Search
Close this search box.

PA-7 Race Off to Slow Start

Badey (right) talks Mummers with Mayor Michael Nutter and Rep. Bob Brady (Photo: Philadelphia Inquirer)

The race for Congress in the 7th district should be one of the top in the state. Freshman Republican Pat Meehan must defend a record with no shortage of tough votes in a suburban Philadelphia seat in a presidential campaign year. But so far, things are off to a slow start.

The Democratic candidate, attorney George Badey, is still assembling a campaign.

“Earlier this week we filed well over 3,000 signatures from all five counties in the district,” he told PoliticsPA on Valentine’s Day. “We plan on making a formal announcement within the next couple of weeks.  At that time, the clear differences between Pat Meehan and I will be very apparent.”

He has yet to be an announcement about the official kickoff. Meanwhile, Meehan turned in 4,750 petition signatures.

Compare that to the efforts of Kathy Boockvar, who is challenging Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R-Bucks) in the neighboring 8th congressional district. She has a campaign staff, a website, she’s pulled in big endorsements, and sends out press releases.

Badey is partner at Badey, Sloan & DiGenova in Philadelphia with a concentration in personal injury litigation. He is currently the chairman of the Radnor Township Democratic Party and also serves as the Chairman of the Board of SaveTheMummers.com Fund.

“We have a terrific candidate in George, and the citizens of the 7th district will be impressed with his knowledge of the issues,” said David Landau, chairman of the Delaware County Democratic Party.

He says that the GOP-drawn map of the 7th district – which cut out strong Democratic areas like Swathmore and Nether Providence – won’t kill his party’s chances.

“Of the new district composition, 52 percent went to the polls for Obama in 2008,” Landau said. “Less democrats does not mean a poor performance. It will be a close election.”

“Meehan is out of step with the district. He tried to portray himself as a moderate. This district is a moderate place being liberal on social policies and fiscally conservative. Meehan is with the Tea Party and has not made one moderate vote on labor or the environment.”

The Meehan campaign did not respond to a request for comment. But as they say, money talks. Meehan has $970,000 on hand, while Badey is just getting started.

Andrew Blum was a campaign staffer to Bryan Lentz, Meehan’s 2010 opponent. He founded the group Accountability PA and even cut a television spot about Medicare as an effort to dog Meehan and keep his favorables down. He says he isn’t impressed with Democrats’ progress so far.

“I have really heard very little,” about the race, Blum said. “We’ll see after the primary if he has a chance, but there won’t be much to talk about if Meehan continues his frenetic fundraising pace. He’s outraised all other house freshmen in PAC money and shows no signs of slowing down.”

“Badey needs infrastructure, or at least the appearance of infrastructure to fight back against the PAC money, but being without a website just a few months before the primary doesn’t bode well.”

7 Responses

  1. Meehan past as a puppet for the Bush administration will catch up to him in this election. He put party chronism and his political ambition above the rights and concerns of the US military members. He settled a case for an equity giant who was ripping off the servicemembers of our fighting men and women so the Bush administration could protect its republican friends doing business in Waco Texas. Meegan and Alberto Gonzolez helped Thoma Cressey Bravo equilty by shielding their lost in a settlement agreement in 2006.

  2. Meehan will win no problem. He couldn’t be more in tune with his district. Calling him a conservative is a stretch. He’s just a regular person representing his district. If his every vote doesn’t please the unions or the wingers, that’s to his credit.

  3. Has Sestak been helping lead the charge? He should help fundraise (up to the amount) of the PA-7 congressional acct at the time he took that amount and ran for Senate.

  4. Bookvar is going to lose by 15% against Fitzpatrick. I don’t know Bady but I know Bookvar and she will be destroyed as a perpetual campaigner. Her skeletons are going to destroy her base.

  5. Pat is little more than a Republican Bobble-head.

    As for comparing to Brookvar, that’s not a fair comparison because she just finished a campaign recently and has name recognition, experience, and possibly some staffers.

    The biggest impediment for Badey is the utter incompetence of the current Delco Dem chairman, Landau.

  6. If by “slow start”, you mean Badey is a no-name candidate that nobody in SEPA has heard of and nobody will bother wasting their money by contributing to, then yes, I’d say it was a slow start.

  7. pat has never taken a tough vote! he just does what his party bosses tell him to do-the ultimate hack.

Email:
  • Do you agree that ByteDance should be forced to divest TikTok?


    • Yes. It's a national security risk. (60%)
    • No. It's an app used by millions and poses no threat. (40%)
    • What's ByteDance? (0%)

    Total Voters: 30

    Loading ... Loading ...
Continue to Browser

PoliticsPA

To install tap and choose
Add to Home Screen