“Today Is the Beginning,” beamed the subject head in my email box
the morning after last Tuesday’s election. It was a rally cry
from the office of Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA), a freshman
Congresswoman representing Pennsylvania’s 3rd district, a large
area traversing the northwest corner of the state, from Erie to
Mercer County.
“Dear Paul,” began
the mass email. “Thank you for your
overwhelming vote of support. I am both humbled and honored to
represent you and I look forward to a spirited general election
campaign.”
It was an odd message to send to a committed non-supporter,
a conservative with no intention to vote for the Congresswoman.
Undeterred, the email continued, wasting no time responding to
the verdict from the previous day’s Republican primary, won by a
local businessman named Mike Kelly:
The Republican primary resulted in a late night win by
Mike Kelly, a car dealer who spent more than $300,000 of his
own money to win the race. The Republican primary turned
negative early and was full of attack ads and never focused on
the important issues facing this region and country. It is my
hope that we can engage in a civil and healthy debate, but I do
not hold out hope based on how the Republican primary was run….
This race is about all of you, about creating good, family
sustaining jobs, about protecting “Main Street” from the greed
of Wall Street.
It was the tried-and-true class-warfare card, lifted from
page one, paragraph one of the Democratic Party playbook. The
deadly sin of envy works handsomely in this blue-collar,
union-ridden Democratic region — a variant of the “Murthanomics”
insightfully delineated in the Spectator by Robert Stacy
McCain in his analysis of Democrat Mark Critz’s victory over
Republican Tim Burns not far down the road in Pennsylvania’s 12th
district.
Of course, it was the Burns-Critz race to replace the
deceased John Murtha that captured the nation’s attention. Murtha
held the seat since practically the Civil War. No matter what his
transgressions, the Johnstown faithful, in repeated acts of
self-mutilation, blindly re-elected the Congressman, even as he
denounced them as “racists” and “rednecks,” disparaged his last
Republican challenger as a “God-damned carpetbagger,” and accused
heroic U.S. Marines of being “cold blooded killers.” No big deal:
Fat on government pork, Murtha’s recipients, like dogs crawling
back to their vomit — or, perhaps, pigs to the trough — yet
again yanked the lever for the Congressman.
Of course, also capturing the nation’s attention was
Pennsylvania’s Senate race, where Republican-turned-Democrat
Arlen Specter lost to an even bigger liberal named Joe Sestak.
Conservatives were always troubled by Specter’s position on
social issues like abortion. Well, Joe Sestak makes Arlen Specter
look like Mother Teresa on the abortion issue. The analogy is a
good one, as Sestak is not only horrible on matters of life, but
is Catholic to boot — which brings me back to the
Dahlkemper-Kelly race in Pennsylvania’s 3rd
district.
Most interesting about Dahlkemper-Kelly is that it pits a
pro-life Catholic Democrat (Dahlkemper) against a pro-life
Catholic Republican (Kelly). In fact, such was the scenario two
years ago, when Dahlkemper defeated six-term pro-life Catholic
Republican Phil English. Dahlkemper, a neophyte, stood nowhere
near English in policy knowledge. Yet, the DNC was confident that
Dahlkemper’s social conservatism — her pro-life stance being the
capstone — could play a decisive role in drawing
traditional/Reagan Democrats away from English. The DNC was
right. It worked.
What has happened since, however, doesn’t bode well for
Dahlkemper’s prospects. She complains about Mike Kelly spending
$300,000 of his own money on his campaign, but that pales to her
spending $800 billion of other people’s money on the
Obama-Pelosi-Reid “stimulus” package. With the paint barely dry
on her office door in Washington, the Congresswoman displayed a
flash of fiscal insanity that didn’t please the folks back
home.
Yet, she was still pro-life. Or was she? That brings me to
political sin #2.
Dahlkemper is indeed pro-life. I know people who know her.
I’ve heard her personal testimony about the choice she made as a
young woman that has kept her on a pro-life path her entire life.
She remained on that road as the crucial vote on “Obama-care”
approached the final Sunday in Lent. Dahlkemper was one of the
“Blue Dog” holdouts among the Bart Stupak Democrats. Alas, in the
end, she, too, caved. Hers is among the hoodwinked faces of duped
Democrats standing aside their beloved leader, President Obama,
as he signed a last-minute, midnight executive order to
(allegedly) ban taxpayer funding of abortion — a ban,
incidentally, that the bishops who run Dahlkemper’s Church insist
will be ineffectual.
This was a fateful move by Dahlkemper, one that infuriated
pro-lifers in her district. When I left Mass the Sunday before
the primary, I saw pro-life voter-guides tucked under the
windshield wipers of the cars in the lot. The guides listed
Dahlkemper as “pro-abortion.”
The ultimate sign of discontent with the Congresswoman was
the floodgate of Republicans licking their chops to challenge
her. Five serious Republican challengers stepped up, almost
stampeding one another for the honor. All were good candidates,
genuinely conservative, from economics to social policy — and,
of course, all solidly pro-life. Not one would have voted for
Obamacare or the “stimulus.”
Finally, the Republican who emerged on top is 62-year-old
Mike Kelly. Born in Pittsburgh and raised in nearby Butler,
Pennsylvania, Kelly was a high-school football standout who
earned an academic/athletic scholarship to Notre Dame, where he
was a starter his freshman year, until a devastating knee injury
cut his career short. He went back home and eventually took over
his father’s car dealership. He’s a real conservative, running
under a mantra of “Never Raise Taxes” and eliminating
out-of-control spending. He’s a winnable candidate.
This is one of those seats Republicans need to take back
the House. If Mike Kelly defeats Kathy Dahlkemper, it will be a
good night for the GOP this November. If he loses, it could be a
long night. This is a race Republicans should be able to
win.
The Dahlkemper seat is not getting much attention from the
national media. That’s a mistake. Don’t ignore Pennsylvania’s 3rd
district.
