Have you had enough?  Have you yelled at your TV one too many times?  Does your wife refuse to watch the news with you any more?  I know how it feels.  I was in the same boat.  I was tired of $3/gallon gasoline.  I was tired of jobs leaving the country.  I was tired of an occupation that is without end from which this country is hemorrhaging lives and dollars.  It was time to do something.  Are you ready for change?
My name is Tony Barr.  I teach special education at Everett High School in Everett, PA.  As a school teacher, I see on a daily basis how the failed policies of the Bush administration affect real people.  These people are not just numbers, they aren't just dollar signs, and they aren't pawns in an ideological coup.  These are real people who are trying to raise real families who have real retired parents.  Somebody needed to do something. Somebody needed to make sure that there are good jobs that pay good wages.  Somebody needed to make sure that everyone has adequate health care (1/3 to ½ of the people who work don't have healthcare for the full year).  Somebody needed to be a check against this reckless President.  Since this person wasn't showing up, I decided to do it my self. I complain as much or probably more than anybody else, but I finally hit my limit and decided to do something.  I would run for Congress.

I was sitting at home bumming because the last person that we thought would run against Bill Shuster dropped out of the race.  It was 18 days to the primary, and it appeared the Democrats weren't going to field a candidate.  There was nobody to root for in South-Central-Western PA. No Democrat, No other Republican, No Independent or Third Party guy.  Nobody.  My wife joked that I should throw my hat into the ring.  I said, "I'm game."  She said, "Really?"  I said, "Really!"  We slept on it that night.  We talked to some folks who had sent out a call for a candidate the next day.  On May 1st, I officially announced my candidacy at the Blair County Democratic Committee meeting.  From there, things took off like a prairie fire.  We needed 1000 write-in votes to get on the ballot in November.  We got 1900--almost double on new machines that were in some cases especially hard to write-in on.

Since then, the campaign has gone extremely well.  This campaign is not about me.  This campaign is about the working people, the Mom and Pop business owners, the family farmers, and the retirees of South Central-Western PA. We have been all over this district.  We have been in Fayette, Westmoreland, Indiana, Somerset, Cambria, Clearfield, Blair, Bedford, Fulton, Huntingdon, Franklin, and Perry counties.  The powers that be in Harrisburg and Washington may not give this campaign much of a chance, but that is because they haven't been here meeting people, shaking hands, listening to personal stories, and telling our plan.  They weren't here to see an archconservative blogger (the Penn Patriot) run across the street to shake my hand and express his appreciation for my campaign.  The winds of change are blowing here in South Central-Western PA.  Victory is in the air, and I can smell it.  It inspires me to shake that one more hand.  We can do this. To find out more about my campaign, check out my website http://www.tonybarr2006.com