Affable Democrat Rick Orloski, an unsuccessful state senate candidate, surprised me last week. He penned a letter to the Morning Call editor, criticizing Boscola's judgment. "Sen. Boscola has displayed an appalling lack of judgment by keeping such a vulgar person on her staff. Her decision is an embarrassment to the Democrats who have supported her over the years, particularly her female voters."A bit less surprising, but still quite interesting, are Bonnie Dodge's comments. She was Lisa Boscola's republican opponent for the state senate. She's tied to the religious right, which has divided the country by exploiting issues like abortion, same-sex marriage and school prayer.
But Dodge ran a clean campaign, on the issues, and had a reform agenda. She took no personal shots.
I still supported Lisa.
Boscola easily crushed Dodge, who came out of nowhere and had no money, with 72% of the vote. Since that time, Bonnie's been as quiet as ... well, a churchmouse.
She has finally decided to speak out. Here's what she has to say.
These two don't even have a passing friendship with family values, despite her claiming to be a practicing Catholic. In my campaign, I opted not to go after Lisa based on her open record of ludicrous public behavior, but the most recent dust-up with Bernie Kieklak is the last straw for me. Does anyone really believe she didn't know what was happening? They are mirror images of each other and nothing either does will surprise the other.
I hope your readers and the voters don't forget their antics next time around.
Remember how she force-fed local school boards the dismal Act I, another of her failures, and we get a pretty complete picture of someone who has been in Harrisburg too long!
Hopefully, someone will (1) raise tons of money, (2) have name recognition, and (3) beat the pants of Lisa in 2010. Personally, I hope she does run against Charlie Dent because he knew her back when. Nothing like a little primary information to blow an incumbent campaign out of the water!!! The voters re-elected her and they have to un-elect her. Period!
20 comments:
Boscola yakked -- "Everybody deserves a second chance."
Bernie TNP already had a second chance. By granting him a 3rd chance, Boscola has exposed herself as somebody who does not even respect herself, let alone her constituents.
Bonnie Dodge was not the perfect candidate.. BUT, she is as much a bulldog as Boscola... if not more. .. and I am still convinced she was the better choice.
Honestly, as a result of this whole bourhaha, I respect Bonnie Dodge far more than I do Lisa Boscola. At least Bonnie is not a hypocrite.
Lisa is many things, but how is she a hypocrite? She is loyal to a loyal staffer who acted, repeatedly, in an inappropriate manner. He is being disciplined for it. However, personnel decisions are the perogative of an employer. Vote against Lisa for that if you want to, the seniors, educators, trades workers, and countless others will vote to re-elect her or send her to Congress
Anon 10:25,
Who called Lisa a hypocrite? Not me.
But when you come down to it, it is hypocritical for her to pretend she stands for women's issues or reform when she retains, as chief of staff, a person who slammed both. How can she keep a straight face when she talks about reform after her top guy derided it?
Since she lives in a gerrymandered district designed to guarantee her re-election, it's likely she'll remain in the state senate. But she has certainly made the impossible possible.
I can tell you I no longer trust her. There was one senior who repeatedly called her office, asking to speak with her, and she ignored him. She even slammed Macy's employees. Seniors won't appreciate that. It's not the people who will retain her, but the money from special interests that will enable her to buy her office. Even now, her warchest stands at $179,000.
Bernie, the first commentor finished with Lisa's a hypocrite. She is not. A little off center, too sensitive, kinda whacky sometimes and stubborn to a fault, but not a hyprocrite.
One senior call not returned vs. tens of thousands with expanded PACE and a crusader for property tax reduction not reform. One Macy's employee who is a Sam Bennett backer disgruntled vs. thousands of educators, trades union folks, entrepreneurs happy she sides with them....alas u face reality: 18th district is gerrymandered to ensure her continuity and she will have as much money as she needs to be re-elected. Happy, you have concluded that inevitability!
"the religious right, which has divided the country by exploiting issues like abortion, same-sex marriage and school prayer."
"Exploiting"?
Anon 10:48,
OK. I stand corrected. I missed that. The fist commenter did call Lisa a hypocrite.
Lisa is a crusader? I hope not. The crusades lasted a long time, and we need reform now, not 300 years from now.
I agree it's likely she will be re-elected. But she is damaged and should not consider herself safe. She's lost my support. She's lost support from others as well, including that senior whose calls were ignored. or that Macy's employee she derided.
And actually, look at her real constituents - special interests. "Entrepreneurs happy she sides with them?" You mean developers, who are ruining every square inch of farmland they can get their greedy little hands on. They've bought Boscola. It's called legal bribery. That's why she can afford to ignore emails from me and phone calls from a little guy.
And a grass roots candidate could knock her off because of that.
I'm sorry I don't live in her district so I can't vote against her; I hope she runs against Dent so I can!
The more I read and hear, the more I'm convinced that independent voters MUST be permitted to vote in the primary! The Dems and Reps can't get along, so why not make primaries REALLY interesting and let the disenfranchised have their say.
Anon 11:08,
Barack Obama:
"Faith got hijacked, partly because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, all too eager to exploit what divides us.
"At every opportunity, they've told evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage, school prayer and intelligent design."
Leave it to Rick Orloski to get to the point. An honorable man who speaks his mind. The Democratic party needs more people like him.
And less like Boscola ...
[re: Orloski] "The Democratic party needs more people like him"
I'll say. We need more Democrats who can't get elected.
Fyodor,
He's due! :-)
I saw Orloski debate Browne last Fall. Wow! What an impressive guy. He was relaxed, right to the point and funny as hell. I think he needs to take a few years off before running, and then seek a seat he can win. He definitely belongs in government, but needs to shake that loser image.
Maybe someone can talk Dodge into running again. This time, let's hope Dodge raises the character issue. I do not particularly care for right-wingers like Dodge, but she's a better choice than that piece of Boscola who keeps a hate-mongrel on as c.o.s.
Oh, and although I haven't said so in this thread, Boscola is a hypocrit. Any card-carrying Democrat who keeps on an individual with the dickless cheney characteristics of a Kieklak (notice the 3 k's in his name??) is an out-and-out hypocrit.
Period.
It would be very hard for an R to beat Boscola in that gerrymandered district. But another D could knock her off.
Just wondering, how many times has Mr. Orloski ran for office?
I'd answer your question but my calculator is broken.
The curiously close proximity of the phrase “family values” with the name “Bonnie Dodge” recently drew my attention to your blog. The juxtaposition of these two elements may very well have led to some anxious moments at Google, as the strain on its search algorithms created by this incredible dissonance could have easily brought down the entire Internet, if not ruptured the space-time continuum.
But that apparently did not happen, as the universe is still here, at least the familiar one which we know, the benign Newtonian version in which energy balances matter, good balances evil, and raging hypocrites never garner more than 28 percent of the vote.
If I knew little of Bonnie Dodge, her prose and mode of behavior would simply remind me of Emerson’s observation that, "The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons." With an eye on the silverware, I would momentarily enjoy the spectacle of this odd creature, puffed up like a blowfish with various indignations. Yet as a long-time member of the Dodge family, since birth actually, I have sadly witnessed first-hand how the hypocrisy, mean-spiritedness, and egocentricity of this tyrant manqué have had real consequences in our family.
My father, Douglas Dodge, is a great man, worthy of enormous admiration, and out of respect for him most of us in the family who have experienced “Bonnie values” have been reluctant to say much. Our silence has been mistaken for acquiescence, and the situation has grown more and more intolerable. I could write volumes about this, but the most heartbreaking aspects of the recent chronology involve her management of our father before, during and after his recent hip replacement surgery.
Five months before the surgery, she had him hobbling around the county planting “Bonnie for Senate” yard signs. Soon after, she intervened in arrangements his daughter had made for his surgery to be performed in New Jersey by one of the country’s most renowned hip replacement specialists. He was to stay at his daughter’s house during his recovery and physical therapy, allowing him to be close to the grandchildren he loves.
These were not recognizable family values for Bonnie, who steered him to a local doctor, scheduled new surgery, told his children not to visit him at the hospital, and then held him in virtual seclusion at the house after the surgery for more than a week. She posted a note on the door warning that no one could see our father without an appointment; and yet no appointments were possible, as the phone was never answered. At this very same moment, the IRS was raiding the bank accounts of Dent Manufacturing and one of my brothers, a manager at the company, was desperately trying to communicate with him. This led to the ludicrous spectacle of my brother camped out on the lawn of their house, knocking on the door and continually trying to reach him via cell phone, even as incredulous neighbors peeked from behind curtains.
This kind of behavior has brought extraordinary pain to our family, and reading the family values bromides of Bonnie’s old campaign literature has not done much to comfort us, nor allay the extreme concern we have for the well-being of our father. There is much, much more to tell, yet perhaps to the outside world this is now all irrelevant, as the only power this individual will ever exercise over others is the power she will wield from her protected bunker, to the very end, as our family crumbles around her.
Charles,
I've never had the privilege of meeting you, but know your dad. I first met him when he was running for county exec. Although he and I are on opposite poles of the political spectrum, I would have been just as pleased with your dad as county exec as I've been with John Stoffa. They're both real classs acts. After the race was over, I've seen him a few times, and my respect only grows with each meeting.
I'm sorry to hear of the troubles you describe. But out of respect for your dad, I'm going to ask that you delete your comment. If you can't do it, I'll remove it for you if you wish. Even if everything you say is true, the person who suffers the most is your dad. So please keep the family problems out of here. If you don't know how, I';ll be happy to delete for you if you wish. I doubt many people will see this older comment, and don't think it does much except let you get some steam off, which I understand. But can I delete?
I respect your view, Bernie. And thank you for the kind words about our father. His approach to politics is as rare as it is sorely needed -- a firm-handshake, look-you-squarely-in-the-eye, plainspoken variety, propelled by authentic core principles, unvarnished honesty and quite a bit of worn shoe leather. No consultants, no focus groups, no fundraising, no pandering, no nonsense.
As a journalist myself, I believe that without a firm anchor in the truth -- the complete truth -- political discourse is pointless, and often dangerous. The posting which caught my eye began with the accusation by one political figure (pot) that her one-time opponent (kettle) lacks even “a passing friendship with family values, despite her claim to being a practicing Catholic.”
This attack is detestable on many levels, but the hypocrisy is also breathtaking. It is important to know why.
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