Antony Williams shows us (some of) the money

Some of you might might remember that when we told state Senator Anthony Williams (D-Philadelphia) last month about the skepticism surrounding his claims of a rapid fundraising pace, he offered to provide some documentation.

Well, it took pa2010.com Central far too long to follow up, but this week Williams, the latest and last entrant into the Democratic primary for governor, held up his end of the deal. Though he wouldn’t show us a full, updated…

Ballot challenge, spearheaded by Lentz, alleges widespread fraud in Meehan’s petitions

The nominating petitions that Republican Pat Meehan’s congressional campaign submitted to get on the May primary ballot are so rife with invalid signatures and outright fraud as to warrant keeping the former U.S. Attorney off the ballot, according to a complaint filed in Commonwealth Court.

pIt was unclear Wednesday night when court hearings for any of the challenges would take place./p
pThe complaint, which is being handled by prominent election lawyer Clifford Levine, alleges that an examination of Meehan’s nominating petitions reveals “a wide-ranging and extensive pattern of false and forged entries, entries obtained through deception of Signers, and whole pages of outright forged signatures.” The complaint is the culmination of a several-days long effort by Lentz campaign staffers, during which they pored through Meehan’s nominating petitions and contacted people whose signatures they now believe were forged. Though Lentz cannot personally be the one challenging Meehan’s ballot position—the law requires the challenge come from a registered Republican—his campaign has made no effort to hide its fingerprints on on the complaint./p
p“This challenge will demonstrate that the instances of forgery and fraud in Meehan’s petitions extend far beyond what Meehan and his organization were willing to admit in their confession to the district attorney last week,” Lentz campaign manager Vincent Rongione said./p
pMore than 2,600 signatures have to be ruled void for Meehan to be knocked off the ballot. And while the complaint involves enough signatures that it alleges to be invalid, it references evidence which will only emerge in the discovery process if the case moves forward—making it impossible to fully and independently assess the allegations at this early stage./p
pMeehan’s campaign did not comment directly on the complaint or its substance Wednesday, except to share with reporters a href="http://www.pa2010.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Lentz-Letter_031710.pdf" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.pa2010.com']);return TrackClick("http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pa2010.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2010%2F03%2FLentz-Letter_031710.pdf','a+letter+that+he+sent+to+Lentz')" target="_blank"a letter that he sent to Lentz/a about the matter. In the letter, Meehan lamented that Lentz is picking “petty fights” and playing “gotcha politics.” He dismissed the scope of the complaint’s claims, and challenged Lentz to “do better.”/p
p“In truth, this whole part of the exercise is a charade,” Meehan wrote. “Stop hiding behind your political handlers and loyalists and stand up and make your support for this petty challenge public.”/p
pMeehan also said this his campaign had reviewed Lent’s nominating petitions and found 550 signatures that could be challenged (Lentz’s campaign collected more than 5,000)./p
p“But I chose not to engage in the waste of court resources that your campaign has willingly embraced,” Meehan wrote. “I believe voters deserve better.”/p
pThe complaint is nothing if not wide in scope, claiming to have evidence enough to strike 2,284 signatures simply on their individual merits. The signatures in question, according to the complaint, include ones that, among other things, were illegible; incomplete; belonging to voters not registered in the district; belong to voters not registered as Republicans; or forged entirely by someone else. It further alleges that many of the petitions on which signatures were gathered were circulated by people other than those who signed affidavits confirming they had  witnessed each signature./p
pAll together, it appears to be the most serious ballot challenge to a major candidate this cycle. And unless it completely flops in court, even a loss would seem to have significant political upside for Lentz. Despite its competitiveness, many Democratic leaders and fundraisers are bearish on the race, seeing Meehan and the powerful Republican Party in Delaware County as exceedingly tough to beat in a year trending against the Democrats. A substantive ballot challenge could dent that perception, and energize some in the party to take at least one foot off the sidelines./p
pIt also underscores that the Lentz campaign believes it has one of its strongest arguments against Meehan in seeking to paint him as part of the county GOP machine, a local party with a sway over local politics rivaled by few others in Pennsylvania. It’s an argument that will be especially hard to make against someone like Meehan—a man who can claim credit for putting former state Senator Vince Fumo behind bars, and who oversaw a City Hall probe that ended with guilty pleas or convictions for everyone charged./p
pAnd the complaint could also serve to put the county GOP itself “on trial,” in a manner of speaking. Some of the people the complaint targets for allegations of fraudulent signature collection include party bosses Tom Judge and John McNichol./p
pThe complaint began to emerge about a week ago, when operatives for Lentz learned that a supporter’s wife allegedly had her signature forged on a nominating petition. They began to dig deeper, and soon, Meehan alerted the press that it had asked county District Attorney Mike Green to investigate the matter (empa2010.com/em has yet to determine whether or not it was the Lentz campaign’s actions that directly led to Meehan learning of the problems). In a href="http://www.pa2010.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Green-Letter-3-10-10.pdf" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.pa2010.com']);return TrackClick("http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pa2010.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2010%2F03%2FGreen-Letter-3-10-10.pdf','his+letter+to+Green')" target="_blank">his letter to Green, Meehan acknowledged that petitions circulated by one person contain signatures “that we believe are questionable.” The disclosure got Meehan’s campaign ahead of the story for a…

Stensland still might run as an independent

The deadline for filing petitions to get on the primary ballot passed last week, and former Fox29 news anchor Dawn Stensland stayed out of the picture, taking off the table any

LEFTOVERS: Labor support for Sestak and Wagner, anti-Dahlkemper ad called ‘tasteless’

Hardly a day goes by now that we don’t hear about one labor union or another endorsing one candidate or another.

On Wednesday, it was Democrats Joe Sestak and Jack Wagner getting into the act. Sestak, the Senate hopeful, won the backing of the International Association of Machinists Lodge 1776 in Essington. The union represents about 3,000 workers throughout the state, including a bunch at Philadelphia International Airport, which resides in Sestak’s 7th Congressional District.…

Toomey hits Specter over earmark ban

A week after Democrats were

Automated poll shows Critz with slight lead in 12th District

Democrat Mark Critz hold a four-point lead over Republican Tim Burns in the May special election to succeed John Murtha, but more than a quarter of voters are still undecided, according to a new poll.

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D.A. investigating Meehan’s petitions is also a contributor (Updated)

When GOP congressional hopeful Pat Meehan needed someone to investigate possible problems with his nominating petitions last week,

Challenge to Hoeffel is withdrawn

Just a day after a supporter for Democrat Dan Onorato filed a petition seeking to keep gubernatorial rival Joe Hoeffel off the primary ballot, that challenge was promptly yanked off the docket.

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Biden to stump for Callahan next month

It was the White House that helped convince Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan to run in the 15th Congressional District, and now it’s pitching in for the effort.

Vice President Joe Biden will come to the district April 15 to campaign for Callahan’s bid against incumbent Republican Charlie Dent, Callahan’s campaign announced Wednesday.

“I am honored to have the support of Vice President Biden here in the Lehigh Valley,” Callahan said in a statement.  “The Vice…

BALLOT CHALLENGE ROUNDUP: Dahlkemper, Paige, Jones in the spotlight (Updated)

We’re still getting a handle on all the ballot challenges out there, and we’ll have expanded coverage of some of the bigger ones.

But in the meantime, here are a few that jumped out at us.

Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper (D-3) appears to be the only incumbent whose spot on the ballot for reelection is being challenged. Mel Marin, a Democrat opposing Dahlkemper in the May primary, filed a petition to keep her off the ballot…