Lehigh Valley Winners and Losers Democratic Take-over Pennsylvania State House

Winners- Part of Salisbury twp, and Parts of the City of Allentown


Really Big Winners - City of Easton,Forks twp,Glendon boro, Palmer twp, Tatamy Boro, West Easton boro, Williams twp, Wilson Boro

Losers- Northern Whitehall twp, part of Lower Saucon twp


Really Big Losers-
Lower Nazerath twp, North Catasauqua Boro, Northampton Boro, Pen Argyl, Plainfield twp,

Mr. De Wesse I have my Eye on You

It seems that the Democrats have won the Pa state house in my view probably in spite of ourselves. It also seem that Mr Bill De Wesse is now will be the Speaker of the House, something I find distasteful but is probably a slight improvement over Prezel.


Mr. Speaker-Elect De Wesse I would like to remind you of what fmr President Clinton said "voters have given us a chance not a Mandate" (and one seat is even less of a mandate than we have in the us house) Democrats were elected to deal with what you were guilty of yourself. (back door dealings,late night pay raises, corruption). If you continue on the path you have and do not champion change the Democrats will be thrown out on their Ears in two years the same way the republicans were. Don't forget you yourself had a near miss in your home district because of your action. I and the rest of the bloggers will be watching you to make sure you don't do this don't forget we are watching you.

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JL421 Badonkadonk Land Cruiser/Tank
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In the End it's the Voters Fault

If, your State rep or State senator either voted for or enabled the vote for the pay raise and you voted for them. Whatever they do from here on out "IS YOUR FAULT". I'm already listening to the same people who complained about the pay raise now complaining about the "middle of the night session the state legislature passed a bill to let slots operators give away free booze to players."Again they passed a law without any hearings, public input or openly debating the proposal 3 times as the state constitution requires." In the end fair number of the people who were screaming and yelling about how horrible and underhand the pay raise was when push came to shove went in and voted for their state legislature that vote for the middle of the night pay raise, or did nothing to stop it. It's kinda funny when push comes to shove it's obvious that Pennsylvania voters don't seem to care what their legislatures do especially in the valley. They reelected a man who voted for the pay raise then spent a ton of money telling people he didn't a bunch of other legislature who may or may not have voted for it but allowed it to get up for a vote in the first place only to place a ceremonial objection vote. The only message that this sends to Harrisburg is keep on doing what your doing keep on having mid-night votes keep on passing things without the 3 day review period. Keep on doing what your doing because when all is said and done when the chips are on the table the voters will fold every time all the self righteous anger all the protest meant nothing. SO VOTERS OF PENNSYLVANIA YOU
VOTED FOR THEM NOW IT'S YOUR FAULT SO LIVE WITH IT FOR TWO YEAR THEN MAYBE YOU"LL WISE UP and STOP wasting your vote on the "NICE OLD WOMAN who comes to our events" or the guy who "the guy who got me my handicap placard" or did this or that or 90 other things any state rep could have done for you that you think is so great but does not really have anything to do with being a state rep or senator.IN THE END WHEN YOU WAN T TO COMPLAIN ABOUT MIDNIGHT VOTES or anything the state legislature does GO LOOK IN THE MIRROR AND SCREAM AT YOUR SELF BECAUSE NOW IT"S YOUR FAULT

It maybe time to look at The Oregon Voting model Again in Pennsylvania

In 2004 and 2005 when the issue of what to replace our prior voting machines came up there were 3 solutions optical scanners,Electronic machines or chucking the polling place although and having all mail in balloting; in addition these three there was a proposal to allow absentee/mail in balloting by choice not just by need. The last two were for some reason were rejected out of hand by Pennsylvania law makers. The lawmakers in Harrisburg for some reason have a tremendous resistance to doing this and I'm not sure why.

So we went ahead with using a mix of optical scan ballots and Electronic voting machines. All of the state in the past two election since areas started using the electronic voting machines the machines have been glitchy hard to start up they've broken down. Then we have accusation that machine actually voted for the wrong person when someone hit the party button. Then we have the latest mess in Northampton county. It's kinda funny to start off with that Northampton county is the only county in the state that didn't release unofficial voting prescient totals, then had anywhere from a 6-60% swing in a number of races. Claiming first on Tuesday night oh there really was no problem then on Friday coming out with these tremendous swings in a number of races that make no sense. I can see human error in one race or two but not
5 or more. So we simply aren't even sure if the numbers that were "official" are even correct.

Then we have the issue of after all this and all this money we only have 49.2% turn out in Pennsylvania which seems to be one of the most important mid-terms in recent history. While getting back to the original header of this Topic Oregon had 70%+ turn out in an election that cost half as much. What is the difference they vote by mail or drop their ballot in a collection box. I'm hear sure the election machine makers will probably scream murder in response to this or claim there is fraud or etc. There were several studies of Oregon's voting and found no more fraud then there was in a the avg election with either other type of voting machine. It's kinda hard to commit fraud when the ballots are numbered and certified like Super bowl tickets.

I think it's time to Chuck all the new voting machines and switch over yes we spent millions of dollars on these new machines and yes people won't like it in the beginning
but in the end we will have higher turnouts and probably cleaner elections with less problems and people feeling they were cheated out of their vote

Money plundered from the valley by Lois Murphy and First mate Rahm emmanuel

total 23,100






ATIYEH, ABRAHAM R MR.
BETHLEHEM, PA 18017
BROOKSIDE COMMERCIAL CONSTRUCTION
500.00

BAKER, JAMES R EMMAUS
PA 18049 09/15/2004 500.00

BRADEN, DANIEL C BETHLEHEM
PA 1500

BUTZ, LEE A MR. ALLENTOWN
PA 18104 500

EATON, J. J ALLENTOWN
PA 18104 0 500.00

FOUCEK, OLDRICH ALLENTOWN
PA 18104 09/03/2004 500.00

GRAVER, ELIZABETH M ALLENTOWN
PA 18104 09/15/2004 250.00

GROSS, JANET L COOPERSBURG
PA 18036 09/03/2004 1000.00

GROSS, MALCOLM J. COOPERSBURG
PA 18036 1250

HABERERN, JOHN EMMAUS
PA 18049 09/15/2004 500.00

HENRY, MICHAEL A WESCOSVILLE
PA 18106 09/15/2004 250.00

LABARRE, DONALD ALLENTOWN
PA 18105 09/15/2004 500.00

Manly Ann
Alentown pa 750.00

MCGINLEY, PAUL A ALLENTOWN
PA 18105 2250

MCTISH, MATTHEW P OREFIELD
PA 18069 1000

MORAN, JOAN M ALLENTOWN
PA 18103 500

ORLOSKI, RICHARD J MR. ESQ. ALLENTOWN
PA 18104 250

RODALE, ARDATH N MS. Allentown pa
5500

RODALE, MARIA J EMMAUS
PA 18049 4100

ZINCZENKO, DAVID ALLENTOWN
PA 18102 1000

More evidence of northampton county screwups

Beyond this I looked at further extreme over and under reporting and found these example I think the levels of under and over reporting in some of these races is far too high and I find the we didn't find any problems explanation the Northampton county board made to the newspaper shameful http://www.mcall.com/news/local/allentown/
all-b1-3vote-5rnov16,0,6199763.story?coll=all-newslocalallentown-hed
But from the Stories I've heard of what goes on in the Northampton county board of election this does not surprise me in the least.

Northampton county
Nov 8th reporting
SHADE, RUSS (DEM) 3,146 33.9%
HARHART, JULIE (REP) 5,899 63.6%
EDWARDS, CARL C. (CST) 225 2.4%
friday reporting
JULIE HARHART (REP)5,643
RUSS SHADE (DEM)3,184
CARL C EDWARDS (CST)220

additional abnomalities

Shade +38 +1.2%
Harhart -256 -4.33%
Edwards -5 -2.22%

Northampton County
Nov 8th reporting
Candidate Votes Percent
WILSEY, DAVE (DEM) 9,813 49.3%
WONDERLING, ROBERT C. (REP) 10,088 50.7%

Friday reporting
SENATOR IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY 24TH DISTRICT
DAVE WILSEY (DEM)
9,866
ROBERT C
WONDERLING (REP)9,752
CARL J. ROMANELLI (Write In)1

Wilsey +53 +5.4%
Wonderling -336 -3.34%

while the differentials in
the 133rd were only
BRENNAN +36 +2.9%
BERRIGAN +8 +2.6%

Pa 131
Beyer +38 +4.44%
Minger +32 +4.62%


The only race on this level I could find a change in Lehigh county was
pa 131 and that was
Minger +2 +.02%
Beyer +0 +0%

Northampton County Board of Election

There is really something extremely wrong with a board of election that has a several thousand vote swing between the unofficial number in two different races. I'm talking about the Dertinger v Dent Race and the Browne v Orloski. This is far too much of difference between two counties to be an accident. There needs to be some accountability for this. If this had been a truly competitive race how would we have been sure the damage to the election could have been repaired

Northampton differential from election day to official results
Dertinger v Dent v Browne
+1545 +4772 + 282
4.2% 13.06% 11.74%

Lehigh County
Dert v Dent v Browne
22   27   8
nil   nil    nil

Northampton
Orloski v Browne
+813 +2722
13.26% 57.49%

Lehigh
Orloski V Browne
+20 + 18
nil nil



Northampton county
Dent v Dertinger numbers report to state board of elections
on Nov 8th

DERTINGER, CHARLES (DEM)
36,667
48.5%
DENT, CHARLES W. (REP)
36,540
48.3%
BROWNE, GRETA (GRN)
2,409
3.2%


Friday the release this
CHARLES W DENT (REP)
41,312
CHARLES DERTINGER (DEM)
38,212
GRETA BROWNE (GRN)
2,691
PAT TOOMEY (Write In)
32
RON SHEGDA (Write In)
6

Nov 8th
ORLOSKI, RICHARD J. (DEM)
5,311
52.9%
BROWNE, PAT (REP)
4,735
47.1%

Last Friday
PAT BROWNE (REP)
7,457
RICHARD J ORLOSKI (DEM)
6,124

compared to Lehigh county

Nov 7th
DERTINGER, CHARLES (DEM)
38,307
41.3%
DENT, CHARLES W. (REP)
51,318
55.4%
BROWNE, GRETA (GRN)
3,043
3.3%

Final report
Dertinger, Charles
Dem

41%
38,329

Dent, Charles W
Rep
55%
51,345

Browne, Greta
Green
3%
3,051

Nov 7th
ORLOSKI, RICHARD J. (DEM)
23,561
46.3%
BROWNE, PAT (REP)
27,286
53.7%


Orloski, Richard J
Dem
46%
23,581

Browne, Pat
Rep
54%
27,304

"

State Rep campaigns may have helped Dertinger indirectly.

It's quite possible that the Higher than avg number of people voting in State rep races may have helped boosted Charles Dertingers Numbers. Looking at past mid-terms and even presidential elections usually somewhere between 10 and 20% of voters in Lehigh county tend to not bother to vote further down the ticket than congress.

This year less than 4% of voters didn't vote in the State rep races. It is quite possible that the increased activities by the state rep candidate may have brought out more party line voters, or changed peoples minds about voting Democratic. The margin for Dertinger in Lehigh increased by 3% over what had been a vote Driscoll and and matching O' Brien's number in 2002, even with 3% of the vote being pull off by Greta Brown.

Dertingers Margins of increase over Driscoll and the places he got his votes from were not the same as O'brien. A large amount of the increase came from Lower Mac and Upper Mac and Whitehall twp but not from the areas that you would expect.

They weren't the areas that were targeted by coordinated and the increases are far too high to be explained by people simply coming out for Rendell and Casey and voting for them. Wilsey who ran in the 24th State Senate dist. would have shown some improvement over the performance Mazza did in 2002 of 43% Both of them only received Wilsey was simply on the ballot.

Where as there were 3%-19% democratic increases over 2002 (which is the last reasonably comparable year). in percentages, for Democratic competitors. I would have attributed this would have been attributable to people simply coming out for Rendell or Casey and voting straight down the ticket but in a number places the increase in the state house vote was much to high to simply attributed to party line voting. But what seems to be an active choice to vote for the State rep candidate. It's also notable that where this didn't happen Dertinger didn't do as well in Lehigh county.

It is very possible that although most of the state house candidates didn't win their actions they had some effect on turnout and how people voted at first when I looked at the numbers on election night they looked awful but when comparing the to 2002 to they are shocking improvement. Going from being murdered to making a race look somewhat winnable.

The simple fact that some of the candidates made direct outreach to voters beyond simply mailing to them may have increased turn out, and have help the ticket as a whole.

I know the party would like to give Rob Hopkins all the credit for Dertinger doing better I venture to think had the State rep candidates all just sat on their hands Dertinger my simply not have done as well as he did. Though being underfunded and under help and think outreach by these candidates may have made the Congressional race a good deal closer than it would have been in a number of places.

It is also quite possible had the State house candidates been given more help in their races in Lehigh county they may have made the race even closer, or have swung the race. Part the advantage, the republicans have is all the campaigns work together.

I know a lot of party insiders will dispute the value of having functioning campaign or the affect they can have on all the races I put forward that had all the campaigns really been working in a "coordinated campaign" and when I say coordinated I mean bottom up top to bottom interaction strong on all levels Dent may not have been re-elected.

The Money Problem and State Legislative Challengers in the Lehigh Valley

One of the Major problems Democratic Challengers for State Legislative offices in the Lehigh Valley have is money. I may have mentioned this before in another of my posts, but I figure I should probably go into this more now. In politics Money seems to be a the last and final determiner of viability, and if you don't have it you aren't viable and it's hard to get it. (This is also why we don't have the best selection of candidates running, or challenged primaries or in some cases candidates at all.)

So what do candidates do well,

They are told go to your families and friends for money, go to the unions, go to this group got to that group. The simple fact is when most of the candidates go to their friends and family they can only scrape together a few bucks maybe a few hundred maybe a thousand or a little more. Most of these candidates don't have deep pockets and neither do their friends and families.

It's been made clear by their action and statements, that the Unions simply don't have the means to help with funding state legislative Challenger candidates the way they use to in addition to funding the federal and statewide candidates, and the Hdcc really has no interest in funding challenger candidates in the valley and probably will have even less of an interest in funding races after the last election. Unless the candidate is polling gangbusters right off the bat, or already has a ton of money.

The Final group that candidates go to is the bloggers well for Federal candidates this seems to work but there seems to be little taste among bloggers to help State candidates in pa outside of Philadelphia. On avg most State candidates got many 150 to 200 dollars from the net.

So What can be done, that is the question I've been racking around in my little green head for a few weeks now.

It can't keep going the way it is if we expect to win any more seats back from the republicans in the valley any time soon.

I came up with a number of options to deal with this.

1. The Lehigh and Northampton county parties could get together and create a Lehigh county Legislative fund raising action committee for State Democratic Challengers that would be there for these candidates as start up money once we know who the candidates are after the primary.
We have two of the best fund raiser in the Democratic party in the Valley. I can't imagine if the party asked them nicely they wouldn't help in this en devour or they could find someone else in the party to do this with Fund raising skills. I'm not talking about the 1k donation i'm talking about 10-20k starter funds per candidates

2. The counties could do this separately

3. The clubs could form state pacs and do the fund raising for candidates.

4. something I'm sure I'll hear the most howling about is put together a group of donors for candidates to go to they know will give them money, beyond just unions.

Which ever option we choose one thing that simply isn't an option is the status quo. If we want to win seats ever again in the Lehigh valley.

Don't like intra-party fighting (in public)

We as a party do not need anymore bad press. I was highly distrubed last night that a rumor about Lisa Boscola possibily running for office on Lv ramblings about who might or might not have asked her to do what turned into an almost 60 comment tirade in which you had a High ranking state senators chief of staff having an all out brawl with a northampton county committeeman. Over what? A misstatement of fact, this is what woodsheds are for doing this type of stuff on the internet in an open forum is bad for all parties involved and the party itself.

You want to take a wack at Dewesse fine that's one thing or the way the Hdcc handled things in 2006 but having personal fights on the internet just makes the party look bad. I'm sure Bernie is going to box my ears for putting this up but somethings are best dealt with in private and this is one of them

Hum what is a Green-Dog Dem

Well it seems I need to give a better explaination. Green-Dogs (stupid blogg didn't let me put in the Hypen) are Democrats that tend not to fix into one box they maybe just as likely to side with one side of the spectrum on one issue as they do on another, or simply not care about an issue at all. It's a group of Democrats that simply is neither Blue,nor Yellow nor Orange. But, most of us tend to be to the Left of the Blue Dogs but the Right of the Orange dogs(dean democrats). But whatever postitions we care about we tend to defend it rabidly. We are the "real" Middle of the Democratic party.

Not sure why everyone is complaining on mydd

It seems the Bloggers on Mydd are really in a tift that Rahm emmauel is getting a ton of credit for the Democrats taking over the house. I mean the man is 20 feet tall and Shoots Lighting bolts out of his ass. What are they complaining about so he wasted 10 million dollars on Tammy Duckworth in race she lost in larger margin then Charles Dertinger did. So he didn't pick up one seat in his home state. So just about every race the Dccc inserted itself into we lost. I mean we what are they complaining about most of the races we won we won with no help from the Dccc at all. I mean so Lois murphy lost and they wasted a ton of money on that race. I'm not sure what they are complaining about. I mean we could have won like 20 or 30 more races with the money they used for the targeted races they lost all 14 of them but what the heck who cares.

whoosh it's quiet

Boy it's gotten quiet in Lehigh valley Poltical blogosphere really quick after elections. My ears go up every so often but it seems to be more from a milkweed tumbling by or a car on the Highway then from a post. But I guess once the excitements over people's interests drift to something else for another 2 year.

Well I've been foaming at this mouth on everyone else's blog this week about the election in the Lehigh Valley. So it's probally time to do it on mine. I'm Howling mad we didn't win any new seats in the valley the dog was working his tail off for the past 4 months. Only to be hosed down by the Hdcc and the donar in the Valley.

I would like to rip the seat out of Veon's pants but the voters in Bulter county already did that for him. It's time was time for the Hdcc to put up or shut up they are now dancing around patting themselves on the back for the possiblity that they might get a one seat majority in the house, from a recount. The simple fact is it shouldn't even be a question we should have picked up at least 10 seats.

The simple fact is Hdcc don't know what it's doing and they are wasting the parties money. It's time for the Hdcc to go or be reorganized or put down. But this is just the view of one angry Green dog