Democrats Seek Staying Power in Republican Turf
By Greg Giroux | 5:55 PM; Aug. 17, 2007
Of the 30 Democrats who took House seats away from the GOP in 2006, few have as reliably Republican a constituency as Christopher Carney. Can this freshman prove his win wasn’t the flukish result of his predecessor’s sex scandal?
Democrats never would have secured a majority of House seats last November were it not for some critical victories in districts that normally vote Republican. And few if any districts the Democrats won from the GOP are more rock-ribbed Republican than Pennsylvania’s 10th, which takes in mostly conservative rural hamlets of the central Susquehanna Valley and the state’s northeastern corner.
Democrat Christopher Carney denied a fifth term to Republican Don Sherwood, who was buffeted by a sex scandal in addition to the unfavorable political environment that faced his entire party.
As Carney starts running for his second term, he is seeking to prove that his 2006 victory was no accident — and that he and the Democratic Party will prove to have some staying power in parts of the country that have not had a Democratic orientation.
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