December 04, 2006

Reason #12 To Love Philadelphia: At Least One Outgoing Congressman Knows How The Game Is Played

There's only a few days of work left for the U.S. Representative who lost their seats in the November election. One of those congressman is Mike Fitzpatrick, the current rep from Bucks County and parts of Philly and Montco, who lost a close race to Iraq war vet Patrick Murphy.

Fitzpatrick says he's working until the final hours of his congressional term, which is noble, considering if I lost a close race I'd probably spend my last month in office stealing everything that wasn't nailed down. And probably about half the stuff that was. ("Hey! Where'd all the seats in the Capitol building go? And where's President Bush's dog?")

And what, exactly, is Fitzpatrick working on during his final week?

Fitzpatrick said he expects a bill he introduced in May that condemns a French city for naming a street after a convicted cop killer will come to the House floor on Wednesday for debate and a vote. The bill is aimed at reversing a decision by the Paris suburb of St. Denis to name a street after Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was sentenced to death in 1982 for the shooting of 25-year-old Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. If the bill passes Wednesday, and Fitzpatrick said he believes it will easily, it will be the 10th bill that was introduced by the freshman congressman that passed the House.

Now these are the issues that affect our country. However, I think it's pretty sly. Just wait until 2008, where a deep voice-over will be saying, "Patrick Murphy never voted for the bill condemning the French for naming a city after Mumia. He's failed us. I'm Mike Fitzpatrick, and I approve this message." Smooth move, Fitz. Smooth move indeed.

Congressman wraps up loose ends [Bucks County Courier Times]

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November 08, 2006

Did Mike Fitpatrick's Own Party Do Him In?

Let's take you back to April 2000. Yes, that's a ways back, but remember: People threw money at Internet businesses without even asking how they would make money, Arlen Specter was a U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania and John Street was bumbling around as mayor of Philadelphia. Okay, maybe things weren't all that different, but April 1, 2000 was when the census was taken.

Said census reduced Pennsylvania's representatives to 19 (down two) and the Republican legislature went around to re-drawing districts. And, naturally, the districts were drawn so the Republicans could pick up some seats. Democratic voters filed a lawsuit; the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the legislature.

The biggest strangely-drawn district is District 6, which the plaintiffs said “looms like a dragon descending on Philadelphia from the west, splitting up towns and communities throughout Montgomery and Berks Counties." But District 8 was interesting, too: It encompassed all of Bucks County, but also snaked over into two wards in Philadelphia and a few sections of Montgomery County.

Fast forward to yesterday, when Mike Fitzpatrick is running for re-election in the 8th District. Of course, this is how the results ended up (please note: mathematical errors committed by me):

Bucks County:	Fitzpatrick +1,036
Montgomery County:	Murphy +1,564
Philadelphia:	Murphy +993
Total:	Murphy +1,521

Had the district just been Bucks County, it appears Fitzpatrick would have made his mom even prouder and won the race. But in part due to the state GOP's redistricting plan... it appears he'll be headed home after just one term. (PA-08 did have to add population from somewhere -- see comments -- to keep the districts equal, so whoever was added to Buxco's district could have swung the election anyway.)

Some would say this is just desserts for the GOP. (Although, really, it's not Fitzpatrick's fault; he was a Chair of the Buxco Board of Commissioners -- a good one! -- at the time.) It is good to see that the state legislature does as good of a job at gerrymandering than it does at passing non-pay raise laws. Thanks, guys.

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November 07, 2006

Now THIS Is A Close Race

Seriously. Sudden death overtime for this one.

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Patrick Murphy's Mom Remains Silent On Issues

One of my favorite campaign mailers this fall was addressed to my mom and I. Apparently, one of my old schools gave my (and my mom's) information to Mike Fitzpatrick's camp, who in turn gave it over to his mother.

Yes, my mom and I -- not, strangely, my dad, who (unlike me) still lives there -- got a letter from Mary Fitzpatrick telling us what a good Catholic boy he was, how he went to Egan and how he loooooooves unborn babies. Okay, Mary doesn't tell us that, but it's certainly the real theme of the letter. Yes, Mike Fitzpatrick and Patrick Murphy are both Catholic, but Murphy is pro-choice. Mary even includes a photocopied column from the Bucks County Courier Times telling us how bad a Catholic Patrick Murphy allegedly is.

Here's the kicker:

[Michael] has been there for me throughout my entire life. I am writing this letter to let him and everyone know I am there for him.

Awwwww. However, I think if I were running for U.S. Congress, my mom would write a nice attack letter herself and not just include a photocopied column from a newspaper attacking my opponent.

Full letter from Ms. Fitz after the jump.

Continue reading "Patrick Murphy's Mom Remains Silent On Issues"

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October 30, 2006

Adwatch: Bucks County Kitchens

Today, Adwatch looks at Mike Fitzpatrick, Republican congressman for the Eighth Congressional District, and his recent attack ads toward his opponent.

The ads mostly just replay a clip of Patrick Murphy on Hardball, where he can't tell Chris Matthews whether he would have voted for the Iraq war (which he served in), and they play up his inexperience. Let's explore one of these attack ads, after the jump.

Continue reading "Adwatch: Bucks County Kitchens"

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October 25, 2006

Leftovers: Actual Cheers For Jersey

• The New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that gays and lesbians have equal partnership rights according to the New Jersey constitution, but doesn't say the state has to call it marriage. As such, get ready for some hot hot civil unions in the Dirty Jerz within 180 days. Hooray! [Inquirer]

• Don Sherwood, a U.S. Rep. from our fine state who also happened to allegedly choke his mistress, is now down nine points in a recent poll. Looks like Pennsylvania voters have some limits for their incumbents after all. [Ferrick's Poliblog]

• $211K of another U.S. Rep. from our fine state, Mike Fitzpatrick, has been linked to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Dun dun dun! [Bucks County Courier Times]

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May 23, 2006

Leftovers: Welcome, Our New PR Overlord!

• We're hearing.... that the Brian Tierney/Bruce Toll/etc. bid to buy the Inquirer and Daily News has gone through, and there's a press conference at the Inquirer Building at 5 p.m. to officially announce the sale. Staff meeting to follow at 6, but you probably need some sort of special badge or ring or "job" to get in to that one. Update: Here's a press release. [Yahoo!/McClatchy]

• As mentioned earlier, Dubya himself will be here tomorrow, helping out the campaigns of Jim Gerlach and Mike Fitzpatrick. Tickets are a thousand bucks, so, uh, start saving. [AP/Philly.com]

• Philly businesses got a pep talk today; "You, too, can get the Olympics... if you work together." Philadelphia promptly ended its bid for the 2016 Olympics. [Inquirer]

• Nick Lachey to The Trentonian: Stay away from me! Trentonian to Nick Lachey: "Popfest headliner Nick Lachey snubbed efforts to talk to him yesterday for a pre-concert interview -- that’s despite being splashed across the front of The Trentonian’s GO section last Thursday." Oh my God, the GO section? That jerk! [Trentonian]

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Bah! Who Cares About So-Called 'Rights'! This Is An Election!

We've been covering the anti-Myspace bill introduced by UPS man and U.S. Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, for a while now, and it's time to give someone else the floor.

First, a bit of background: Fitzpatrick's bill, officially the (yuk yuk) Deleting Online Predators Act -- DOPA, I presume? -- would force schools and libraries to block children from viewing social networking sites, such as Myspace, Facebook, Friendster, etc. It's unclear if this would block social networking sites that are more about, say, photo sharing, like Flickr.

Anyway, obviously this bill is trying to stop children from being the victim of old dirty men trolling for them online, or something, and that's fine. Naturally, of course, it does nothing really to stop the problem of child predators, but it makes for nice election year press, doesn't it?

Some of that nice election year press comes, conveniently, from Bucks County Courier Times columnist J.D. Mullane, who wrote about the issue today, specifically Fitzpatrick's Democratic opponent, Patrick Murphy, who blasted the bill:

I told Murphy it was a blunder to talk about “constitutional rights” when the issue is protecting children from pervs.

It's OK to be high-minded on all that “rights” jazz when you're trolling for votes during primary season. But when the general election season begins, as it has, it's best to respect the family-oriented sensibilities of the suburban heartland, which defines most of Bucks County, but especially defines where I live, Levittown.

In my house, children have no “constitutional rights.” I am the law, judge and jury. My word is final. Three weeks ago, I was at the top of my game in this role during an incident that involved, coincidently, MySpace.com.

With Mullane on the case, no predator is safe! And neither are your rights!

A blunder in race for Congress [Bucks County Courier Times]
May 19: Rhetoric On Anti-Myspace Bill Reaches New Levels

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May 19, 2006

Rhetoric On Anti-Myspace Bill Reaches New Levels

Okay, Mike Fitzpatrick. (That's him, at right, helping UPS deliver some packages. No, really.) You almost had us fooled. You were a Republican congressman who seemed pretty levelheaded, without any sort of wild extreme right-wing positions. And you seemed pretty on the ball. But of course, now, you have to go and try to block access to Myspace -- and other social networking sites -- from being accessed in schools or libraries.

(The bill actually blocks access for people under 18, but the thinking is that schools and libraries will just block it. Schools are mostly under-18 anyway, and almost all libraries don't have room for a separate over-18 section.)

The Democratic candidate for house, Patrick Murphy, has rightly denounced the legislation as re-effing-diculous, and an overreaction that would do nothing to solve the problem of child predators online:

“You don't protect children by infringing on people's constitutional rights,” Murphy said Thursday. “It's shortsighted and wrong. It's a political ploy from a typical politician.”

A ploy? Indeed. It's a typical election year ploy: Fitzpatrick gets to introduces this bill; he happens to be coincidentally up against a war vet would could prove to be somewhat popular one, too. (He's a good guy, it seems, so he won't attack his service record.) And so, when Murphy denounces the legislation, Ol' Fitzy can paint him as a lover of child molesters:

“Pat seems more interested in the constitutional rights of online predators than he is about protecting young children,” Fitzpatrick said. “He ought to be ashamed for opposing it.”

Using the newly created Mike Fitzpatrick Overstatement Machine™, we'd like to translate our response -- "this bill is more of a political ploy to win votes than something that will protect children; also, guess who doesn't have computers at home: the poor" -- into a Mike Fitzpatrick overstatement:

"Mike Fitzpatrick ought to be ashamed at creating this bill that's just a ploy for him to win votes come November. He seems more interested in staying in office than helping his constitutients. Also, he's introducing the worst bill since the Smoot-Hawley Tariff and he hates the Constitution."

Look for more from the Mike Fitzpatrick Overstatement Generator™ any day now!

Heated exchange follows Fitzpatrick's Myspace bill [Bucks County Courier Times]
Mike Fitzpatrick - Photos [House.gov]
Monday: U.S. Rep. Has No Friends On Myspace

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