Problems with Touey FEC report:
Several entries list TWO people (husband and wife) as the donor.
This is invalid. Each individual must be listed separately.
Violations by PDF page number:
5-B, 7-A, 8-C, 10-C (Patrick and Kathleen Touey), 11-A

Most of her donations are from Mass not PA (19 vs 7).

I find it highly doubtful that Touey will be able to muster 1000 valid petition signatures to get on the ballot.

Only six of the filed entries were at or above the $250 requirement for itemizing.

BTW, when she entered the race, a big deal was made of how she was a former Sestak staffer.
She received NO DONATION FROM SESTAK. Yet, on page 13 (entry A) she recorded a single dollar she received from a Web site designer.
So, Joe couldn’t even cough up a matching single dollar for his former employee. Although, I think that says more about Joe than Touey.

It’s time to get cracking to help Lentz win this seat.

‘Nuff said.

Here goes Diano.

Dave, is your life so sad that the only thing you do is sit behind a screen and wait for a story to pop up on PA2010 that will allow you to take a shot at Sestak?

This story says nothing about Sestak. If anything this story proves that you are a moron (not that anyone need proof, it is well known). Sestak hasn’t donated to Touey because he clearly has a horse in this race, and it is not her. Just because she worked for him does not mean she is the best candidate, and he knows that. Donating even $1 to her campaign would be a story and would have caused idiots like you to rush to your keyboard to write some ludicrous post about how Sestak isn’t helping the party, blah blah blah.

It is a shame that anyone puts stock in anything you ever say, and unfortunately I do not have the platform to dismantle your pathetic life. But please, can you take a break from your ridiculous posts that have no significance and are often completely off topic.

As for the story… Touey is not a viable candidate. What was she thinking? She moved back to a state she had left twice to run against a presumptive nominee. There must be something else going on here. Maybe she is looking at a local or state office? Her fund raising and campaigning has yet to offer anything to the issue debate so that cannot be it. She has not put together a staff that performs in the district. A look at Sestak’s staff from ‘06 and ‘08 shows that there may be many available to work (some are with Sestak, others are with other members or campaigns or with the party). But I have not accounted for all of them (and I don’t think anyone will). If they are not willing to work for her maybe this article says NOTHING about Sestak and everything about Touey.

(I have heard that in her initial attempt to gain coverage, Touey claimed to have held positions with the Sestak team that were actually held by other staffers, maybe that is the answer.)

Ed H-
I think the candidates deserve the courtesy of attending the Delco Dem’s convention and making their case. It will be a large gathering of county Democrats and a chance to gather signatures or to bow out gracefully, or to make deals, endorsements, etc.

All the candidates have a reason to run and things they hope to accomplish. They all deserve to be heard and gauge the reaction/response/feedback from their fellow Democratic committee members.

HaverfordDem-
Do you keep a picture of Sestak under you pillow? Do you realize that he doesn’t walk on water? Neither does he crap rainbows like a unicorn.

Sestak has a horse in this race? Really?
There’s been plenty of speculation that he would drop out and be the horse himself (or at least part of the horse). It would look odd if he gave money to any candidate he wound up running against.

The ONLY noteworthy connection Touey had was her work for Sestak. When she first got in, the hook for the story was: “Former Sestak staffer to run for his seat”.

I wonder if she has a nice recommendation (i.e “form”) letter from Sestak somewhere, praising all her good work for his campaign.

The best Sestak staffers I’ve met are the ones that had the good sense (and self-respect) to quit.

I heard Touey the other night at an event – I really tried to listen…. but she put me to sleep.

Teresa, I wish you well, but hope you bow out before the convention. There are many other candidates who have a realistic shot at their respective races, and I prefer to give them more air time.

anon-
Well, she does serve the purpose of making the other candidates look better.

Diano –

I am well aware of the fact that Sestak is not perfect, but he is the best candidate in this race in terms of the issues he represents. I am confident that he is more in line with your views as well, you just hate the man. So, to your point, Sestak has flaws.

Also, who were the strong Sestak staffers? George Matysik Jr? Richard Culbert? Samuel I Thomas? Jason P Marmon? Are they all morons?

On a different note, the ‘E’ stands for Ellen.

I’m disappointed that the writer reported the data in a way that paints a picture that the two women in the 7th congressional race did nothing. I believe Gail Conner raised around $30,000. She only entered the race in November 2009 and Rep Lentz has been running for a year at least.
The people will decide this race not money and I know Mrs. Conner does have name recognition and will surpise many. I believe we need more people in Congress who are not career politicans. Let see what people from the private sector working class can do in our nations capital and state house.

HaverfordDem-
I’m convinced that Sestak merely parrots the issues Dems want to here, but doesn’t really carry the courage of those convictions. Had Weldon been vulnerable to a primary challenge in 2006, I think Sestak would have been perfectly comfortable running as a Republican. I think Joe Sestak could easily turn out to be another Joe Lieberman.
Sestak betrayed us on Iraq and other votes. I don’t want him having any more opportunities in office.

George has a lot of potential, but working for Sestak and Landau, he fell into the trap of putting candidate before party. I’m not too familiar with Rich. I think Samuel is a joke. Jason moved away and hasn’t had anything constructive to do with the Delco Dems for years since he met Sestak. Before that, Jason was an awesome voter registration coordinator.
I didn’t say the people that stayed with him are morons, but it does require a significant compromise of self-respect and principle.

Marty-
I think Conner and Touey are completely different cases. Conner’s been here, worked for Obama and has some connections/networks. Touey seems more like she woke up on morning, flipped a coin, and decided to run for congress.

I think what is making the difference is that Bryan has already held elected office and won in a Republican district. Of course, his head-start hasn’t hurt either.

I’m pretty sure that the entrance of two primary challengers caused the Lentz campaign to work even harder, so don’t assume that they didn’t take the threat seriously. They were also concerned about the looming threat of Vitali entering the race, which was all the more reason to build up a big warchest.

I think this may be a rare time where someone raises less money than I did. But based on my experience I am not entirely sure she should drop out now. She may still gain experience that would be valuable later on, and even influence the race this year if she tries. Of course, if not, there’s always blogging . . .

From what I hear, she is quite tone deaf.
Don’t expect her to learn anyting.
This is just an ego trip for her.
I wouldn’t say anything except that there are real consequences for the people of the 7th if Dems take their eye off the real race here.
Please hang it up Teresa!

Michael-
If she was running against you, I’d consider her a viable candidate.

anon-
It’s highly unlikely she will acquire the 1000 petition signatures to get on the ballot, so it will be a moot point soon enough.

Diano Wrote:

“The best Sestak staffers I’ve met are the ones that had the good sense (and self-respect) to quit.”

David, I said my peace about your personal vendetta against Sestak and frankly I’ve had better things to do than pay attention to your pathetic diarrhea of the mouth these days. However, I can’t let this one go. I want a straight answer:

Is Jason Marmon someone you consider to be without good sense and self respect? Jason went thorough hell with us beating Curt Weldon in 2006 and he’s given the better part of 3 years of his life to help Joe Sestak do more for the people of the 7th District than Weldon did in 20 years. How about Ann Vaughan? Same story. Volunteered in 2006 and has been helping constituents in the District office for Sestak’s entire term in the house. How about Sestak’s current driver and advance staffers? Both have been with him roughly 2 years if not more. On the campaign side, Richie Culbert cam all the way back from Virginia to work on the Senate race. And last but not at all least, Bill Walsh, one of the finest public servants in the country, whose been with Joe since the Naval Academy. Where do you get off demeaning people with that degree of dedication to public service? It’s a rhetorical question – for those who haven’t met him outside of his deranged online dream world, David has never actually accomplished anything in the real world. (David – save the crap about Voterweb. You single-handedly destroyed what in competent hands could have been a very viable business. You. Not Joe Sestak or anyone else.) If you’re looking for a fool with no self respect, go no further than the mirror, David.

Mario Cimino
D – Morton Borough Council
Volunteer Coordinator, Sestak for Congress ‘06

And on the actual topic of this post:

Hopefully the Democrats of the 7th District will consider this when considering whether to lend their signatures to Ms. Touhy’s or Ms. Connor’s nominating petitions: Have they earned that support?

Electing a candidate with the vast experience of Bryan Lentz (including as a paratrooper, a prosecutor, and a legislator) to the 7th District seat is absolutely critical to both our national and local interests. Anyone who wants to see how seriously Lentz takes that responsibility need only visit his office (at 411 Dartmouth in Swarthmore currently) and see the dedicated staff of professionals and volunteers hard at work there. On the other hand, Ms. Connor and Ms. Touhy, while they are both very nice people, have been completely MIA in undertaking any sort of competent campaign since their announcements several months ago. The fundraising numbers are only the most obvious example of that. So when you are asked to sign a petition for a candidate for the 7th Congressional District, please ask yourself these questions: Has anyone other than Bryan Lentz run a competent campaign deserving of my support? And should we have to waste important resources in an unnecesary primary election against candidates with nothing to show for their own candidacies other than their own egos? On thing that the recent elections have shown is that this is not the time to fool around. It’s time for the Democrats of the 7th District to unite behind the one candidate that will win and continue pressing the important work started by Joe Sestak:

Bryan Lentz for Congress 2010

See everyone at the convetnion!

Mario Cimino
D – Morton Borough Council
Volunteer Coordinator, Sestak for Congress ‘06

Mario-
I had tremendous respect for Jason when he worked on Voter Registration. However, I think his working for Sestak helps Sestak more than the party, so I’m disappointed that he didn’t stick around to do more here to help more people.

In general I think the Sestak staffers in 2006 were short-sighted in worrying about Sestak and tossing the other candidates overboard, rather than form a coordinated campaign the way Rendell/Casey helped Sestak’s campaign. (The field director at the time said to me “Screw the other candidates. Sestak’s the only one that matters.”)
I’m not very familiar with Rich or Ann, so I can’t say.
I don’t see you going back to work for Sestak. I wish you would, I could use the laugh.
Bill Walsh is a complete @sshole, and when I see you, I’ll tell you a story about what a disgrace he is as a public servant and why he should have been fired nearly three years ago from a taxpayer funded job. (Note: this is post-navy, and no aspersion on his naval career)

One of the reasons that Bryan is doing so well, is that he picked Vince as his campaign manager. Vince left the 2006 Sestak campaign after the primary, and is on my most-respected list. Vince is doing for Bryan’s campaign exactly what good Delco Dem and general Democratic Party member should be doing (and Sestak failed to do): work closely with the St. Leg candidates and build a strong team/ticket. It’s exactly the strategy that I’ve been advocating for years (and decrying the lack of in Sestak’s campaign), and I was on PA2010 immediately praising the selection of Vince.

As for VoterWeb, it’s doing fantastic (thanks for asking). I’ve got candidates contacting me, unsolicited, from just word of mouth. I never intended nor desired to make it a for-profit business in the first place, so I’m way ahead of the game. My interest has always been in expanding my reach/influence to help the Democratic party and progressive candidates. The vast majority (hundreds) of my accounts are FREE to Democratic committee people, and I get letters of appreciation all the time. I charge candidates a modest fee to subsidize my expenses, and to avoid my services counting as a campaign contribution.
The biggest impediment to any voter database business in PA is that the state party runs their system as a monopoly with the usual arm-twisting and locking out of challengers to incumbents (and kickbacks). Fortunately, I’m not constrained by a profit-motive or party politics. Recently, I’ve started working on giving free state-wide access to my system to some non-profit activists groups. That will rock the boat.
I wouldn’t expect a Sestak acolyte to understand principles beyond profit and power, like altruism and sharing.

Next time you are talking with your buddy, Sestak, ask if he enjoyed paying $60,000 for the state system with it’s out-of-date voter files. It’s done wonders for his campaign so far. LOL!

BTW, he should check that database. He might discover that one of his campaign offices is led by a registered Republican, who can’t sign his petitions or vote for him in the primary.

As to your question: “And should we have to waste important resources in an unnecessary primary election against candidates with nothing to show for their own candidacies other than their own egos?” I hope you aren’t missing the irony of Sestak’s candidacy and ego.

BTW, the other candidates are Touey and Conner, not Touhy and Connor.
At least you didn’t spell Lentz with an “s”, or Sestak with a “z” or a “c”.