Former Reality TV Star Not Attracting Attention

The Intelligencer reports today on the overlooked race of the local congressional races; i.e. the Allyson Schwartz-Raj Bhakta race.

Although Raj is a reality TV star on par with such greats as Gervase Peterson, Elizabeth Hasselbeck and that dwarf from Amazing Race, he can’t seem to get any attention anywhere but the Northeast Times. Adding to that, Schwartz has $1.5 million dollars on hand (at last filing) while Raj has $10, two goats and an autographed photo of Bobby Hoying.

“Both the party and donors usually are attracted to races that have a strong or fighting chance in winning,” said Chris Borick, director of Muhlenberg College’s Institute of Public Opinion. “The perception in the Republican Party is that Bhakta is a long shot. Resources are finite; they are not going to direct it to places considered a risky endeavor.”

Alas, it appears that Raj’s political career will be over before it even began. Still, though, I think he has a bright future ahead of him. Filming on Jersey Justice — featuring Gervase! — has wrapped up, but surely the producers can get him into Jersey Justice II, right?

The overlooked race [Bucks County Courier Times]
Jersey Justice [IMDb]
Photo via A Tribute to Raj Bhakta

Raj: My Opponent Eats Puppies

Raj Bhakta, the Apprentice 2 contestant running against Allyson Schwartz in the 13th Congressional District, has unveiled his campaign: “Save The Northeast.” Indeed, there have been volunteers on the Boulevard (and near the Tacony-Palymra Bridge) holding up signs that say “Honk to Save The Northeast.”

No one’s quite sure how honking is going to make the Tacony waterfront better or re-pave the Boulevard faster, but Bhakta has another trick up his sleve, too: gross overstatement.

The 30-year-old Republican, a Fort Washington resident who spent the first few years of his life in Northwood, also attributed the rising crime rates to new residents who, in his view, don’t value safety, cleanliness and civic-mindedness.

“John Street and Allyson Schwartz are very happy about that,” he said.

Indeed! Every time Street and Schwartz hear about a murder in the Northeast, they do a touchdown dance. The Ickey Shuffle, actually.

Bhakta: Situation in NE is a crime [Northeast Times]
Archives: Raj Bhakta

Bah! Who Cares About So-Called ‘Rights’! This Is An Election!

We’ve been covering the anti-Myspace bill introduced by UPS man and U.S. Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, for a while now, and it’s time to give someone else the floor.

First, a bit of background: Fitzpatrick’s bill, officially the (yuk yuk) Deleting Online Predators Act — DOPA, I presume? — would force schools and libraries to block children from viewing social networking sites, such as Myspace, Facebook, Friendster, etc. It’s unclear if this would block social networking sites that are more about, say, photo sharing, like Flickr.

Anyway, obviously this bill is trying to stop children from being the victim of old dirty men trolling for them online, or something, and that’s fine. Naturally, of course, it does nothing really to stop the problem of child predators, but it makes for nice election year press, doesn’t it?

Some of that nice election year press comes, conveniently, from Bucks County Courier Times columnist J.D. Mullane, who wrote about the issue today, specifically Fitzpatrick’s Democratic opponent, Patrick Murphy, who blasted the bill:

I told Murphy it was a blunder to talk about “constitutional rights” when the issue is protecting children from pervs.

It’s OK to be high-minded on all that “rights” jazz when you’re trolling for votes during primary season. But when the general election season begins, as it has, it’s best to respect the family-oriented sensibilities of the suburban heartland, which defines most of Bucks County, but especially defines where I live, Levittown.

In my house, children have no “constitutional rights.” I am the law, judge and jury. My word is final. Three weeks ago, I was at the top of my game in this role during an incident that involved, coincidently, MySpace.com.

With Mullane on the case, no predator is safe! And neither are your rights!

A blunder in race for Congress [Bucks County Courier Times]
May 19: Rhetoric On Anti-Myspace Bill Reaches New Levels

Rhetoric On Anti-Myspace Bill Reaches New Levels

Okay, Mike Fitzpatrick. (That’s him, at right, helping UPS deliver some packages. No, really.) You almost had us fooled. You were a Republican congressman who seemed pretty levelheaded, without any sort of wild extreme right-wing positions. And you seemed pretty on the ball. But of course, now, you have to go and try to block access to Myspace — and other social networking sites — from being accessed in schools or libraries.

(The bill actually blocks access for people under 18, but the thinking is that schools and libraries will just block it. Schools are mostly under-18 anyway, and almost all libraries don’t have room for a separate over-18 section.)

The Democratic candidate for house, Patrick Murphy, has rightly denounced the legislation as re-effing-diculous, and an overreaction that would do nothing to solve the problem of child predators online:

“You don’t protect children by infringing on people’s constitutional rights,” Murphy said Thursday. “It’s shortsighted and wrong. It’s a political ploy from a typical politician.”

A ploy? Indeed. It’s a typical election year ploy: Fitzpatrick gets to introduces this bill; he happens to be coincidentally up against a war vet would could prove to be somewhat popular one, too. (He’s a good guy, it seems, so he won’t attack his service record.) And so, when Murphy denounces the legislation, Ol’ Fitzy can paint him as a lover of child molesters:

“Pat seems more interested in the constitutional rights of online predators than he is about protecting young children,” Fitzpatrick said. “He ought to be ashamed for opposing it.”

Using the newly created Mike Fitzpatrick Overstatement Machine™, we’d like to translate our response — “this bill is more of a political ploy to win votes than something that will protect children; also, guess who doesn’t have computers at home: the poor” — into a Mike Fitzpatrick overstatement:

“Mike Fitzpatrick ought to be ashamed at creating this bill that’s just a ploy for him to win votes come November. He seems more interested in staying in office than helping his constitutients. Also, he’s introducing the worst bill since the Smoot-Hawley Tariff and he hates the Constitution.”

Look for more from the Mike Fitzpatrick Overstatement Generator™ any day now!

Heated exchange follows Fitzpatrick’s Myspace bill [Bucks County Courier Times]
Mike Fitzpatrick - Photos [House.gov]
Monday: U.S. Rep. Has No Friends On Myspace

The Shortest — And Therefore Best — Political Press Release Ever

In Bucks County, two Democrats are running for the right to face Mike Fitzpatrick, who seemed like a pretty good, head-on-his-shoulders legislator until he introduced an anti-Myspace-in-schools-and-libraries bill!

And so, one of these two guys — Andrew Warren and Patrick Murphy — must take down Fitzpatrick in the 8th district in the general election. I’d like to follow the good boys over at Wonkette and endorse Patrick Murphy, simply because of this press release:

LARRY OTTER ENDORSES ANDY WARREN FOR CONGRESS

LEVITTOWN, PA—May 14, 2006—In response to Larry Otter’s endorsement of Andy Warren, Josh Nanberg, campaign manager for Patrick Murphy issued the following statement:

“OK”

In addition to that, his campaign headquarters are in Levittown and his post-election party is at Georgine’s in that same wonderful Bill Levitt-designed town.

Official Wonkette Endorsement: Patrick Murphy [Wonkette]
Yesterday: U.S. Rep Has No Friends On Myspace

U.S. Rep. Has No Friends On Myspace

The government is a big fan of doing things to screw things up for kids. Kids can’t vote — nobody really votes until they’re about 65 anyway — and so the government can do whatever they hell it wants to do.

And, right on cue, here comes legislation that’s going to ban schools and libraries from allowing access to social networks like Myspace, Facebook, Friendster, etc. Of course, since the legislation is so broadly written, basically anything allowing one to communicate with someone over the Internet would have to be blocked.

This legislation was drafted into action by up-for-his-seat-in-November U.S. Rep Mike Fitzpatrick, who represents Bucks County and parts of Northeast Philly and Montgomery County. And you know what’s going to happen: Anyone who even thinks of going against this bill is going to be declared a friend of child molestors, perhaps even a pervert, as the bill is called the Deleting Online Predators Act — Ho ho! Get it! Deleting predators! Ha! — and is supposedly going to stop online predators forever.

NB to whoever wins the Democratic primary in that district tomorrow: Paint yourself as the pro-Myspace candidate. You might be able to even get some 18-year-old high schoolers to vote.

Bill Seeks to Block Access to MySpace in Schools [Los Angeles Times via BoingBoing]

Quickies: Keep Your Clothes On In NoLibs

• The Scores in Northern Liberties has been voted down by the zoning board, who said they were okay with a strip club, just not at that location. In other news, Delilah’s Den received the okay for an extension, so, y’know, next year’s Entertainer of the Year™ contest should be even bigger! Whoo! [Daily News]

• Okay, so Pennsylvania and Utah are the only states that make you buy alcohol in state stores (Nevermind; I had bad info. Whoops!); New Jersey and Oregon are the only ones that won’t let you pump your own gas. Well, the only state where you couldn’t get a tattoo was Oklahoma, until the government legalized it yesterday. AP story sez: “Previous attempts to lift the ban over the past decade were fought on health as well as moral grounds.” Expect the GOP to come up with a “federal tattoo amendment” in time for the November elections. [AP/Yahoo!]

• The search has intensified for the man alleged to have killed police officer Gary Skerski. Daily News letter writers, of course, are concerned about the Tuesday Daily News coverage, alleging some sort of “trivializing.” Erhm. [DN]

• Absentee ballots from a Neshaminy nursing home accidentally ended up at Patrick Murphy’s office. Murphy is the ex-military man who’s running as a Democrat for Congress. And they’re looking to see if this is against the law! “If they’re looking to prosecute somebody because their ride came late, I’d say that’s trying to hit a fly with a sledgehammer,” says the deputy chairman of the Democrats in Buxco. Please, Mr. Chairman, sledgehammers are a good way of getting rid of flies. [Bucks County Courier Times]

• Did USA Today just break a story on how the NSA has a huge database of all calls made seemingly everywhere by everyone in America? Impressive. Also, uhm, sigh. [USA Today]

Blogicized: Driving Everyone Quackers

• And, really, let’s jump on this now before we all forget: Yes, we hate the duck boats. We hate those stupid whistles. We hate everything. But, yeah, especially those stupid duck boats. Especially the one at least partially owned by Milton Street. [Starting A Landslide In My Ego]

• Hey, the eighth congressional district! Whoo, awesome! Are we allowed to actually get interested in a story when we don’t live in the district anymore? Yes? Okay. This is not nearly as dorky as I can get, by the way. [Philly Future]

• Remember how the governor of Arkansas pretty much blackballed an alt-weekly? Well, not he has a ridiculously long rant on his website about how they’re allegedly asking for special treatment (they’re not) and generally looking like a five year old. And this man wants to be president. Actually, acting like a five year old is pretty much par for the course these days. [Arkansas Times Blog]

Reality Show Star To Turn Campaign Into, Uh, Reality Show

What’s better than a former bow tie-clad star of The Apprentice 2 running for office? Hmm, how about a reality-show style staff of campaign workers who are also being filmed for a documentary?

Raj Bhakta — who you may remember from when he hit on Donald Trump’s secretary after being fired from The Apprentice (that was him, right?) — is hiring a staff of interns to work for his campaign this summer. He’s attempting to defeat Allison Schwartz, the Democratic U.S. Rep in the 13th District, which is that weird Northeast Philly/Montgomery County mashup. (Don’t confuse it with the 8th, the weird Northeast Philly/Bucks County combo.)

He’s going to hire about 50 to 100 young Republicans who will probably spend their days shuffling papers and making phone calls and whatever it is campaign staffers do and will spend their nights… I dunno. Talking about small government or something. But, hey, they get a place to stay and a stipend and you get to hang out with Raj! How cool is that? The top staffers will get to stay on in the fall, with the top three staying on if he gets elected! Hopefully, he’ll avoid going “You’re fired” or some other nonsense.

His opponent Schwartz, incidentally, turned down an offer to debate Raj on The Daily Show. Bhakta responded by calling her “phony-baloney.” Woooooah! Don’t sling too much mud just yet, Mr. Bhakta! It’s only May!

Raj to star in his campaign flick [Northeast Times]

Blogicized: Let’s Get Political

• In a typical Pennsylvania Congressional race — two annoying candidates run for the second straight time, with the more loathsome one being the incumbent — Jim Gerlach has been accusing Lois Murphy of being a plagiarist. Not that she cheated on any papers or anything, but she copied text from other peoples’ speeches. Well, guess who’s also done it? Ooh, ooh, I know, I know! [Eschaton]

• Last night was the big ol’ Senate debate, and Politics Philly liveblogged it. If you missed it, I don’t know if they’ll be televising it again — that would make sense — so you can read some quasi-transcript and commentary over there. [Politics Philly]

• Every time I try to get info via OpenSecrets.org I forget that the interface there was designed with someone who has an actual attention span. So here’s a roundup of the money trail in some local races. [Above Average Jane]

• Ugh… all these politics are making my head hurt. Ooh! More 4/20 goodness! Tommy Chong! Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. [Philebrity]

• The real question about Lionel Richie rocking the Parkway this summer: What, no Billy Ocean? (And, for that matter, why aren’t The Hooters playing! An outrage, I tell you, an outrage!) [Johnny Goodtimes]