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Libertarian hopeful in the 8th says he’s here to stay

Eric Wisener says he’s not “delusional” about his chances at winning the race in the 8th Congressional District as a libertarian. But things have gotten too out of hand, he says, to sit this one out.

“I can’t stand where things are,” Wisener told pa2010.com in a recent interview. “The government has gotten involved in things it never should have gotten involved in.”

The 43-year-old actor and advertising executive was nominated as the Libertarian Party’s candidate in late March. He studied acting at New York University, appeared in some commercials and worked on Wall Street before spending nine years as the Treasury Department, a job he left to run for Congress.

Wisener has a tough task ahead—even getting noticed in the high-profile race between Congressman Patrick Murphy (D-8) and Republican Mike Fitzpatrick will be difficult. He’s raised no significant money to date, and needs to collect almost 4,000 signatures just to get on the ballot. Wisener insists he is not running as a spoiler, but admits to some concern that his presence in the race might make a Murphy victory more likely.

But he says there just weren’t good candidates in the race before he got in.

“Mike Fitzpatrick has positioned himself on issues he doesn’t actually believe,” Wisener says. “It’s political posturing.” Murphy, he says, gets too much of his campaign cash from outside the Bucks County district to be trustworthy.

Wisener, for his part, says he won’t be taking any campaign contributions from political action committees, and will only raise money at the grassroots level.

And he’s determined to get involved in any public debates between the two major-party candidates, even if they try to keep him out.

“I can debate [the issues] with these guys forever,” Wisener said. “I will be in them and I will destroy them.”

And Wisener says he’s not going away, come what may in the fall. If he can raise $250,000, Wisener thinks he can win.

“It might take two, three, or four elections,” he said, “but I’m going to do this.”

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June 28, 2010 at 12:06 pm

--Eric Katz

Tags: Eric Wisener, Mike Fitzpatrick, PA-8, Patrick Murphy

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