A National Leader

Chris Carney is a different kind of Congressman than we are used to in northeastern Pennsylvania. For many years all we expected our Congressman to do was bring home the bacon. Joe McDade and Dan Flood were masters of the process and Paul Kanjorski and Don Sherwood followed in that tradition. The questions of war and peace were left to others. Now we have a Congressman that was right in the middle of the decision to go to war in Iraq and people are looking to him to explain what went wrong and how to get out of this mess. In a NY Times profile he said :

“It was the politics of division, and the way Congress eschewed its role of oversight and accountability. We didn’t have any checks on the administration. I think that was the bottom line for me.”

He has also been quoted in the LA Times and The New Yorker. I even caught him on Hardball one night. And he's a freshman! He wants a seat on the Appropriations Committee (who doesn't) but seems better suited to Armed Services.

The other side is already plotting his demise. The 1998 Republican primary candidates have mostly disapeared except for Honesdale Attorney Errol Flynn. Recently retired state rep Jerry Birmelin has expressed an interest. Primary opponent Kathy Scott probably is not a viable candidate but the GOP hope seems to center on Joe Peters, the Scranton native who was the Republican state auditor general candidate in 2004 that lost.