Local GOP: Palin ‘our new superstar’

By GARY WECKSELBLATT
Staff Writer

It hasn’t been an easy time to be a Republican, according to Bob Kerns, chairman of the Montgomery County GOP.

“The Republican Party has been beaten up,” Kerns said Thursday. “Everybody’s saying we’re going to lose. This is (Barack) Obama’s year. This is the Democrats’ year.”

And then came Sarah Palin.

The Alaska governor’s speech Wednesday at the Republican National Convention ignited the Xcel Energy Center crowd that included gushing Bucks and Montgomery delegates.

“Electrifying,” Kerns said. “Being there, the reaction was incredible. … She’s our new superstar.”

Pat Poprik, vice chairwoman of the Bucks County Republican Committee and treasurer of the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, sat with the state delegation, about 12 rows from the stage.

“I could feel the grit in that woman,” she said. “She was remarkable. Women across the country had to be saying, ‘She’s like me. She drives her kids to practice.’ The air here is palpable.”

Raymond “Skip” Goodnoe, an alternate delegate and former Newtown Township supervisor whose family owned Goodnoe Family Restaurant, a now-closed landmark, called Palin’s speech “galvanizing.”

Palin, John McCain’s surprising pick for vice president, was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, a town of just less than 10,000 people, from 1996 to 2002. After an unsuccessful campaign for lieutenant governor of Alaska in 2002, she was chairwoman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission from 2003 to 2004 while also serving as ethics supervisor of the commission.

In November 2006, Palin was elected governor, becoming the first woman and youngest person to hold the office.

Democrats have questioned her qualifications while Republicans have embraced her.

“She made more decisions in her time as governor than Joe Biden did in his 30 years in the Senate,” said longtime Bucks County Recorder of Deeds Ed Gudknecht, a Bucks delegate. “And she had more votes running for mayor than (Joe) Biden did for president.”

Kerns, a Lansdale attorney, dismissed the “unmerciful” criticism that’s been tossed at Palin, calling her a “dynamic person who has a track record.”

He praised her speech, specifically the points relating to energy and small business. “This isn’t a game any more, and she really gets that. We have to put everything on the table (to solve the country’s energy needs). And she understands small business and how Obama’s plan to raise taxes will hurt them.”

During her time in Minnesota, Poprick has been touching base with political officials in Bucks who have told her they’ve run out of literature because of a spike in interest.

“We’re exuberant,” she said. “We want to get out and work. … She got rid of the chef. She sold the plane on eBay. This is a new start for us.”

And possibly so for Robert Gleason, chairman of the state Republican committee.

“To win an election you need people to believe you can win and she has made a huge contribution in that regard,” Gleason said, adding that “if Obama doesn’t win Pennsylvania he’s finished.”

Along those lines, Kerns called Bucks and Montgomery counties “the real battleground of this battleground state.”

If Palin is indeed a turning point for a Republican ticket that has consistently trailed Obama in the polls, it could help buoy the candidacy of Tom Manion, who’s running against incumbent Democrat Patrick Murphy for Bucks County’s 8th District congressional seat.

“She’s got a kind of special spirit,” said Manion, who was campaigning Wednesday night but got home in time to watch Palin’s speech. “It’s so right for where our country is right now. She’s part of the party but she’s not speaking to the party. She’s speaking to the country.

“It lines up so well with where I’m coming from.”

Kerns called Palin “a frontier woman of the 1800s translated into the 21st century.”

Manion on the street

8th District challenger meets with Newtown, Bensalem residents
By Peter Ciferri; Advance Editor

Republican congressional candidate Tom Manion spent Aug. 27 touring Cornwells Heights and Newtown, hoping to secure a few more supporters as he continues his bid to unseat Democratic Congressman Patrick Murphy in Pennsylvania’s 8th District.Manion spent the morning at the Cornwells Heights Train Station in Bensalem Township before meeting with the Newtown Rotary Club for lunch. The Doylestown resident also sat down with

The Advance “It’s a great opportunity to listen and hear what the problems are,” Manion said of his man-on-the-street approach. “It really comes down to the people of the district and the taxpayers, and in an informal setting like this, you really get an opportunity to understand what’s on their mind and that really has to guide what you do.”

Manion, a Marine Corps veteran, said the people he met Wednesday were concerned with high energy prices and were “ready for a change” in Washington D.C.

“It’s the summer months and people are adjusting their vacation schedules because of it, but they’re really concerned about what’s ahead for winter,” he explained, adding that he believes residents are frustrated with Congress’ “inability to begin the debate.”
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Manion said his energy plan would call for incentives to people who use alternatives like solar and wind, which he hopes would create a larger market to move forward with the resources.

“We’re not going to get there overnight. So, we’ve got to think about conservation,” Manion told

The Advance. “Also, we need to reach into our current supply we can’t achieve these alternatives overnight and we need a transition strategy. I think increasing [arctic oil] supplies can be the way to do that.”

He explained that the United States has “oil rich areas in the arctic” that he believes should be explored, but at the same time, urged the government to be “equally aggressive” in pursuing alternative energy.

Manion said his business experience - he spent several years as an executive at Johnson & Johnson - gives him the ability to “build solutions and get results” with bipartisan efforts.

“You have to understand the bigger picture and the goal in mind. The goal is not party politics, it’s our country,” he said.

Manion said his background as a Marine makes him “action oriented” and he wouldn’t come to the job with a “60-day or 30-day or 10-day plan,” but would rather take on the challenges immediately facing the 8th District.

The Republican challenger said his chief concern is the struggling economy, but added that there is not one defined plan for solving the problem. Manion hopes he can help “build confidence back in the American people” by working to understand the economic woes.

“It’s about getting together quickly with like-minded people,” he explained. “We need to get things done quickly, and once we get together we can get to work.”

In addition to what he calls “the lowest rated Congress in history,” Manion said people are fed up with the White House leadership; a frustration that led him to support John McCain.

“He’s demonstrated leadership and the proven ability to work with people to get results,” he said.

Additionally, Manion’s impression of the Democratic National Convention has been critical. “I think it’s really much like the platform so far. There’s not a lot of substance to it There’s a lot of talk about what’s wrong, but there doesn’t seem to be much accountability or a specific plan.”

The 8th Congressional District covers all of Bucks County and portions of Montgomery and Philadelphia counties. Manion will face-off against Democratic incumbent Patrick Murphy and Independent political activist Tom Lingenfelter in the Nov. 4 election.

The Advance contacted both the Murphy and Lingenfelter campaigns and is currently scheduling interviews with both candidates.

The three have a scheduled debate at the Waterwheel Restaurant, 4424 Old Easton Rd., Doylestown, on Oct. 17 at 8 a.m.

Volunteers encourage union members to vote for Obama

By MATT COUGHLIN
Bucks County Courier Times

Before Sen. John McCain appeared on television sets across Bucks County Thursday night dozens of area union workers tried to bring Barack Obama into hundreds of Bucks County homes.

About three dozen volunteers from the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations met with 174 union members Thursday night to encourage them to vote for Obama.

Congressman Patrick Murphy, D-8, spoke to the volunteers at the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers Local 13 on New Falls Road in Bristol Township before the group started going door-to-door from 6:30 to 8 p.m.

AFL-CIO spokesman Andrew Gaffney said that the volunteers — members of the electrical workers, state, county and municipal employees, communications workers, nurses, letter carriers and bakers unions — were each given a packet, a list of homes of area AFL-CIO members and went door-to-door stumping for Obama.

“If they bring up experience, let them know we’ve had 26 years of experience of John McCain voting against working families,” Gaffney told the volunteers.

Gaffney said the volunteers had a series of questions for union members as well as a packet of information showing why the unions should prefer Obama to McCain.

“The three main issues are health care, economy and health care,” Gaffney said.

Gaffney said the organization opposes McCain because his health care plan would make the worker’s employer-paid health benefits taxable income. The packet also includes information claiming McCain has voted to abolish minimum wage and has pushed for privatizing social security.

The AFL-CIO is also backing Obama because of the congressman’s support of and McCain’s opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that has passed the House of Representatives but not the Senate. Currently employees looking to establish a union must first sign a card showing interest and then at a later date a vote is held to determine if the staff will join a union. However, Gaffney said, the vote can be delayed and companies can push out union-friendly employees. The new bill would immediately establish a union if even one employee over 50 percent of the staff signs the card that currently only starts the process.

In a written statement, Murphy’s opponent, Tom Manion, said he’s concerned about the rights of workers, but “the employee Free Choice Act is a misleading name for a bill that strips away an employee’s right to a secret ballot.”

Manion said he cannot vote for the bill because he considers the secret ballot a basic right.

And regarding healthcare Manion said he believes that through oversight, tax credits and healthcare savings accounts all types of employees will have healthcare. He said there was $80 billion in Medicare fraud last year and said that Democrats only plan on expanding a “big government-based healthcare system.”

Murphy, who is a co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act, said he believes in the freedom of assembly and the right of workers to unionize.

“I’m proud to fight for [workers of Bucks County] down in Washington and hope I get the chance to continue,” Murphy said.

He criticized an economy he said has seen wages go stagnant and seven and a half years of inequality.