Hart Gatherers Supporters for Altmire Challenge

January 28th, 2008, posted by Greg Palmer

Former Allegheny County Councilman Ron Francis has ended his campaign for the GOP nomination to run against U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire, ensuring a rematch this year between Mr. Altmire, and former Rep. Melissa Hart, who lost the seat in 2006.

In a letter to supporters on Thursday, Mr. Francis said he was backing Ms. Hart, of Bradford Woods, to make sure the party is united going into the 2008 election.

“That’s going to be required to win,” Mr. Francis, a Ben Avon Republican and a partner at the Downtown law firm Reed Smith, said yesterday. “A primary fight was going to only help Altmire.”

Mr. Francis and Ms. Hart spoke this week, and she invited him to chair her campaign.

“I was very honored that he agreed to do so,” Ms. Hart said. “We have a unified team going into the election. It’s a great advantage.”

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HART MUST GO

On February 8th, 2008 Anonymous said:

Please Republicans, do you not listen to the voters!! No one wants Melissa Hart. She was an ineffective and poor representative to the area. If you can not find a candidate, just don’t put one up. Running a person like Melissa is basically giving the job back to Altmire again.

Additionally, I feel that the campaign of Melissa Hart should be audited. Since Melissa has no real income, I feel she must be living improperly off her campaign donations. I would send the request to US Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, but we all know that Ms. Buchanan is a campaign donor to Hart and a bias Republican.

Allegheny County deserves better than Melissa Hart.

That's Legal

On February 11th, 2008 Greg Palmer said:

Actually, it’s probably legal for her to live off of campaign donations. If I recall correctly, candidates can draw a salary from their campaign accounts that was equal to the salary they earned before they became a “full-time” candidate.

But in any case, I agree that the Republicans probably could have found someone better. Did Hart exert a lot of influence to keep other candidates out of the race?

Altmire and embarrasment

On February 11th, 2008 Anonymous said:

Sorry but Melissa Hart was one of best legislators representing Pennsylvania, she was unfortunate to be caught up in the 2006 tide against Republican incumbents. She was responsive to constituents inquiries and attentive to their needs and represented one of the few districts in the region that gained population and experience growth while most other were losing the

Since taking office Jason Altmire has been an embarrassment to the people he alleges to represent doing little more than dancing to the radical left’s main puppeteer George Soros and cares only about his big contributors.

The three voting members of our household will not be voting for president this year but you can be darn sure we’re all turning out to vote against Jason Altmire and I hope Melissa Hart is the one getting my vote.