Tonight’s the night
by digby
It’s election day in Pennsylvania, and we’re about to see if the good guys can win one. We might just unseat a Blue Dog and replace him with a progressive — something that’s so unheard of the Democrats don’t even think it’s possible.
Yesterday the biggest newspaper in the district, the Scranton Times-Tribune endorsed Matt Cartwright against Tim Holden. Matt spent the weekend barnstorming up and down the large, sprawling district, including appearances with former Congressman Joe Sestak, who endorsed him last week. The biggest newspaper in Luzerne County, the Citizens Voice, endorsed him over the weekend, stating bluntly that “Judging by Cartwright’s campaign and Holden’s record, Cartwright would be a stronger advocate for working families in our region.” Highly respected Wilkes-Barre columnist and ex-state Rep., Kevin Blaum (“The Arena”), writing for the Times Leader explained on Sunday why he’s voting for Cartwright. The last polls showed that Matt was ahead of Holden and we’re keeping our fingers crossed that they’ve held up.
If Matt wins, that will mean that Blue Dogs really are becoming an endangered species and Steny Hoyer will have a hard time sleeping tonight.
We’ve been making the case for Cartwright and why Holden is too corrupt and too conservative to be given another term in Congress. But for anyone who lives in the area– or who has friends or relatives who live in the area– I want to ask you to remember one final thought before voting. And it isn’t even my own. This thought comes from Eugene Kiely and Ben Finley of FactCheck.org who make the point that Tim Holden is a lying sack of shit who, in his desperation, has resorted to smearing Matt Cartwright with the hundreds of thousands of dollars in corporate bribes being sent his way by Democratic congressional corruptionist-in-chief Steny Hoyer. Their startling and horrifying report:
Rep. Tim Holden falsely claimed in a recent TV ad that his opponent won a multimillion-dollar lawsuit in exchange for campaign contributions to a corrupt judge. In fact, a jury– not the judge– awarded $3 million to lawyer Matt Cartwright’s client in that case. The Holden campaign told us it had no evidence to prove the donation had any influence over the judge during that trial. The campaign pulled the ad after just one day on the air.
This is not the first time that the veteran Democratic congressman has accused his primary opponent, Cartwright, of making improper campaign contributions. In an earlier TV ad, Holden sought to link Cartwright to the infamous “kids-for-cash” scandal that sent two Pennsylvania judges to prison. In that ad, Holden criticized Cartwright for contributions he and his law firm made to judges who accepted kickbacks for sending juveniles to for-profit juvenile detention facilities. Again, the campaign contributions from Cartwright and his law firm were unrelated to the corruption case. It was merely a case of guilt by association.
In their own words, Holden’s smear campaign against Cartwright– who has tried to run a strictly positive campaign based on the issues and on what he can offer to Democrats in northeastern Pennsylvania– “is the most savage example of what has been a bruising primary.”
When we put up those billboards in Holden’s district he cried like a baby, calling Blue America a “Super Pac” run by a “Hollywood record executive” (which only made Howie’s friends in the music business actually get involved.) The Democratic Party wasn’t happy either. But at some point you just have to say enough. Tim Holden isn’t entitled to a seat in the US congress and his constituents are not obligated to vote for him just because he’s been there.