Update: Holy crap. This rumor has been going around the comment boards but now Walker has been charged with stalking! See below fold for excerpt! /end update
Oh boy, the 2 wealthy front-runners for the Republican nomination in Pennsylvania's open seat 5th district are really pounding on each other now. The other 7 candidates must be hoping that the voters turn away disgusted from the squabbling to choose one of them instead - but which one? Retiring Rep. John Peterson's late endorsement of Centre County GOP chairman Glenn Thompson only seems to have confused the race even more.
Meanwhile, the 3 Democrats keep plugging along. Cahir has an ambitious schedule across the district over the next 6 days. McCracken spoke to the Penn State College Dems earlier this week. I'm not sure what Vilello has been doing, and his events page doesn't list anything.
My goodness, such drama! Update:
CLEARFIELD — Fifth Congressional District front-runner Derek Walker was charged Thursday with two felonies and four misdemeanors in connection with an incident last August at his former girl friend’s house in Clearfield.
Walker said this morning before the charges were filed that Clearfield County District Attorney William Shaw Jr. had been pressured to file the charges less than a week before the primary election by Walker’s chief rival for the Republcan nomination, State College businessman Matt Shaner.
. . .
The criminal complaint, filed in District Judge Richard Ireland’s Clearfield office, charges Walker with burglary and criminal trespass, both felonies, and the misdemeanors criminal attempt, invasion of privacy, disorderly conduct and stalking.
The complaint, filed by Clearfield police Chief Jeffrey Rhone and signed by Shaw, accuses Walker of using his cell phone to videotape a former girlfriend in an intimate moment with another man on Aug. 25, 2007. The complaint also alleges that he had contact with her on two other occasions, despite being told by a police officer on Aug. 25 that he should avoid further contact and that charges were pending.
Further details:
A woman there told police that she and a male companion had entered her apartment about 2 a.m. and, finding the apartment warm, had left the door open, the complaint states. They had become intimate when they heard Walker say "This video is going to put an end to your job with the school district," according to the affidavit filed by police in support of the charges.
The woman told police they looked over to see a cell phone in Walker's hand, and believed Walker had videotaped them, the affidavit states. Walker then left the apartment, she told police.
She told police she and Walker had dated earlier in the year, and the relationship ended in June. She said she had since taken steps to avoid contact with him.
The Centre Daily Times is running lots of articles about the race and the candidates. They've published their last Q&A session for all 12 candidates. This one asked each candidate to state his qualifications for the office (each of our Dems did a fine job). The CDT is also running individual final profiles of each candidate. They've been doing 4 a day alphabetically and have 4 left to publish tomorrow (Stroup, Thompson, Vilello (D), and Walker).
Here are the 8 profiles so far and what I thought was interesting about them:
Democrats:
Cahir stresses connections to county- Cahir is trying to combat the "carpetbagger" charge. Cute story about seeing his old English teacher in a crowd.
McCracken relies upon local backers- McCracken is the only one of the Dems who has publicly announced which Presidential candidate he supports, and it is Obama. He even canvassed for Obama last weekend!
Republicans:
Krupa looks to reflect his constituents- Not much to say here. Krupa comes off better in this article than he does on his website (which helped to earn him a winning 9 wingnuts on my wingnut scale.)
Exarchos has decades of public service- He has a compelling story and is a generally reasonable guy. Too bad he hurt too many Republican feelings in 2007 with his write-in bid.
Richardson looks beyond evangelicals- Richardson drops hints that Peterson was looking for assurances that the guy he endorsed would use "bold" lines of criticism against the 3 wealthy candidates in the race. Richardson refused and so, according to him, he didn't get the endorsement.
Shaner brings youth, cash to campaign- Amusing title, because that's all he brings. The article rehashes the "incident" that has been plaguing Shaner since that fateful night. Now Walker is using the episode in ads against Shaner.
Stroehmann highlights rural jobs- Details of a nasty divorce are in there, and Stroehmann laments the negative turn the campaign has taken. Also, Stroehmann supposedly showed Peterson his own polling that had him with 14% behind the essentially tied Walker and Shaner. This is a larger percentage than the internal polling Walker had previously publicized, which had Shaner and Walker with about 20% each, and Stroehmann a distant 3rd with 7%.
OK, now on to the juicy negative ads and the Republicans tearing each other apart
Walker's ad against Shaner involving that little incident (I also got a mailer about it):
ha ha ha ha. I guess it had to be done sooner or later.
Here is Shaner's negative ad against Walker:
ha ha ha ha ha. The 28 year-old is questioning the qualifications of the 32 year-old.
Schadenfreude. I suspect either Walker will pull off a close win, or one of the other candidates (Stroehmann, Thompson, Stroup, or Richardson) will benefit from voters being turned off to the nastiness of Shaner and Walker. But, the best case scenario for Dems in November is that Shaner succeeeds in buying the nomination.
Update: In light of today's events, I think either Walker or Shaner would be beatable come November. LOL