5 fun facts from the 3rd quarter

A few days after third quarter campaign finance reports were published, here’s a handful of interesting items that jumped out at us.

1. Why spend money when you’ve barely started running? Republican 7th District candidate Pat Meehan, only 16 days into his campaign when the third quarter closed Sept. 30, didn’t have to. The former U.S. Attorney spent a paltry $607, records show. Most of it was for processing online contributions,…

October 19, 2009 at 11:00 am | Comments (1)

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…

June 23, 2009 at 7:16 pm | Comments (3)

Pike hires trio of consulting firms for 6th District run

Democrat Doug Pike, a former Philadelphia Inquirer editorial writer, has hired three political consulting firms—including the company run in part by Neil Oxman, a longtime strategist for Gov. Ed Rendell—for his campaign in the 6th Congressional District, Pike campaign manager Andrew Eldredge-Martin told pa2010.com today.

The Campaign Group, which Oxman runs with Doc Sweitzer and J.J. Balaban, will advise the Pike campaign and produce its radio…

June 23, 2009 at 4:54 pm | Comments (6)

pa2010.com’s Best-Dressed Political Consultants

A day after we presented our Top 10 Political Consultants list, pa2010.com offers up something far more superficial: Who’s the best dresser?

Let’s be honest here: Political consultants, especially in Pennsylvania, aren’t exactly known for their sense of fashion. Most operatives, when asked for their take on which of their colleagues had the best fashion, offered little more than a chuckle and a snide remark about sloppy shirts and…

June 23, 2009 at 10:00 am | Comments (8)

pa2010.com’s Top 10 Political Consultants

They’re the people pulling the political strings behind campaigns. The people who get politicians elected. The people journalists love to quote, even if they’re not exactly unbiased. They’re the people behind the scenes.

They are the Keystone State’s political consultants.

Few figures are as important to the inside-baseball game of politics we love to talk about here at pa2010.com. With that in mind, we present our first ever Top 10 Political Consultants.

In many ways,…

June 22, 2009 at 8:30 am | Comments (15)

Oxman downplays importance of Rendell’s support

Neil Oxman, the longtime political strategist who has been close to Gov. Ed Rendell for years, is now in the awkward position of having to say that his old boss actually doesn’t matter much.

Oxman is working for Democrat Joe Torsella, who now has to face newly-Democratic Senator Arlen Specter in next year’s primary. Torsella had been seen as Rendell’s favored candidate, but now most assume he’ll back Specter.

In an interview with Politico, Oxman…

April 28, 2009 at 5:47 pm | Comments (0)