bad things to say about No Child Left Behind and how it has been administered. All of them talked about the necessity of working with Republicans to pass legislation. All of them support enactment of laws supporting civil rights for GLBT people, including the creation of civil unions (which surprised me; this is my issue, and I'm glad they support my rights, but portions of this district are extremely conservative, and I would have understood their desire not to go out on a limb on this). All of them support Second Amendment rights. (Welcome to rural Pennsylvania, a hunter's paradise). However, there were differences in the details as well as differences in style and tone. Let me go through each of the candidates in detail, in alphabetical order.
Kathy Dahlkemper, the Businesswoman
Kathy Dahlkemper likes to highlight her experience running a small business (landscaping), so this seems to be the role that she is casting herself in. I felt that her summation at the end of the forum was quite powerful, as she listed all of her life experiences as giving her the necessary points of view to be able to relate to the constituents of the district: she has been a pregnant woman without health insurance; she has been a welfare mother; she has worked in the healthcare industry (as a dietician); as a businesswoman, she knows how hard it is for employers to be able to provide good, affordable health insurance to their employees.
With regard to her particularities, she is the only one of the candidates who is pro-life. That's a deal-breaker for me; I will not vote for a candidate in the primary who will not protect a woman's right to choose. However, if she is the nominee, I will vote for her in the general (much as I did for Casey in 2006). When candidates were asked for the specific committee on which they wanted to serve, she was the only candidate that was not able to name a specific committee, simply "A committee working on healthcare." Granted, there would certainly be a lot of committees working on this legislation, but surely she could have been more specific. Finally, she is the only candidate who believes that the political will for universal healthcare does not yet exist.
Kyle Foust, the Politician
Kyle Foust is currently the only one of the candidates who holds an elective office. He is on the Erie County Council; he was first elected in 2003, defeating a Republican incumbent who outspent him two-to-one. He argues that his Erie County district is a microcosm of PA-03, and with his experience in running and winning against a well-funded Republican opponent, he has the best chances of winning agaiinst Phil English. He is currently the Assistant Director of Career Services at Mercyhurst College in Erie. He claims to have more endorsements from individuals and labor unions than any other candidate. He appears to be projecting an air of inevitability (Hillary, anyone?). He is also the only one of the candidates to have contacted me personally, asking me for my support.
Foust said that he would want to be assigned to one of three Congressional committees: Ways and Means (where English currently occupies space), Labor and Education, or Energy and Commerce. He really didn't deviate from any of the standard positions taken, listed above.
Tom Myers, Lawyer and Labor Activist
Tom Myers introduces himself as a lawyer who comes from five generations of union workers, and he continues as a union advocate. As a lawyer, he says he understands the law, how it works, and he can bring his legal skills to bear in writing legislation. Obviously, the issue of jobs in the region is high on his list, given his affiliations.
Myers expressed an interest on being assigned to the Committee on Labor and Education. Like Foust, he pretty much hewed to the positions I've listed above, without deviation. For the most part, his performance seemed reasonable to me, though I overheard someone behind me whispering "He's off tonight." He did have an odd moment answering a question asked by the President of the Young Democrats of Crawford County. The question had to do with whether each candidate would support a change in the law so that a seventeen year old could register to vote as long as he or she would turn 18 by election day. (Actually, I was kind of surprised that there would be any difficulty about this at all.) All of the other candidates were supportive, but Myers brought up respect for the Constitution, and how it would have to be amended to allow such a policy. I can't imagine that this is true, since the policy for voter registration is up to the states. Anyway, it was a strange answer to a fairly innocuous question.
Mike Waltner, the Young Idealist
Mike Waltner is the youngest of the candidates. Like Myers, he comes from a union family in Erie. He has a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary, and served as director of operations at the Interfaith Center of New York. He has come back to Erie to run for Congress. He is a youthful candidate who is taking all of the positions the Democratic base wants (within reason). Memories of Gary Hart and Jerry Brown floated through my head. He's the candidate you really want to win, but you fear won't stand a chance...but this year? Who knows?
Waltner, by the way, is a kossack. He has written a fair number of diaries in support of his candidacy. He expressed interest in serving either on the Energy and Commerce Committee, or on Ways and Means. He is the only candidate who mentions student loans and credit card debt among young people as an issue, and he has been attracting young people to his campaign. While I like his positions, he nonetheless misspoke on several items, which put me off somewhat. For example, he said at one point that Roe v. Wade was passed. At another point, he confused the national debt with the budget deficit. At still another he related events that occurred in the '40s, after World War I (which, I guess, is technically true). One might consider these picky details, but I'm an academic: picky details are my stock in trade. They bug me (though, frankly, not as much as Bush's gaffes, but then, those are major league).
Well, those are the Democrats.
There is one additional complication, though. That Steven Porter guy, the Democratic candidate who ran for the seat in 2006 and 2004 and lost both times? Well, he's running again, but this time as an independent. As a matter of fact, he had the temerity to publish a diary here on the topic, for which he was roundly thrashed, and properly so. I seriously doubt that more than a tiny number of people will be drawn to vote for him this time around, regardless of any name recognition.
For completeness, I might mention also that on the Republican side, English is facing a primary challenge from the right. His name is John Drescher, and he doesn't have a website (at least, not according to 2008 Race Tracker). So apparently, English is not enough of a wingnut and rubber stamp for some of the local conservatives. Drescher doesn't have a prayer.
So these are the candidates, their stances, and the impressions they made one me. Frankly, I could live with being represented by any of them if it came to that. Each of them is a vast improvement over English. However, neither is any of them the ideal candidate, at least from my point of view. I'm not going to support Dahlkemper in the primary because of her anti-abortion posiition, but beyond that, I'm really not sure what to do, who to choose. (I've nonetheless included her in the poll, should you feel otherwise.)
The objective here is to pick a winner. If you were in my shoes, whom would you pick?