Introducing my new sig-line: Five house races that deserve more cowbell

Of these fives seats only one is an incumbent (PA13 Allyson Schwartz but I had to squeeze her in there cause she's one of my favorites) and two are veterans from the Iraqi War (Patrick Murphy & Brian Lentz). One almost won her race in 2004 (Lois Murphy) and one is running against a republican who has admitted to adultery and is also being accused of assault against his mistress (That would be PA10 Chris Carney who is running against the asshole).

We need 15 seats and I'm presenting to you 5 very exciting races for 2006 where we could pick up 4 of those seats!!

Lois Murphy (PA06) ran an extremely tight race in 2004 and lost by a narrow margin in a region best described as moderate. The incumbent, Jim Gerlach is in tight with Tom Delay and rumor has it there might be some rumblings with his FEC filings. She has strong support from the Emily's List organization and could look like a pickup in 2006 for the democrats.

Brian Lentz (PA07) is running against a republican powerhouse, Curt Weldon who just today ranted about how Iraq was connected to 9/11. But this chickenhawk has a candidate running against him that might give Weldon the first run for his money that he's had in ages. Brian Lentz is one of those people who served in the war that Weldom so forcefully pushed down our countries throats. I'll be interesting to see if Weldon has the balls to debate an Iraq War Veteran about the merits of continuing this war.

Patrick Murphy (PA08 and no relations to Lois) is another Iraq War veteran running against a freshman representative from this truly moderate-liberal suburb of Philly. For 10 years, PA08 was represented by the very liberal republican Jim Greenwood who retired at the last minute being replaced by ultra-conservative Michael Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick dared to swift boat his 2004 opponent by claiming that she was anti-Semitic for attending a special screening of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 911" (not kidding you) and has continued to toe the line of the Hassert/Delay house - something that the people of PA08 never got from their prior republican representative Jim Greenwood. Like Weldon, it'll be interesting to see the debates between another Die-hard war supporter Fitzpatrick vs. an actual Iraqi War Veteran.

Chris Carney (PA10). I include Chris Carney even though he's a little bit more moderate of the others I support but he also lives in a region that is way more conservative than the others mentioned here (all are Philly suburbs, chris is NC Pennsylvania). But Carney believes that we need a deadline for the war and to bring our troops home so I'll add him to my list. Carney will be battling long time republican representative Don Sherwood, who won his race with 92% of the vote in 2004 WITH a democratic opponent. But my how the times have changed and the mighty have fallen. Turns out Sherwood was getting inspiration from more than just his family & jesus. Seems he had a mistress on the side who (according to her) he assaulted from time to time. In this very conservative area of Pennsylvania even republicans are starting to back Chris Carney.

Allyson Schwartz (PA13). Sure, she's an incumbent and with her strong victory over perennial repuke contestant Melissa Brown, I think we can look forward to a second term with Ms. Schwartz. But I included her because I worked with fellow DUer Ramsey on her campaign and Allyson is just the greatest.

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