While a friend from PA was registering to vote, I asked her what her district was. She told me it was PA-15. That didn't ring any bells, so I asked her to sum up the situation down there. Here's what she said:
We're a 50/50 red/blue district and my guess is [Republican congressman] Dent will probably get re-elected.
Hmmm.
The next thing I found out was that PA-15 went for Kerry in 2004..... but PA-15's current congressman, Charles Dent, backs Bush's Iraq policy.
More on the flip...
Here are my friend's exact words:
In the House we've got a moderate republican incumbent -- pro-choice, pro stem-cell research, pro alternative energy, voted against intervening with the schiavo nonsense -- running against a democrat from my county council. The dem is trying to rake up dirt on the incumbent, Dent, but all he can come up with is that Dent's votes tend to favor big business (like, yeah, that's what republicans do) and that he once got some money from Tom Delay (but so did everybody). Can't say I feel passionately for or against either dude, though it'd be nice to see Dems take the majority. But we're a 50/50 red/blue district and my guess is Dent will probably get re-elected since he's generally seen as a good guy.
My gut reaction - if Dent caucuses with the current Republican admin, he's no good guy. Then I did a little Googling, and found that he has a history of rubberstamping Bush's Iraq schemes. If he supports Bush's Iraq debacle, he's no moderate. And if PA-15 went for Kerry, they're no fans of the Admin. So why is this race completely off the radar?
The most substantial comment I could find on PA-15 on the national blogs was this, from DemocraticAvenger at MyDD:
When I think about the biggest opportunities slipping through our fingers this election cycle I can think of nowhere more distressing than the Pennsylvania House District 15 and the campaign of Charles Dertinger. There are in the entire country only 18 Kerry won, Republican held districts, just 18. Of those districts a full 15 have made their way on the either the Red to Blue or Emerging Race lists. Just three are currently ignored by the DCCC. In the other two districts, the reason is that the incumbents are long term who seem unbeatable and it is also to early to count out Dave Loebsack in Iowa 2nd. The last district however is... [the] Pennsylvania 15th.
In 2004 this seat opened up because of Pat Toomey's challenge to Pro-Choice Arlen Specter. The Republicans nominated current Congressman Charlie Dent, the Democrats Joe Driscoll. The raced ended up being a wipeout. I think the greatest Congressional failure in 2004 was the three Kerry won open seats that went to Republicans. We are fighting unbelievab[ly] hard in PA 8 and WA 8. But not here. For a long time it looked like not only would we not put up much of a fight but that Charlie Dent would be unopposed as a freshman in a blue seat. No one ended up qualify for the primary ballot, and all was lost until Charles Dertinger - a local country official - decided to launch a write in bid.
Charles Dertinger, our Democratic candidate for PA-15.
If you take a look at Charles Dertinger's site, votecharles.com, you'll see that he's great on the issues. But it seems that some people are wondering about Dertinger's fundraising abilities. Well, I can think of more than one guy that wasn't a great fundraiser until he got a little netroots attention, so this diary is my attempt to shine a little light on PA-15.
The fact is, as Dertringer himself says
Together we waged a strong write-in campaign for the Democratic nomination, garnering more than 4,500 votes a scant two weeks after declaring my candidacy, and on a budget of approximately $2,800. We easily outpaced Republican incumbent Charlie Dent, who spent more than ten times as much in an effort to secure both parties' nominations and avoid having to defend his seat. Despite Dent's financial advantages, our campaign got approximately 80% of all votes cast in the primary.
This guy hauled ass to get on the ballot, when the incumbent Republican was trying to secure both parties' nominations and short-circuit the entire democratic process.
Dent, meanwhile has supported Bush's Iraq policy "at every turn", and when it comes to National Security, he's a flip-flopper: voting for checking cargo for WMD in one committee, and against it in another.
This is a district that's "50/50 Red/Blue". A district that went for Kerry in '04.
But a district that's not on Democratic pickup lists this year.
Is it really worth letting this one slide? I'm saying "NO".
[Thanks for your time, and I am not affiliated with any campaign in any way.]