"99 percent" candidate exits 7th District race
Long shot candidate Owen Powell drops out of the 7th Congressional District race. Apparently, he was big at Wawa ... and the Maldives.
"99 percent" candidate exits 7th District race
William Bender
My email inbox informs me that "pro-democracy activist" Owen Powell, one of two third party candidates in this year's 7th Congressional District race, has bowed out because he didn't have the resources to be competitive in November. Read: You can't get elected to Congress without a couple million bucks to throw around.
Powell, the self-described "candidate for the rest of us" who was campaigning on a cut-military-spending platform (good luck with that), said he was well received in "hair salons, lumber yards, paint stores, Wawas and pizza parlors" ... and even one guy from the Maldives Islands who "checked out my page every day for months."
"Whoever you are, luv ya!" Powell emailed.
Unfortunately for Powell, the Maldives Islands have not yet been devoured by the ridiculously gerrymandered 7th Congressional District, aka The Blob, which now extends from Delaware County into Chester, Montgomery, Berks and Lancaster counties, as a result of the last decennial redistricting.
Meanwhile, Republican U.S. Rep. Pat Meehan has raised more than $2 million, several times more than his Democratic challenger, Radnor lawyer George Badey, who has had to lend his own campaign $127,500.
For a cool $2 million, I'd say Owen Powell could get back in this thing!
And people call the Repubs shady, but yet George Badey is loaning his own campaign $127500 to get himself elected. Tell me that isn't shady?— Taxpaying Voter- And people call the Repubs shady, but yet George Badey is loaning his own campaign $127500 to get himself elected. Tell me that isn't shady?— Taxpaying Voter
- What's shady about lending a modest sum (by political standards)to one's own campaign? Is Badey going to be unduly influenced by himself? If anything, his low fund-raising total so far indicates that he hasn't sold his soul to anybody.
— person - No story here folks - move on!— SPENDSPEND
- If you are doing a lot of your own campaign funding, it pretty much means that the party isn't particularly excited by you. Tom Smith is ridiculously self-funded to the point where I wonder if he has any support at all. The only real danger/conflict I see with self-funded is if they intend to promote/pass some legislation that will give them a big windfall. Like, if a casino owner funded his own campaign, and then when in office tried to alter rules for legalized gambling in places he owned or wanted to expand to.— daviddiano
- A nobody can win any election. The person needs a good message. Look at Obama 2008. He got half a billion in donations by saying hope and change and I'm not Bush.— AvoidSundanceVacations
- I just noticed something when I clicked the link to the "ridiculously gerrymandered" map of the 7th above; the map looks like a silhouette of a cartoon deer kicking the western half of the district. Might be a prediction as to how the residents of the western half might feel while part of a very Delco-centric Congressional district....— jerkoftheworld
- @Avoid--Saying I'm not Bush is about the best message I have in years, second best: I'm not Mitt.— mick-of-the-moment
How is this even legal? My kids throw spaghetti at the wall that looks less messy.— verve
Comment removed.- For a cool $2 million he would still finish a distant 3rd and be out the dough. Hello, dont you get it? The Occupy/far left movement dont have any electoral support for their message other than the news media pumping it. Paying for people to hear their ideas versus hearing it for free wont change a thing..— tr88
- Why is this even a story?— Speak-truth-2-power
