Those that live in glass houses....

Let me start this post off by saying I think it is a real shame that two incumbent Democrats have to run against each other. I think that both Congressman Altmire and Congressman Critz are good Democrats. Yes, they have conservative voting records because they represent conservative districts. However, I would rather have a Congressperson that is with me a majority of the time than a Republican like Melissa Hart, Rick Santorum, or Keith Rothfus who I only agree with about 10% of the time.

Readers of my blog know that I favor Altmire and believe he is the only Democrat that can win in the 12th District this year.

Sadly, it appears that the Altmire/Critz race is getting nasty. I've spoken out about petition challenges before. While I respect the letter of the law, when candidates go after technicalities it is an insult to the hundreds of people that have signed petitions to help candidates get on the ballot. My sources have told me that this petition challenge most likely will be thrown out and Altmire will stay on the ballot. Lawyers that I have spoken with have told me these cases mostly depend on the judge and in cases of challenging residency the burden of proof falls on the challengers.

I expected the Critz campaign to release a strongly worded statement about the petition challenge and it was pretty standard.

The Altmire camp released a strongly worded statement in response.

Apparently, the Altmire press release really upset Critz's campaign campaign manager Mike Mikus because his response appeared angry and accusatory:

“The problem with Washington is that too many politicians like Jason Altmire have a sense of entitlement. Everyone knows the rules to get on the ballot and those rules even apply to Members of Congress like Jason Altmire.

The evidence shows that petitions were likely forged and petitions were circulated by ineligible circulators, among other violations. Instead of issuing over the top public statements, perhaps Congressman Altmire should be explaining why his campaign failed to follow the law."

This comes to the point of this post. When someone that works for your campaign is the mouthpiece and makes statements that accuses a candidate of forgery he or she better be squeaky clean. Doing a little google research on some of the other campaigns that Mike Mikus has been involved with and you will find this article about Mike Mikus being fired in 2001 by Pittsburgh mayoral candidate Bob O'Connor for fraudulently switching his address to vote in the Primary without being a resident of the city of Pittsburgh.

So the spin that the Critz campaign is putting on this petition challenge that Altmire is a shady, entitled politician is tough to take serious when the person giving the quotes for the Critz campaign has a shaky background in regards to a very similar subject.