Will 2010 Be The End Of The Road For Confused Pennsylvania Congressman Jim Gerlach?

not much longer

Pennsylvania has two congressional districts held by the GOP that have been trending Democratic enough to be at the tipping point, PA-15 in the Lehigh Valley and PA-06 in southeast PA (parts of Chester, Berks and Montgomery counties). Bush never won either district, although it was always close. McCain didn't come close in either, losing PA-15 with 43% and PA-06 with 41%.

According to John Morgan at The Pennsylvania Progressive there is a promising Democrat running in the 6th, Doug Pike. Pike announced his candidacy online yesterday. There are no hints in his announcement about where he stands politically but he doesn't sound like a typical Pennsylvania Blue Dog type. Morgan promises to get to know him better but he seems to be entertaining hopes that he'll be a bona fide progressive.

Some of us have been looking at prospective candidates to oppose reactionary Democratic incumbents in other Pennsylvania districts and just about every one of them is either an anti-choice fanatic, a homophobic throwback or someone obviously eager to get into office to get the kickbacks rolling. Oh, and they're all, first and foremost, gun nuts. On first whiff Pike seems different; we'll see. Other possible challengers to Gerlach-- if Gerlach runs; he has some delusions about running for governor-- are Harris Wofford's son Dan (who lost, narrowly, to Gerlach in 2002) and state Senator Andy Dinniman, the first Democrat elected to represent Chester County in the state Senate since 1890.

Gerlach has been a zombie-like obstructionist since Obama has come to office, voting no on all of Obama's programs to turn the economy around and institute the changes most people in PA-06 liked enough to have voted for Obama in November. The DCCC has a good feeling about the district this year, which they ignored in 2008 and screwed up with dysfunctional pro-war "advice" in 2006. If it's true that Pike is willing to drop $1 million of his own money into the race-- they all say that but it's rarely ever true-- the DCCC will be all over him. Gerlach should prove an easier target this year than ever before because he is so deeply implicated in the financial meltdown, while gobbling up millions of dollars from the finance/insurance/real estate sector (and from sleazy lobbyists), while voting for every deregulatory bamboozle the banksters ever asked for. A pawn and a whore, Gerlach has proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that the only political prize he's earned is permanent retirement.

This didn't work: