Michael Livingston

Earlier this year two Republican candidates for Congress complained they were getting no love from Republicans.  One of the candidates, Michael Livingston, was so frustrated he dropped out of the race. Livingston was challenging entrenched Congressman Chaka Fattah in PA-2.  Livingston blamed the local, state and national parties for not supporting his effort. A similar tone was heard from PA-13 where Marina Kats is challenging Allyson Schwartz for the Montgomery County seat. Kats also announced she was not happy with the support she was receiving from the parties.

Adam Lang, a 30-year-old network engineer and ward chairman from North Philadelphia, will run against U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Philadelphia) in the fall, Lang and the city's GOP announced Wednesday.

PolitickerPa.com reported last week that Lang was being considered as a possible candidate to run against the longtime incumbent Fattah after Republican Michael Livingston dropped out of the race in June.

It remains unclear who else, if anyone, was under serious consideration to replace Livingston on the ballot. But despite the near impossibility of a Republican beating Fattah in an overwhelmingly Democratic district, the 30-year-old Lang could provide some welcome energy in a city where Republican candidates rarely make much noise.

The 2nd Congressional District is largely made up of areas in Philadelphia, but also includes small parts of Montgomery County.

"Philadelphia and Montgomery County need an effective voice in Congress," Lang said in a statement. "I'm ready to help find solutions to the problems our region will face in the 21st century."

PHILADELPHIA - Almost two months after the Republican candidate challenging U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah dropped out of the race, the city GOP here is considering a young ward chairman from North Philadelphia to run against the longtime incumbent Democrat.

Adam Lang, who chairs the city's 29th ward in the Brewerytown and Sharswood neighborhoods, is one of the people being considered to replace Michael Livingston on the ballot, party Chairman Vito Canuso confirmed Thursday. He would not identify other people under consideration. A decision is expected sometime in August, Canuso said.

"There are other people, but no one has authorized me to let that be revealed," he said. "Fortunately, we have a couple of people that are interested, and we're going to select the best qualified."

Lang would be a markedly different candidate than Livingston, in more ways than one. Most of Fattah's 2nd Congressional District is in Philadelphia, but Livingston, a 52-year-old tenured law professor at Rutgers School of Law in Camdem, lives in Cheltenham. Lang, by contrast, is a 30-year-old network engineer who is tied into both younger and older Republican circles in the city.

Still, he would likely face just as difficult a race against Fattah as Livingston, running in an overwhelmingly Democratic district where Fattah has never been seriously challenged during his 18 years in the seat.

"I think he would make a superb candidate," Livingston told PolitickerPa.com. "He's young, he's in the city, and I think he's very plugged into groups that the Republican Party needs to connect to."

U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Philadelphia) collected $26,000 in contributions for his re-election during the second quarter, even as his underdog Republican opponent dropped out of the race, according to campaign finance reports released today.

The latest haul means that Fattah has collected more than $163,000 during an election cycle in which his victory was all but assured from the beginning. Democrats far outnumber Republicans in his 2nd Congressional District.

Almost all of the money raised in the most recent quarter came from political action committees and organizations, with only one individual contribution of $2,000. Major contributors included the Airline Pilots Association with $2,500, the Washington-based American Association for Justice with $3,000 and the Engineers Political Education Committee with $5,000.

Needing little, if any money for actual campaigning, Fattah's campaign has spread the money around. He gave $10,000 last month to Philadelphia City Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown's PAC, as well as $2,500 to the Montgomery County Democratic Committee in May.

TJ Rooney and the Democratic Party in Pennsylvania was solidly behind Hillary Clinton and delivered for her in the primary. When Barack Obama won this week the Party was quick to get behind Obama which makes them a winner this week.  Find out who else made the Winners and Losers list for June 6, 2008.

A long-shot Republican candidate to replace U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Philadelphia) dropped out his race for Congress this afternoon, blaming the local, state and national Republican parties for failing to support him.

Michael Livingston, a professor at Rutgers School of Law in Camden, announced his departure from the race in an e-mail to reporters.

"From the beginning of my candidacy, it has been clear that, as a moderate Republican in a primarily urban district, the state, local, and national parties had little interest in my success," he said in a statement. "Despite investing a substantial amount of my own time, energy, and money in the race-and despite raising a larger amount than any recent Republican in the district-I was unable to garner meaningful support from the Party and, as a result, unable to be taken seriously by the media and other opinion-makers. If the Republican Party wishes to be competitive in Pennsylvania and the Northeast, it must take more moderate positions and make a more serious commitment to its candidates and their success."

Republicans who run for office in the staunchly Democratic city of Philadelphia are often called sacrificial lambs, providing their time to campaign even though registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 5-1.

Now, in an election year widely expected to be a difficult one for the GOP, the outlook for Republicans in Philadelphia may be even more bleak. Democrats, incumbents and newcomers alike, are raising significantly more money than their Republican opponents. Some suburban seats may be up for grabs, but from state House races to bids for the U.S. Congress, Republican and Democratic analysts and consultants agree that most seats within the city proper are simply out of reach for Republicans.

"With the exception of a couple of wards in the northeast ... nothing short of a flat-out indictment or scandal is going to win for any Republicans," said Neil Oxman, a longtime Democratic consultant in Philadelphia.

Taking a page from U.S. Sen. John McCain and President Bush, a Republican congressional candidate is voicing strong support for Israel — and criticizing U.S. Sen. Barack Obama for his views on negotiating with Middle East authoritarians.