If we're serious about taking back the House, we need to realize that every district counts, and we can't take any for granted, especially ones that we could capitalize on momentum and swing our way.
New York's 13th District, straddling Brooklyn and Staten Island, is one such district.
It has New York City's only Republican congressman, Vito Fossella, a man who had his share of scandals lately.
If more attention was given to this district, I think it could turn our way.
Tonight's debate between Fossella and his upstart Democratic challenger, Stephen Harrison, shows exactly why we could -- and need to -- win this district.
I just returned from the second of four debates between Fosella and Harrison.
Fossella's dirty campaign struck a new low tonight with his flyers talking about how Stephen Harrison, a former community board member and longtime community activist, is "anti-Brooklyn," and against the war on terror, punctuated by a picture of Osama Bin-Laden on the front.
Fossella has adapted the Republican playbook of deceiving the public and playing to their emotions about taxes -- he even said if you want lower taxes vote for me, if you want higher taxes vote for Harrison -- and the "war on terror."
Harrison, on the other hand, was willing to talk about the issues and not resort to sound bytes.
He spoke with passion about the need to protect our Constitution while protecting our country. For an outsider, he definitely sounded as if he had a deeper understanding of the issues.
Fossella avoided questions and continued to revert to his George Bush-like refrain of "we must fight terrorists" and "our country is the greatest country in the world" and he's not part of the "blame America" crowd.
And it shouldn't be a surprise that Fossella would be speaking like Bush, since he votes with Bush 89% of the time and the GOP party line 92% of the time.
If voters were aware of this -- and many of the other disturbing facts found at: http://www.dccc.org/... Brooklyn and Staten Island residents would have plenty of reasons to vote out Fossella.
Yet Fossella's campaign literature refers to him as an "independent fighter" and never acknowledges that he is a Republican. He does mention how he "successfully stopped the Bush administration" from closing a nearby VA hospital. He knows that being a Republican -- especially a 92% GOP hardliner -- can cost him his seat.
And I haven't even mentioned his scandals, such as:
This guy is vulnerable! We can win this district!
To learn more about Stephen Harrison, check out his website at http://www.harrison06.com.
Here's a direct link to donate to his campaign: http://www.harrison06.com/...
After tonight, I've decided to volunteer for the campaign. I hope others here in NYC -- where we don't have many close races this election cycle -- can as well.