Blaming the Wall Street fiasco on Meehan is a huge stretch.

Why is this website becoming a talking head for Lentz’s campaign. It seems that every Lentz news release is treated as breaking news that is to be taken without any investigation.

Keep reaching Lentz, maybe by November you’ll find a credible story worth writing about. A desperation press release at its finest. I’m officially done reading this site.

So assuming Meehan actually does oppose the reform bill (and he hasn’t said that he does), how does his opposition to a bill that has strong support from Wall Street tycoons at banks like Goldman Sachs indicate that he’s in bed with Wall Street tycoons? Shouldn’t the headline here be “Bryan Lentz supports Wall Street bill supported by Wall Street”?

Hey J. Hughes,

I am increasingly getting complaints similar to yours.

As many readers know, I try not to engage any allegations of bias because there’s nothing one can really say to convince the skeptics.

But what I can say is this:

As a nonpartisan political news Web site focused on the minutia of strategy, we cover these types of releases from all candidates in both parties. We fact-check them where appropriate, and allow readers to make their own value judgments where appropriate. In this respect, both campaigns in the 7th District race have been treated the same way.

However, the campaigns have their own role to play by engaging (or not engaging) in the conversation. This story might have been very different if the Meehan campaign had called me back. I honestly don’t know, because I don’t know what they would have said.

But for whatever reason, the Meehan campaign appears to be speaking with pa2010.com less and less.

This is their prerogative. But it also leaves them partially responsible for the tone of the coverage. “Balance” does not mean both sides get equal time. Balance means both sides are treated equally. We simply can’t tell two sides of the story effectively if only one side is talking to us.

We will continue to report this race, and all races, aggressively and fairly.

Thanks for reading, and for your feedback.

Dan Hirschhorn

Dan,

I get what you’re saying about the Meehan camp ignoring you, but don’t you have some responsibility to report these things with a critical eye? Goldman Sachs, among many other Wall Street banks, supports the bill and Goldman’s CEO himself said “the biggest beneficiary of reform is Wall Street itself”…

Doesn’t the fact that this bill is supported by the Wall Street elite, not to mention the fact that Wall Street gave huge amounts of money to Obama and congressional Dems, at least partially undercut the entire validity of Lentz’s statement?

Granted, those are points that the Meehan people should have raised, but if you “fact check where appropriate”, wouldn’t those be important points to include in your story?

Hey TonySoprano (love your handle),

You make a fair point, and it’s one that I’ll need to consider. But this is one of those times when I go back to how narrow our niche is. We don’t dissect the merits of policy at length, leaving that for news organizations with more resources to take on such endeavors.

What we do undertake is fact-checking of basic political claims and attacks, and it’s here that I’ll be the first to admit the Meehan folks have sometimes gotten the proverbial short-end-of-the-stick on these pages. They’ve put out things that don’t past muster more than once, and we’ve called them on it (even Meehan campaign insiders have conceded this to me).

Whether or not the financial reform bill is “good” legislation is a matter of legitimate public debate, and it’s a subject on which I know our educated readers are studying up on in more appropriate venues.

All that said, your point is a good one, and I’ll keep it in mind going forward.

Thanks as always for the feedback.

Dan Hirschhorn

Dear mr. Hirschhorn,

You are a liberal reporter. Period. I did some back reading and all of your articles are left leaning and in all of them you claim the Meehan campaign has been “uncooperateve.” I’m not convinced that your leftiness doesn’t have you ignoring or neglecting to contact them so you can write the “news” how you feel is appropriate. Even if you did try to contact them, I can see, by your writing bias and general attitude why they would want to avoid talking to you. Either way though I enjoy reading what you write and enjoy the comments section. Keep writing because everyone improves with practice.

Hey P. Lombardo,

You’re entitled to your opinion.

I always get a kick out of these bias charges, especially since they always come from all sides.

I’m confident that those who truly know my work know better.

Thanks for reading.

Dan Hirschhorn

p.s., please, call me Dan. I don’t know any Mr. Hirschhorn

Poor desperate Lentz. Trying to get traction again. The magnitude of his loss this fall will startle even the staunchest Democrat.

As for his bizarre strategy of blaming Meehan for the country’s ills under a Democrat president and congress, normal voters will laugh at Lentz while the Moonbats applaud. In the end, it won’t matter one little bit.

1994-
You have a problem with discussing issues?

Lombardo-
Are you calling the Meehan camp afraid to rebut/discuss issues?

TonyS-
Hirschorn is supposed to do Meehan’s job of responding to his opponent?

And all the rest of you -
Don’t you want to know where Meehan stands on the issues?

Hey, Guiney, how about this issue: http://realclearpolitics.blogs.time.com/2010/06/01/republicans-jump-out-to-historic-lead-in-gallup-generic-ballot/

You lefties are SO Screwed this fall…

Dan,

You guys do a great job here. I’ve been in journalism, and know how difficult it can be to present a story evenly when one of the players doesn’t provide commentary.

P. Lombardo – most of the “interesting” coverage earlier this season had to do with the Dem primaries (gov, senate), because they were contested, whereas the Repubs were not. The coverage of the 12th was very balanced, if you followed that at all.

pa2010, keep up the great reporting, it’s a real service to the people of PA.

1994-
Thanks for the update. I guess it’s time for you to take a well deserved rest from campaigning, since you have everything locked up.

J. Hughes, TonySoprano and P. Lombardo-
Dan’s playing it very fair. A candidate makes a news release, that is a novel attack, and Dan reports it.
Dan offers the opposing candidate the opportunity to respond. If they don’t, then it’s on them, not Dan. That’s how it works in journalism. It’s not like Meehan had a response and Dan failed to report it.

Dan’s not going to write Meehan’s press releases for him. Meehan and the Delco GOP are used to having the Delco Times as part of their press team doing that job. They consider anything to the Left of Gil “The Shill” Spencer to be biased reporting. Heck, Gil often does a better job promoting them their their own press spokesmen.

Meehan’s staff would rather come here and whine and criticize Dan, than actually issue a press release or official statement. Boo. Hoo.

Funny last weeks Democrats were ahead
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2010/05/26/democrats_grab_back_lead_in_generic_ballot.html

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2010/05/26/republicans_losing_hispanic_voters_in_big_numbers.html

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2010/05/26/stimulus_package_worked_better_than_projected.html

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2010/05/26/support_for_health_care_reform_increases.html

Meehan is running a very tight campaign and has been willing to engage the public only on a limited and very controlled basis. Financial reform is apparently an issue they don’t want to talk about. Meehan has also been reluctant to put forth specifics on his plan to cut federal spending, balance the budget etc. Has proposed some sort of constitutional amendment, but in a district that is heavily dependent on gov spending, Meehan hasn’t laid out any specifics on what programs/jobs he favors cutting. This is not just an issue for the press/blogs, it affects the lives of the districts voters, as, of course, does financial reform. It’s really about time that Meehan came out and showed the voters exactly who he is and what he intends to do. He has really no experience with constituents and no real political record. Time to put some specifics on the table.

Gotta’ love statistics and reports and press releases – all meant to spin the reader!

In reality, most reports are written to gather facts to support the writer’s conclusion and not written to gather facts then come up with a conclusion.

Learning to read them both and between the lines is what makes people smart. Not a lot of that happening these days, though as hyper-partisanship is only increasing.

could care less about Lentz…just don’t want another DELCO republican. The national generic ballot is fun to look at and talk about, but in Delaware COunty, when people vote, like they do in even yeared generals, they vote against Republican policies. Pat Meehan may be a great guy but, unfortunately, he is John McNichol, Tommy Judge, Charlie Sexton, Nick Catania, Curt Weldon, Dom Pileggi and Paul Summers’ guy too, which is bad for an election, imho.

Keep grasping at straws, same story different day. I don’t care who the DELCO GOP is, and frankly it doesn’t even matter. As long as Nanci Pelosi keeps opening her mouth in front of a camera, and the Obama administration keeps spewing to the press and the American public the same worthless junk that’s coming out of that pipe a mile below sea level, the American public will continue to take off the rose-colored glasses and realize that the Democratic platform of false hope and fancy promises quickly fades when, after a year and a half, 9.5% of Americans are still unemployed.
Promises, Promises, Promises…business-as-usual in Washington and Harrisburg. My fellow small business owners and I are proud to support Pat Meehan for Congress.

I would be willing to bet most people do not know (or care) who Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid are.
Repeating their names in every sould bite to demonize them was a flack driven spin avoid directly attacking a popular President or even talk about the substance of a given subject.
All politics is local and if Meehan dose not shift of of the trite talking ponts he is toast.

Popular? It’s pretty bad if even CNN is criticizing a liberal. Some transparency we’re seeing huh? November can’t come soon enough. What subject would you like to talk about sir? The fact that our President continues to blame the past administration for his mess after a year and a half in office? Arizona immigration law? The floor is your’s.

I think you missed the point. Meenan is shamelessly plagiarizing themes from the RNC that dont relate to issues in his district , he has no real personal opinion on or has been silent on up to this point.
Repeating the names Pelosi, Reed as some kind of satanic cult in a word salad of catch phrases or “talking points” then claims pseudo substantively as being for small government or pro jobs are all designed to appeal base emotions

Goodnatured,

It’s a good thing Bryan Lentz has been coming up with his own talking points, like blaming the financial crisis on Republicans. Gee, I wonder why pelosi and Obama haven’t thought of that?

The past administration is responsible for the mess they left the economy in when they left. Tony Soprano,perfect name for a republican, they operate just like mafia gangsters. Did you repubs miss it when the bush admin. came and told Congress that the economy would collapse if they didn’t bail out the banks,probably crying in your beers over “I’m not a Maverick” McCain and Caribou Barbies loss in the election. Personally I don’t think the American people have as short a memory as you hope, or are nearly as dumb as you think, We know who is the party of “Drill baby Drill”. November is going to be a disaster for you guys. much like the last two elections were.

Good one Bill, I’m sure that “Caribou Barbie” phrase took you a while. We will see who wins in November. I’m not saying Obama caused the oil spill by any means, but this, along with the Sestak scandal and now possibly even the Blago trials have the potential to cast a very dark shadow on the Obama Presidency. We shall see.

The dark shadow is the closed door meetings Cheney had in the Bush White House with the greedy oil aristocracy (including our pals at BP & Haliburton)=11 dead oil workers and half a hemisphere polluted.
Yeah people are going to give shit about Blago, and the Sestack carping. The economy,jobs, the wars and surviving BP criminal acts is where Pennsylvania is gona focus on in November – not the chanting of banal talking points and the hate cartooning on fox.
IMHO
(People should look up Issa’s sterling reputation and credentials to get a good look at who the R’s have on point for ethics issues now)

Mitchell, Sestak scandal please keep it up. Reps president’s didn’t do the same in the past right.
Joe didn’t take the deal and he won anyway so even if you thought it was dirty it doesn’t matter. It’s Pointless.
Blago your kidding right

And small business please. The govt for sure gave you great loans to start. And you ever care about I bet more tax breaks to go with it right. We tried that for 8 years. And still wages have stayed the same since the 80′s. And when was the last time you hired somebody buddy.

It seems like Meehan thinks that he can make by name reg and not rocking the boat. We knew more about the last guy that Ran against Joe a folow named Craig Williaws than this Guy.

Mitchell Arizona immigration law I bet that you hire them.

David Lewis-

Stop crying, I bet you are an illegal immigrant. Lets start to face facts, Barack Obama is a one term President. Its embarrassing that the White House can’t hold a simple press conference and answer all of the questions. Some transparency we have here right? That’s unfortunately what happens when you have a philosopher for a President, we need a leader. Tell Obama to leave Plato in his office and pick up a leadership for dummies book. His arrogance is egregious, if you don’t believe me watch the health care summit.