Roll Call thinks "Tim Hogan" is a goner next Tuesday

They put Tim Holden in a new district, all Coal Region-y and bluer than the deep blue sea and -- guess what? -- the 10-term Blue Dog Democrat is going to get ousted in next Tuesday's primary because 80 percent of the people in his new district have no idea who the hell he is!!!

That's the conclusion of Roll Call:

“Tim Holden? Yeah, but I can’t place it,” said Rosemary Battista, a retired factory worker and local Democrat.

“I didn’t even know he was a Congressman until I saw him on TV,” said John Ford, an 81-year-old Democrat in a Penn State Nittany Lions sweatshirt.

“Tim Hogan?” asked Irene Speicher, another Democrat and retiree. “I don’t know him.”

His challenger is Matt Cartwright, a lawyer, who has sunk $390,000 of his own green into his campaign and raised an additional $307,000. Then there's a PAC budgeting $200,000 to attack Holden, who is not helping his cause by refusing to debate Cartwright, not even once.

“Here’s the problem I have. I do not have the luxury of missing work,” said Holden, in a statement that fails to pass the giggle test.

It may all come back to bite Timmy in the bippy:

Holden is visibly worried about his re-election prospects. He stood anxiously on the side of a Northampton County Democrats fundraiser Thursday evening, sipping Miller Lite alongside his wife.

Later on, in his speech to the party faithful, Holden proclaimed he “stood shoulder-to-shoulder with” President Barack Obama. It’s a surreal declaration for a Blue Dog who voted against the president’s health care overhaul and is against abortion.

Well, isn't that fancy. Miller Lite. Yuengling is too good for this Skook now.

Pennsylvania Republicans want to monkey with Tim Holden's district some more

A decade ago, some lightbulbs went off in Harrisburg. The state GOP figured they could gerrymander Tim Holden into oblivion, shifting his district so he would have to run against a 102-year-old mainstay, Gekas. Only Timmy outfoxed them and beat the old guy. Since then, Holden's ensured his relevance in the right-leaning district by voting with the Republicans every chance he gets.

Guess what? The district divider-uppers up in Harrisburg plan to mess around with the 17th District once more, sending Congressman Tim scurrying up to Scranton if he hopes to maintain Coal Region viability. Here's the poop from PoliticsPa:

The most striking feature of Republicans’ tentative plans is the change to Tim Holden’s 17th Congressional district. Currently, the 17th covers all of Holden’s home county of Schuylkill County, as well as Dauphin and Lebanon. The district comprises parts of Perry and Berks counties as well.

Republicans are talking about stretching his district up to the Democratic stronghold of Scranton, so as to make freshman Rep. Lou Barletta’s district far more favorable to the GOP. This idea has really caught on in the past two weeks, and appears more likely every day.

In addition to taking Scranton out of Lou Barletta’s district, the Holden plan has the benefit of taking the Congressman out of Republican portions of Lebanon, Berks, and Dauphin counties.

“In one move, you can neutralize Scranton, protect Barletta, and give the Southeast Republicans space to move west and pick up more GOP votes,” said one DC insider close to the process. “If you can think of a better way to do all that, I’d like to hear it”

This reflects a lesson learned by the GOP, who tried to draw Holden out of his district ten years ago, only to have the senior Republican in the delegation, George Gekas, lose to the scrappy Democrat in the ensuing campaign.

 Can Tim shift any more to the right?

Tim Holden likes Gabrielle Giffords becaue she stuck it to Nancy Pelosi

Timmy is beginning to look a lot like John McCain, isn't he?Tim Holden was busy pouring drinks at the hosie on Saturday and he couldn't talk to Reading's morning newspaper about the Tuscon shootings, but he did find time Sunday to grant an interview to his favorite hometown paper, the Pottsville Blue Dog Democrat Republican.

Here's what T. Timothy had to say:

I got to know her because she is a Blue Dog Democrat...She was a very conservative Democrat ... As a matter of fact, she was one of 19 who voted against Speaker Pelosi.

That is an important fact to get out, that Nancy Pelosi is the enemy.

The article goes on to say:

Holden said he has received three threats over the years which, he passed on to the threat assessment team.

"You write them off as crackpots but after this incident, I guess you don't know," he said.

This is getting scary. Blue Dogs under attack, Tim trying to levitate the aspartame out of his can of Diet Coke. Nancy Pelosi.

GOP plans to hand out software so citizens can figure out the best way to eliminate Tim Holden's district

Pennsylvania's congressional delegation is creeping closer to zero, and once gain the fair-minded Republicans are taking a look at gerrymandering Tim Holden into oblivion.

After all, that could mean extinction for the "blue dog" Democrats, who remain uncrazy enough for the GOP base.

G. Terry Madonna, a Lancaster professor who makes a living out of sharing his political sagacity, described the thought processes that go into redistricting:

"It will be a political calculation when it's made."

Whoda thunk it?

Next year, however, everybody can get into the game.

PennLive reports:

Many groups will hold strong opinions on the process, and for Pennsylvanians who want to weigh in, there is an app for that.
    
Free application software will allow anyone to draw congressional district lines and send e-mails to lawmakers to show how they think the state should be broken up, said Erik Arneson, spokesman for Senate Republicans.

Unfortunately, the newspaper did not provide the name of the app so citizen can start searching for it on the iTunes store.

Angry Birdbrains? Grand Theft Politics? Tap Tim Revenge?

Tom DeLay must still be working on it with the coders.