Chuck Pennacchio for Senate

Congratulations, you've stumbled upon the Pennacchio Online Petition Drive.  If  you read this blog, you know that I'm a supporter of Chuck Pennacchio, the Democrat who's running against Bob Casey in the PA Senate primary.   You also know how confounded I am by the resistance in blogtopia to pick up Pennacchio's cause.   

Like Ned Lamont and Ciro Rodriqruez, Pennacchio is a Democrat running against a Republican-lite candidate in a primary.   Like Paul Hackett, he's being steered out of the primary by overwhelming force (mostly financial) from the national party.    True to their habit of running to win the last election, the national Dems - the people who brought you today's Paul Hackett debacle - decided that what's wrong with the Democratic party is that is hasn't moved far enough to the Right and so the anti-choice, anti-stem cell, pro-war, corporate-financed Bob "Hey!  I'm a Yes Vote for Alito Too!" Casey is their guy in PA.

I'm going to be posting a lot about Chuck and the PA Democratic Senate primary over the next ten days.  Thomas, Kathy, Albert and I are organizing a blogswarm around Chuck's candidacy and the need for a real Democrat to run against Man-on-Dog.  We picked this ten days because here in PA it's petition time.   Everyone involved in politics is running around with clipboards looking for signatures to get their candidate on the ballot.  We want to bring the same intensive push to blogtopia.  If you blog, please join the effort by learning about Chuck and posting about him.  Trackback to this post and I'll announce your membership in the blogswarm with a link and an excerpt from the post.   If you read blogs, comment on other blogs where appropriate about Chuck's campaign.  If you have money to donate - maybe some you thought you were going to give to Paul Hackett - please consider giving it to Chuck.  He's got some great radio ads that need to get on the air.   Go have a listen, pick your favorite and then help out. 

If you don't want to sit on the phone for the next six years calling Sen. Bob Casey to beg him to vote like a Democrat on whatever nightmare legislation or SCOTUS nomination is coming down the pike;  if you want to be proud to say, "I helped take back the Demcratic Party back from the forces of appeasement and Rightward drift;"  if you want to prove to the Democratic Party that throwing women and Progressives under the bus in moderate states is not the way to win; then take some today and every day for the next week and a half to tell a friends and bloggers about Chuck Pennacchio.

Comments

[DavidByron]

If I was putting this article into a magazine I'd put this phrase in one of those side boxes,

"you don't want to sit on the phone for the next six years calling Sen. Bob Casey to beg him to vote like a Democrat"

Great quote. So when are you cross-posting this? Maybe put that last paragraph first and do work out how to put the logo up. Or put the Pennacchio "Party of No" quote up first. That's great.

You have a typo at, "if you want to be pround to say..."
------------------------

As I understand it the other guy Hacket would have been up against is arguably more liberal than he is. Whereas Casey is arguably more liberal than Santorum. Still this is the first time you've conceeded that Casey could win the contest against Santorum so you're being extra nice to both candidates today. Very fair minded of you!

I actually live in Alabama but I'm told half of PA is like Alabama. One of my senators is such a nut case he attended one of those antiwar protests on the counter-protest side. Yeah him and two other people I think it was....

[eRobin]

You're right. I did concede that and I was wrong to do so. Casey can't win - that's the subject of another post.

It was that idiot Carville who called PA "two big cities with Alabama in the middle." It's offensive to PA and Alabama and it's wrong. PA certainly has conservative sections but the state is nothing like Carville suggests. For Casey to build his strategy around that idea - hoping to win over Alabama-like Republicans while telling his base to stay home - is madness.

I knew when I typed the words "Sen. Casey" that I'd regret it. It felt so wrong.

[eRobin]

Oh, on the Hackett race: I didn't have a dog in that fight although between Hackett and Brown, I was liking Brown more. My point is that that race is now an official trainwreck and opens up the storyline that the national party forced a vet out of the race. It would have been infinitely better to let the primary go forward and have the voters decide between two ostensibly good candidates.

[KathyF]

I think they were willing to let the primary go forward...it was Hackett who pulled out, with no money, no experienced staff, and a poll showing him way behind Brown.

[KathyF]

I should have put "they" in quotes. I've been a part of a campaign where the DCCC asked my candidate to pull out, early on, and he chose not to. No further pressure was put on after that, no support offered either.

No one can force another candidate out, except by challenging signatures, which happened to a third candidate in that race.

[eRobin]

Good point, Kathy. I got the idea from what Hackett said that he was run off, which the party guys can certainly do. Something happened because the guy has said he will leave politics. He also seems to have a short temper though so it's hard to know what set him off. I still think that they were silly to do anything but keep him around until the primary because of the whole vet thing. They're silly to discourage any primary.