Posted on 07/30/2007 10:41:12 AM PDT by SmithL
WASHINGTON -- If you want to know what Rep. Jerry McNerney has been up to since he won national recognition in November as the Democratic dragon-slayer who knocked controversial House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo out of office, just look at his campaign fundraising reports.
McNerney is working around the clock to keep his job.
When the House is in session, fellow Democrats are giving him lots of help adding small victories to his growing pile of legislative accomplishments.
When he's in his district, which is just about every weekend -- he spent one weekend on a congressional tour of Greenland looking at the implications of global warming -- he's busy meeting as many constituents as he can.
But between events, he is raising money on the phone. And at least once a week, raising money is the event.
In the six months he has been in the House, he has raised about $900,000. Helping him do that were at least three paid consultants, plus another advising him at $5,000 a month on district field work, and two paid staffers.
Twice, exhaustion turned to illness when he said he came down with bronchitis.
"I am trying to pace myself," the 56-year-old Pleasanton mathematician said dryly in an interview in his office.
McNerney is among the most endangered Democrats in the House.
He beat Pombo, a Tracy Republican, with 53 percent of the vote in a district that has a 19,000-vote Republican advantage. Republicans badly want that seat back and have recruited former Stockton Assemblyman Dean Andal, who already is hot on his tail.
Andal didn't form a campaign committee until May. After a single fundraiser, he reported to the Federal Election Commission this month that he had raised nearly $290,000 in about six weeks.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
- As part of his "Congress at Your Corner" program, Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, right, talks politics this month with Stockton resident Jerald Ascencia at a store in Ripon. McNerney is already preparing for the 2008 election, in which he may face a strong rival in former Stockton Assemblyman Dean Andal.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
That is an understatement. I was in the district and watched it happen. There was a coordinated, well funded, dirty smear campaign spread through mass mailings, advertisements, and hordes of out of district volunteers.
FYI, "Pombo" is a major brand-name real estate presence in Tracy. This may have fed the suspicion that there may have been some kind of conflict of interest.
I think its a seat the GOP could take back.
I hope your right. Considering my senators are Feinstein and Boxer, I at least want one person in the federal legislature to represent me.
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