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With hire, it seems more and more likely that Dems will clear the field for Pike

MIDDLE OF NOWEHERE, CANADA—Still writing from a lake you can barely find on Google Earth, but as you can see, the news never stops at pa2010.com.

I was intrigued to see that Doug Pike’s Congressional campaign has brought on Neil Oxman and The Campaign Group. Aside from being Gov. Ed Rendell’s longtime political adviser, Oxman has worked for Joe Torsella and Dan Wofford in the past.

Both had been rumored to be considering a run for Congressman Jim Gerlach’s (R-6) seat next year. Wofford told me a while back he was giving it some thought, and word on the street had Torsella mulling the race before he opted for a Senate run that went nowhere when Arlen Specter switched parties. Even after, I still hear his name bandied about.

But now, with Oxman working for Pike, the DCCC hyping him as a candidate and Pike boasting the ability to spend loads of his own money to get someone out of a primary, it really does seem unlikely that anyone is going to seriously challenge the former Inquirer writer for the nomination. As a reader put it simply in a posted comment about Wofford and Torsella: “I guess they are out of the running against Gerlach.”

Whether it’s Gerlach running for reelection or someone else, a clear Democratic primary means trouble for Republicans in the general election, especially in a district they’ve been laboring mightly to defend ever since its formation.

June 23, 2009 at 7:16 pm

--Dan Hirschhorn

Tags: Doug Pike, Neil Oxman, PA-6

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