SENATE UNDERDOG UPDATE: A new Dem candidate, a GOPer goes indie

It turns out that the Democratic primary for Senate is still a three-person race.

Yes, political junkies, there’s a candidate out there who no one’s talking about. His name is Joe VodVarka. He lives in McKees Rocks in Allegheny County, and owns a small business making springs for, among other customers, weapons manufacturers. And even though we hadn’t heard about him until recently, he actually filed a statement of organization all…

March 1, 2010 at 2:30 pm | Comments (10)

Where are the blacks and women?

Only a few months ago, American was in the midst of an election cycle featuring two trailblazing candidates. The first black major-party nominee for president and the first female vice-presidential candidate on the GOP side. This after the future president and another groundbreaking woman slugged it out in a touch Democratic primary.

But even after all that’s happened on a national level, politics in the Keystone State in many ways remains a white male sport.…

May 4, 2009 at 8:32 am | Comments (1)

Luksik: I was here first

In the weeks leading up to Republican Pat Toomey’s announcement that he would run for Senate, Peg Luksik, who had already declared her candidacy, made it abundantly clear what she thought of conservative sentiment that she should step aside in favor of Toomey, widely considered the more viable candidate.

“I’m running,” she told pa2010.com recently, before Toomey had entered the race. “If [Toomey] wants to get in on top of me and split the vote,…

April 23, 2009 at 10:35 am | Comments (2)

A Republican who’s not afraid of Limbaugh

Larry Murphy has strong feelings about Rush Limbaugh.

“Rush Limbaugh is a racist, he’s a cancer to the Republican Party and he should be excised,” Murphy said recently.

Those aren’t unusual sentiments. But what is unusual is hearing them from a Republican candidate for office. Republicans far and wide have been prostrating themselves before Limbaugh in recent months, who has been effective at leveraging…

April 23, 2009 at 10:02 am | Comments (41)