Congressional hopefuls rally supporters

As of 8:30 p.m. Saturday, the so-called enthusiasm gap between the nation's Republican and Democratic voters hadn't made its way down Baltimore Pike to the strip mall where Democrat Bryan Lentz's congressional campaign is headquartered.

His people were fired up.

That included Jon "Bowzer" Bauman from the retro pop band Sha Na Na, who was flexing his muscles inside while a mummers trio with a banjo, saxophone and accordion regaled Lentz's supporters in the parking lot. Even an anti-Lentz protester in a ghost costume stopped making spooky noises long enough to bust out some mischief-night dance moves.

"Now this is a campaign," Upper Darby Democratic leader Ed Bradley said as Gov. Rendell hopped off his touring bus and squeezed into the back room to rally the troops in Delaware County's 7th Congressional District. He urged Democrats to stand up to a "Republican tidal wave" that could give the GOP control of Congress after tomorrow's election.

"There's something frightening happening," Rendell said on the eve of Halloween. "The Republican Party is being taken over by extremists and wackos and nutjobs."

Lentz is trying to hold on to the seat being vacated by Democratic U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, who is running for Senate, by countering the GOP's national momentum with a strong get-out-the-vote operation. Hundreds of campaign volunteers knocked on 20,000 doors on Saturday alone, he said.

"We're kicking ass on the ground," said Lentz, a former Army Ranger.

Yesterday, Republican Pat Meehan's campaign was running phone banks at his Upper Darby headquarters and several satellite offices around the 7th District. Meehan, a former U.S. attorney and Delaware County district attorney, said he's been feeding off the energy of his volunteers in the closing days of his campaign.

"I come in here and I see the sense of commitment and enthusiasm, and it fills me with a sense of inspiration," Meehan said. And if supporters needed any Halloween inspiration, he promised to slay their bogeywoman, saying his first vote in Washington would be to "repeal Nancy Pelosi," the House speaker from San Francisco. That got a lot of applause.

"Government doesn't create jobs. The private sector does, and the overwhelming debt is going to cripple us into the future," Meehan said, echoing the small-government message that national Republicans say will enable them to regain a majority in the House.

In Bucks County's 8th District, Democratic U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy is fighting for his political life against Republican Mike Fitzpatrick, the district's former congressman whom Murphy unseated in 2006 by about 1,500 votes. With this year's race expected to be close, Fitzpatrick and Murphy are embroiled in a nasty dispute over thousands of absentee ballots.

Murphy's campaign is accusing Republicans of resorting to "Florida-style Bush tactics" to "steal the election" by challenging Democratic votes. Fitzpatrick is accusing Democrats of manipulating the voting process by routing absentee-ballot applications through a Bristol post-office box controlled by Murphy's campaign manager and sending misleading applications from a fictitious "Pennsylvania Voter Assistance Office."

In the sprawling 6th District, which includes parts of Chester, Montgomery, Berks and Lehigh counties, Democrat Manan Trivedi is campaigning furiously, hoping to pull off an upset against Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Gerlach.

Even though Saturday was their sixth wedding anniversary, Trivedi, a Berks County doctor and Iraq War vet, and his wife, Surekha, were making calls to voters in his campaign office, with their 6-month-old daughter, Sonia, sitting on his lap.

Gerlach, who was leading Trivedi by 10 points in a Monmouth University poll released Oct. 21, apparently is keeping a comparatively lower profile. His campaign manager, Greg Francis, said he didn't know what Gerlach was doing yesterday.

The third candidate in the 7th District race is Jim Schneller, a right-wing tea-party proponent whom Lentz's supporters helped place on the ballot to take conservative votes from Meehan. Schneller has little support and almost no money, but is predicting a "historic upset" tomorrow.