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Robo-calls will link Tim Holden to Nancy Pelosi

Here come the robo-calls against Blue Dog Democrat Tim Holden.

The former Schuykill County sheriff who has safely held his House seat despite his district being predominantly Republican may be feeling the heat in 2010.

The National Republican Congressional Committee is set to issue robo-calls against Holden starting Tuesday. NRCC spokesman Tory Mazzola said Monday that the robo-calls will link Holden to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who the GOP hopes will raise the ire of already irate voters in the 17th Congressional District.

The automated calls will reach an undisclosed number of people in the 17th District, which encompasses parts of Schuykill, Dauphin, Berks and Perry counties.

“Tim Holden claims to be an independent voice in Congress, but the truth is that he’s a career politician who supports Nancy Pelosi’s partisan agenda 96 percent of the time,” the calls will say. ”He supported the trillion dollar stimulus bill which created more bureaucracy, not jobs.”

“Central Pennsylvanians should know that Holden talks a big game about fiscal discipline,” Mazzolla said, ”but when he’s back in Washington he falls in line with his Democrat[ic] leaders who are raising taxes and spending money with no regard for future generations.”

Holden’s potential Republican challenger, state Senator Dave Argall (R-Schuylkill), said Monday that he will decide within two weeks whether he’ll enter the race. The longtime state lawmaker said he has been deluged by requests from various political and non-political entities to run for Congress.

“I’ve told the NRCC to give me a couple more weeks to check some facts and figures,” Argall said.

The key issue appears to be funding. Holden has about $600,000 for his re-election bid while Argall said he has zero.

“It’s one of the concerns,” said Argall, adding that he is intrigued, especially after hearing about a “Draft Dave Argall for Congress” campaign being started.

“I think people are upset at Congress, but what I say is you can’t change Congress unless you change your congressman,” he said.

The NRCC seems eager to get Argall on board.

“I can tell you he would be an very good candidate,” said Mazzola.

Holden told The Patriot-News recently that he can’t be worried about a 2010 challenge.

Holden has been under fire from Democrats in his district angry that he voted against the House version of the health care reform bill. Holden said he was concerned about cuts to Medicare and the impact the legislation would have on rural hospitals via reimbursement rates.

“To some degree, how much do you think that vote against health care was a vote to save his job as a politician, to save his political career?” Mazzola said.

Holden has countered critics, saying that ”health care reform should create a system that saves money, or any reform will be feeding the fire of an inefficient system. Commonsense reform is necessary to bring down costs for everyone, while preserving what works in our current system.”

December 22, 2009 at 12:12 pm

--Laura Vecsey

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