A legal challenge seeking to keep independent Jim Schneller off the ballot was withdrawn from Commonwealth Court late Thursday, shortly after a judge issued a key ruling against supporters of Republican candidate Pat Meehan, whose campaign spearheaded the challenge. The resolution of the case in Schneller’s favor is a setback for Meehan, who now stands to lose at least some votes from a conservative who has dabbled in the so-called Birther movement and espouses many Tea Party ideals. And it’s a win for Democratic nominee Bryan Lentz, whose supporters helped Schneller get on the ballot in the hopes that he could siphon votes from Meehan in the contentious race.

Schneller, who represented himself and at one point asked the court to declare the state’s election law unconstitutional, could not immediately be reached for comment late Thursday.

James Colins, the Cozen O’Connor attorney representing Meehan’s camp, voiced dismayed by the outcome.

“I am disappointed with today’s rulings regarding the validity of Mr. Schneller’s petitions,” Colins said in a statement. “We pursued this case based on evidence that these petitions were not circulated in accordance with the law. The court has made its decision, and I respect that. However, I continue to believe that Mr. Schneller’s candidacy was disingenuously bolstered by Democrats, and he would not be on the ballot if it were not for a coordinated effort by the Lentz campaign.”

The significant help Schneller received from Lentz’s supporters only added bitterness to a race already filled with it. It also reignited an argument over nominating petitions that started in the spring, when Lentz’s campaign brought a ballot challenge alleging fraud in Meehan’s petitions. The challenge failed in court, but Meehan’s nominating petitions remain under investigation by the state attorney general’s office. Ever since then, the temperature in the state’s most competitive House race has remained red hot.

The withdrawal of the ballot challenge Thursday was brought about by a series of decisions by Commonwealth Court Judge Shelly Friedman earlier in the day. After Schneller seemed to imply to a local newspaper that his petitions had not been notarized in the presence of those who gathered the signatures as required by law, Meehan’s supporters were granted the right to take depositions—a relatively rare occurrence in ballot challenge cases. During those depositions, it was established that Lentz’s supporters did indeed witness notarization of the petitions, even though the notary public didn’t record them in her logbook as is required. Friedman ruled against the Meehan camp in deciding that those signatures were still valid.

Friedman also ruled that signers who gave the wrong municipality would still be counted, so long as the street address given matched the address at which they were registered.

After that, only the signatures of those who signed petitions for another candidate in the race, as well as other line-by-line challenges, remained to be litigated. The numbers—and the likelihood of getting Schneller under the required threshold—were not on Meehan’s side. So the challenge was withdrawn, canceling a hearing scheduled for Friday morning and closing the case.

Still, Meehan’s campaign continued to make its argument that Lentz played dirty.

“Jim Schneller’s candidacy has been nothing more than a deceitful and desperate attempt by Bryan Lentz to manipulate a race he is trailing in,” Meehan campaign manager Bryan Kendro said. “However, we respect the ruling of the court and do not feel it is a responsible use of taxpayer dollars and the court’s time to continue to pursue the challenge to Mr. Schneller’s petitions.”

Lentz’s campaign, for its part, continued to argue that the whole ordeal underscores an allegiance by Meehan to the conservative wing of his party.

“The Lentz campaign welcomes Jim Schneller to the race,” Lentz campaign manager Kevin McTigue said. “And while Jim Schneller and Pat Meehan battle for the support of the far-right, Bryan Lentz remains focused on growing the economy and job creation in the 7th district.”

But Lentz, a two-term state Representative, was briefly a Santorum supporter himself—at least financially.

Lentz gave Santorum’s campaign $250 in the summer of 2000, according to campaign finance data. While only a drop in the bucket of the millions that Santorum raised that cycle, the donation came just three months before Democratic nominee Ron Klink faced him at the polls.

The contribution was pointed out to pa2010.com by the Meehan campaign.

Lentz had not yet entered politics back then, and was in private practice as a lawyer between his Army deployments.

“As a favor to a friend, Bryan gave $250 in 2000 to Rick Santorum,” Lentz campaign manager Kevin McTigue said. “There is a big difference between supporting Rick Santorum’s campaign with $250 as a favor and supporting Rick Santorums’ far-right agenda like Pat Meehan does.  If Pat would attend any of the Town Hall meetings Bryan’s been hosting, Bryan would be happy to discuss with him the difference.”

Santorum is the only Republican to which Lentz has ever donated, according to campaign finance data. He gave $400 to Bob Casey a year before Casey unseated Santorum, and has also donated money to Chris Carney and the late Ted Kennedy. Meehan, for his part, appears to have made only one campaign contribution over the last decade: a $250 donation to Arlen Specter’s campaign in 2008, a few months before the longtime senator switched parties.

Lentz’s contribution to Santorum was briefly an issue of contention for Delaware County Democrats when Lentz was first running for Congress in 2006, but never rose beyond the chattering class and comments on the blogosphere. Lentz eventually stepped aside for Joe Sestak.

Correction: The headline for this article originally misstated the year in which Lentz contributed to Santorum’s campaign. As the article noted, it was 2000, not 2006.

“Lentz Campaign Calls For Meehan to Try and Win Votes with Ideas, Not Courts,” the headline screamed.

This is, of course, a reference to the fact that Republican Pat Meehan’s campaign in the 7th Congressional District has spearheaded a ballot challenge against Jim Schneller, the conservative independent candidate who got on the ballot thanks to help from Lentz allies. The controversy has made the contentious race between Lentz and Meehan even more heated.

“It is a shame how difficult it is for someone who’s demonstrated a sincere interest in being part of the democratic process to actually be on the ballot,” Lentz campaign manager Kevin McTigue said in the release. “Pat Meehan and his cohorts should be ashamed at the efforts they are going to to knock someone off the ballot who’s actually willing to say what he believes.”

Now, if you’ve been closely following this race, there’s really only one reasonable reaction to this statement: Whaa??

This is coming from the same campaign that brought ballot challenges of its own against all three of its opponents in both parties earlier this year, successfully knocking both primary challengers out of the race and unsuccessfully taking Meehan’s campaign to court over petition fraud.

Put your party affiliations and ideology aside for a second: This, my friends, is what we call hypocrisy.

Incredulous, I called up the Lentz camp, thinking maybe it was a (very) late April Fool’s joke or something. What I found out was even more confusing.

It turns out that aforementioned quote from McTigue was uttered verbatim in 2006 by one Virginia Davis, who was then a spokeswoman for Senator Rick Santorum’s campaign and is now Meehan’s spokeswoman. At the time, Davis was commenting on the fact that Democrats were challenging Green Party candidate Carl Romanelli’s spot on the ballot. The Lentz campaign quickly sent over a fact sheet full of the things Davis said about the Romanelli challenge back then, documentation it apparently had at the ready for when we Fourth Estaters called.

So, if I understand this correctly, this was some cute attempt to the bait the Meehan people into some kind of hypocrisy trap, using us unsuspecting reporters as the fishing rod. If that’s the case, they lost me on this particular one, and also left me feeling just a bit jerked around in the process.

Look, I know traps like this are set up frequently. Usually, they’re not so confusing.

But let’s look at the merits.

By throwing Davis’ 2006 quotes back at Meehan, the Lentz camp is making things more difficult for itself. If you want to call hypocrisy on the Meehan campaign for challenging Schneller (a fair point to make), just note that the very same campaign earlier this year decried ballot challenges as a waste of taxpayer money. I actually did that for them in this story. If you want to make the point that getting third-party candidates on the ballot to split the other side’s vote is standard fare for both parties (a very valid point to make), just say so. I did that for them, too.

But saying that Virginia Davis in 2006 = Pat Meehan in 2010 doesn’t hold water. In the public sphere, political spokespeople don’t actually have their own views. They speak for the candidates they represent. I know plenty PR pros who have had to forcefully advocate policies with which they don’t personally agree. If we journalists started holding these folks accountable for contradictions that arise from representing different candidates, we’d never be able to get of LexisNexis to report actually news.

More than anything else, though, going after Meehan on this subject when you’ve challenged everyone yourself and quietly helped another guy get on the ballot just seems like unnecessary rhetorical jumping jacks, an exercise that leaves the subject hanging by a substantive thread.

Next time, I hope they just say whatever they want to say.

Democrat Bryan Lentz and Republican Pat Meehan already came together for their first debate last week, a half-hour affair that was broadcast Sunday evening on the Comcast Network. The two will debate several more times in the coming months, starting with a radio debate Thursday evening hosted by Dom Giordano on The Big Talker 1210AM.

In an open letter to Giordano and his two opponents, Schneller, a conservative who got on the ballot thanks to help from Lentz’s supporters, said he wants in.

“Please reconsider your undemocratic decision to exclude me,” Schneller wrote. “I demand little in the way of debate tailoring, and can participate within your format. There is abundant time within which to re-tool for any changes you think may be necessary due to my appearance.”

Virginia Davis, who is also an aide to former Senator Rick Santorum as he mulls a run for president, will be the campaign’s day-to-day spokesperson for the next two-and-a-half months. Davis worked on Santorum’s 2006 campaign, and took maternity leave from Meehan’s campaign shortly after he left the statewide contest to run for Congress in the 7th District instead. Pete Peterson, who has served as the spokesman for almost a year, will stay on as a communications consultant, Meehan’s campaign manager said.

“I’m looking forward to being part of the effort as we ramp up,” Davis told pa2010.com. “I think we all know what an important race this is, and I really believe Pat is the right person to take this seat back from the Democrats.”

Meehan faces Democrat Bryan Lentz. The Delaware County seat, left open by Democrat Joe Sestak’s Senate run, is currently No. 1 on the pa2010.com Congressional Power Rankings.

Pat Meehan, the Republican candidate in the 7th Congressional District, and Mike Fitzpatrick, the challenger in the 8th District, were the latest to sign the pledge from Americans for Prosperity, the conservative advocacy group founded by billionaire David Koch. The pledge commits candidates to oppose any climate change measure that “includes a net increase in government revenue.”

“Using the guise of climate change to transfer dollars from hard-working citizens to bureaucratic big government is unacceptable,” Phil Kerpen, the group’s vice president for policy, said in a statement. “Regardless of their stance on global warming, this should be common ground for all of our elected officials at all levels of government.”

The pledge has also been signed by Mike Kelly in the 3rd District; Keith Rothfus in the 4th District; Tom Marino in the 10th District; Lou Barletta in the 11th District; Tim Burns in the 12th District; and Dave Argall in the 17th District.

The Web site, Pat Meehan’s Real Record, was formally unveiled Monday morning. Clearly designed to look like the GOP nominee’s official campaign homepage, the site aggregates and organizes the entirety of the political and policy attacks Lentz has made against Meehan over the last year, in what has proven to be the state’s most competitive and contentious House race. In short, the site makes the argument that Meehan is a career partisan who has risen not on merits but on the strength of his political connections.

Citing past news coverage, the site includes recaps of his campaign’s troubled petition drive; his past political exploits; a press conference in which Lentz stole the show; and the fact that, as U.S. Attorney, he survived a political purge in the Bush administration Justice Department that excluded so-called “loyal Bushies”

“Pat Meehan’s career has been defined by insider deals, partisan politics, and being more focused on getting press for himself than on results,” the site says. “The more people know about ‘Pat Meehan’s Real Record,’ the more they’ll know he’s the wrong choice for the 7th District.”

In a statement, Meehan campaign manager Bryan Kendro said Lentz is playing “gutter politics,” hitting the Democrat again for the help his allies provided in getting a third-party candidate on the ballot.

“Bryan Lentz has made a conscious effort to engage in gutter politics, resorting to dirty tricks, smear tactics and outright manipulation of the election in an attempt to gain an advantage,” Kendro said. “Lentz knows he cannot win a campaign running on his record, or support for the disastrous policies of Nancy Pelosi which have led to fewer jobs… and bigger government.”

We got some flak at the time, not surprisingly so. But we made one important promise: The Meehan campaign referenced a court document as evidence to back up its claims that Lentz was a “key beneficiary” of the legislative corruption scandal, and pa2010.com committed itself to “independently assess the full document.”

Well, thanks to a very helpful Judge Richard Lewis, yours truly recently made a trip to Harrisburg to give the document a look at the Dauphin County Courthouse. What I learned confirmed pretty much what I had expected: Team Meehan had its facts right, but the larger context was still, to put it generously, very incomplete.

More than two-dozen staffers of the state House Democratic Caucus did indeed do some work on behalf of Lentz’s election to the state House in 2006. The vast majority worked on the campaign for only one day, after Lentz won an online contest to receive a “campaign invasion” of volunteers for a day of canvassing. Others did research from within the Capitol on behalf of the party’s House campaign committee. Only one could possibly be called a “Lentz staffer” by any stretch.

Here’s the important point: The Meehan campaign’s attack hinged on a fundamentally flawed understanding of what Bonusgate actually was. In retrospect, I think it was a mistake that my coverage focused more on their rhetorical overreach and less on this dynamic.

Yes, Lentz benefited from Bonusgate. But according to the documentation I saw, more than two-dozen state House candidates across Pennsylvania benefited, too. To say he benefited from Bonusgate is simply to say he was a Democratic candidate for state House in 2006. And the courts have held that it’s the leaders of that conspiracy who are legally responsible, not the candidates who simply had no idea what was happening.

From a purely political standpoint, there’s pretty much unanimity of opinion, among both Democrats and Republicans, that the execution of this attack was botched by the Meehan campaign. I’m confident they now understand that. They kept a relatively lower profile in the aftermath, and didn’t come at Lentz hard again until this whole Jim Schneller fiasco, at which point they had their facts firmly correct and their ducks in a row.

All this having been said, I think it’s a good time to take stock of coverage of this race to date.

Look, I know people have had problems with how the race has been covered by pa2010.com, and I don’t blame them. A confluence of factors—geographical proximity to the district, no primaries, heated competition that started early—have made it the most thoroughly covered contest in the state, one in which we’re playing referee to a greater extent than anywhere else.

For months, the Meehan people were getting smacked back on these pages because they couldn’t get their facts right. More recently, the Lentz people have been subject to that treatment.

These candidates and the people around them share absolutely no love for each other. There is arguably no race in the state so filled with vitriol, and as things have swung back and forth, yours truly has often been caught in the middle. That’s the way it should be.

In an effort to really be honest with myself here, I went back and re-read pretty much every word I’ve ever written about the race (you can do the same by clicking here, but be sure to differentiate between the news stories and the blog/op-ed content). In more than 100 stories dating back to last April, I did find one clear mistake: this article about the Meehan campaign’s unpaid legal bills from fending off a ballot challenge.

There was nothing factually inaccurate about the story, and the crux of it was newsworthy because anything that substantively affects a candidate’s cash-on-hand is important. But the tone of it was completely out of whack. No one was accusing anyone of doing anything improper. So there was no reason for the article to take on such a tone. I offer up my regrets for this misstep.

Now, as we move forward, let’s remember one thing: This race is fun. This is hard-nosed electoral politics at both its best and its worst, exactly the kind of thing that should be candy for an audience of political junkies. I’ve learned a lot from covering it. I just hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have.

Good luck to both the candidates.

The independent candidate in the 7th Congressional District told pa2010.com Thursday that he will serve as his own lawyer in fighting the ballot challenge spearheaded by Republican Pat Meehan’s campaign.

“At least for the time being,” he said, “I intend to represent myself.”

Schneller may have little choice but to do so; defending ballot challenges is expensive, and he has little in the way of campaign cash. Though not a licensed attorney, he refers to himself as “legally trained.” Over the past several years, he has brought more than half-a-dozen lawsuits against local government bodies, financial industry firms and health care providers, according to public records. He said that experience “allows me to think on my toes” in a courtroom.

But he will almost certainly be at a disadvantage against James Colins, the Cozen O’Connor attorney representing Meehan’s supporters who brought the ballot challenge. Colins is a former president judge of the Commonwealth Court, which is handling the case.

A hearing was originally ordered to take place Aug. 18 in Philadelphia, but Colins filed for a continuance Thursday, according to court records.

Schneller got on the ballot thanks to help from allies of Democratic nominee Bryan Lentz, reigniting the already heated race between the two.

“Together, Lentz and Schneller failed to gather enough valid signatures to place Schneller, Lentz’ surrogate candidate, on the ballot,” Colins said in a recent statement. “We look forward to our day in court.”

Since then, Schneller has used the public spotlight to accuse both parties of conspiring against his candidacy, rhetoric that continued Thursday. Democrats conceivably helped Schneller in the hope that he could pull conservative votes form Meehan in the state’s most competitive House race, but Schneller still thinks all parties are dead-set against him.

“For all we know the Bryan Lentz campaign has also been a partner in this petition and/or in the ongoing concerted efforts to respin my campaign,” Schneller said in his latest statement Thursday. “The bare fact that the striking of my nomination signatures could end my candidacy does not mean that Pat Meehan would be the benefactor of the matter. Both Lentz and Meehan stand to lose votes to me, and their back and forth on the signature-gathering matter has revealed that.

“Their mission is to nip my campaign in the bud,” he added, “and the past week’s carousel is what the region’s best two-party minds came up with.”

First, incumbent Democrat Chris Carney rolled out his military-guy-supporters to speak out against Republican opponent Tom Marino. You might remember that Carney was peeved that Marino attacked him for not signing on to an anti-abortion bill while he was tending to his cancer-stricken wife, and then twisting the knife while Carney was on active duty and couldn’t respond. So Carney, a Navy reservist, trotted out some of his fellow men in uniform to make the case that Marino’s attack “questions military directives” and “disparages veterans.”

“If this week has taught us nothing else, it is that Mr. Marino is a politician willing to disrespect the sacrifice our troops make everyday in an effort to win a news cycle,” former Army Sgt. Matt Kramer said in a campaign statement, one of several vets the Carney folks quoted. “As a veteran of combat in two overseas operations, I find it disgusting that Congressman Carney’s service to his country would be used as a political issue, and that Mr. Marino would do so in a way that so-obviously conveyed not only his lack of respect for Reservists and others who serve our country admirably, but demonstrated a true lack of knowledge of the Uniformed Code of Military Conduct.”

Marino essentially responded to all this by saying “hey, military guys like me, too.” His campaign, naturally, rolled out its own set of veteran supporters, who set Carney was politicizing his service.

“As a retired general I am disappointed that Chris Carney is playing politics with his military service,” Army Major General Dan O’Neill said. “As a citizen I am disappointed that Chris Carney says one thing in the district and does another when he gets to Washington D.C. Chris Carney should campaign on the issues and stop playing politics by making false accusations against Tom Marino.”

Anyone still remember how this started?

Elsewhere in northeast Pennsylvania, we saw the always-enjoyable intersection of sports and politics. It started when Congressman Glenn Thompson (R-5) circulated a letter among his Pennsylvania colleagues asking President Obama to give Penn State football coach Joe Paterno the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Of the 19 members of the state’s delegation, 17 signed it. Only Congressmen Chaka Fattah (D-2) and Paul Kanjorski (D-11) didn’t.

Naturally, this rubbed Kanjorski’s opponent the wrong way. So Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta’s campaign called “off-sides” on Kanjorski. Clearly the third contest between these two is only getting more bitter.

“Joe Paterno is a living legend in Pennsylvania,” Barletta campaign spokesman Shawn Kelly said. “His list of accomplishments and achievements—both on and off the field—is pages long. Paterno is more than a football coach. He is a very gracious and generous man, supporting many worthwhile university and community projects. It’s extremely hard to comprehend why Kanjorski did not sign this nomination letter for JoePa. Even the most die-hard fans of other teams recognize Joe Paterno’s place in the history of college sports. By failing to sign this letter, Kanjorski shows once again how out of touch he is.”

Kanjorski’s countered that Congress should be focusing on jobs, and not “politicizing football.”

“Joe Paterno is a hero of Pennsylvania,” Kanjorski said in a statement. “His dedicated work and leadership both on and off the football field is of great service to both Penn State and the Commonwealth. In addition to his many feats on the field, he has encouraged one of the highest graduation rates among college football players showing his dedication to both academics and football. He also creates an atmosphere that fosters emerging talent, as can be seen with Matt McGloin, a West Scranton graduate and former walk-on, who may become the team’s starting quarterback. Joe Paterno has fostered great pride in Penn State from all Pennsylvanians. At this time, Congress should focus its efforts on creating jobs in our communities and reviving the economy, rather than politicizing football. This is where my focus has been and where it will continue to be.”

And finally, we’re still hearing from Tea Party folks peeved about how things are going in the 7th Congressional District. Last week they asked independent Jim Schneller to get out of the race since he’s emerged as Democrat Bryan Lentz’s spoiler candidate. This week they’re peeved at Lentz for continually referring to Schneller as the “Tea Party candidate.” Schneller has alternately described himself as a Tea Party candidate or not a Tea Party candidate, depending on the day he’s asked.

Regardless, he’s running on the American Congress Party ticket, and the local Tea Party group in Philly has endorsed Republican Pat Meehan. That group, the Independence Hall Tea Party, told Lentz Tuesday to stop referring to Schneller as one of their own.

“The Lentz campaign is using Schneller as a pawn to divide the Tea Party vote,” the Tea Party PAC’s president Don Adams said in a statement. “Mr. Lentz and his campaign staff have deliberately attempted to manipulate the Tea Party vote by repeatedly referring to Schneller as the Tea Party candidate—knowing full well that Schneller labels himself as a candidate of the American Congress Party. … Someone should send a memo to Bryan Lentz: ‘The Tea Party movement will not back a spoiler named Schneller. We have endorsed Pat Meehan, and, on November 2, we will fire Nancy Pelosi.’”