Stay With Philadelphia Will Do Until Its Editor Is Too Drunk To Blog!

Those of you who know me personally may know that I’m fairly detached from this whole “politics” thing. Although I voted today, I’m not particularly sure that it matters. (I’m not positive, so I did it just to be safe, although I voted for myself for U.S. Congress. Take that, Bob Brady!)

That being said, here is what I like about politics: Making fun of politicians. So I will be updating, sporadically, throughout the night — though probably not until later — to make sure you get the best of Curt Weldon concession speeches, awkward anchor transitions and Ed Rendell hanging out with boobs. Please, join me. Barring technical difficulties.

This Is The Best Way To Handle A Scandle

That’s Tim Murphy, U.S. Congressman from Western Pennsylvania, south of Pittsburgh. That’s also Andy Sheehan — no relation to Cindy — approaching him with documents concerning the ethics flap the congressman is currently facing.

You know, if Curt Weldon totally should have tried this.

Congressman Tim Murphy Getting Touchy [YouTube via Wonkette]
Congressman facing ethics flap [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]

Amos-’N'-Andy-Style Mailer Soon To Follow

Our favorite story of the day comes to us courtesy of Gar Joseph’s ‘Clout’ column, and it concerns a mailer concerning the 173rd district in Northeast Philly:

First up, a mailing to residents of Northeast Philadelphia that says state Rep. Michael McGeehan “doesn’t care about us.” A prominent photo shows McGeehan standing next to Mayor Street. The best part is that several other elected officials are standing nearby, but they are white, so their photos were Photoshopped out.

Well, I guess Photoshopping them out is better than putting them in blackface.

Playing the race card [Daily News, 3rd item]

Leftovers: What’s Your Fantasy?

• Ludacris is the executive producer of a new show that’s based on CAPA. Only one thing to say to this: Yes. [Daily News]

• Bored now that they can’t smoke in the bathrooms (or something), some students at Eastern High School in Voorhees decided to make a hit list of students. Two hit lists, actually. Ah, youth. [NBC 10]

• If you really care about our democracy, you’ll vote like this. [Wonkette]

• It’s no cougar, but Evesham, N.J., police have seen a bobcat. And here’s the obvious follow-up: Maybe. In any big cat sighting, it’s kind of like the “allegedly” in a crime story. [Inquirer]

A Way To Get People Interested In Politics

Good thing we got rid of those pesky elections and replaced them with celebrity deathmatches.

Fox-Limbaugh Battle Gets Uglier [NBC 10]

N.Y. Candidate Actually Admits Attending Penn

Things are heating up in the 99th Assembly District race in New York state.

Oh, I know, you were wondering, “How could things get any hotter?” Well, they just did, thanks to a little bit of bickering over a certain degree. Your characters in this race are democrat Ken Harper and Republican Greg Ball.

Ball said a note that appears after Harper’s name, stating that the Democrat graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1982 with a bachelor’s in English, is false.

“Ken Harper has perpetuated the lie that he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania,” Ball said. “Records clearly show that Ken Harper has never graduated.”

Both a university spokesman and Harper confirmed that fact yesterday. Ron Ozio, director of the school’s media relations, said Harper attended the institution, but that there was no record of him having received a degree.

Harper said he “never represented himself to anybody, even from way back when” that he had a degree from Penn. He said there’s nothing in his campaign literature saying otherwise.

“I went to college for four years and studied English,” Harper, 46, said. “I didn’t get a B.A. I never said I graduated.”

Harper said he was three credits short of graduating — and didn’t finish because he ran out of money. (Wouldn’t you have found time to go back in the past, oh, I dunno, 24 years?)

Anyway, though, Mr. Harper has given me an answer to a riddle I’ve been wondering for a while. What’s worse than graduating from Penn with a B.A. in English? Doing all the work and not getting a B.A. in English.

Assembly candidates spar over college credentials [The Journal News]

One Of These Things…

That man killed by a beer keg was also running for sheriff somewhere.

Candidate Campaigns with Cleavage [AP/6 ABC]
Candidate Praying to Win [AP/6 ABC]
Exploding Beer Keg Kills Man [AP/6 ABC]