Dowd for...

Found this a few days ago, thought it was hillarious!

I think we should all make our best Dowd For pictures and send them to this guy.

Because I'm Patrick Dowd and I'm better than you

I found this on another blog and I thought it was pretty damn funny.

I also found this one...

I'll let you decide which is funnier.

Craven Politician? Pat? No...

So in the last week there has been a lot of cute conversation about my identity. Let me put it out there:  I am not a city employee, I am not a government employee, I am not a campaign staffer, nor am I related to a candidate. I moved to Pittsburgh from the Philly area for school (and a boy). I am underemployed but I want to stay here. I am interested in local politics, and thought this blog would be a cool way for me to talk about stuff.  I'm not in love with any public official and I'm certainly not anybody's girl. That being said, let's move on to the issue of the day.

The thing that caught my eye the most yesterday was not the mayor's 11 point plan for Renaissance III but Pat Dowd's attack on Ravenstahl about a deal by the Pittsburgh Sewer and Water Authority or is it the Water and Sewer Authority, whatev. It sounds like Pat is accusing the mayor of shady dealings but last night, when I tuned into Channel 6,  I got another impression. Apparently the same deal Dowd accused Ravenstahl of mismanaging, Patrick actually voted for. 

Sigh.

I know that Luke haters such as my new bff Bram and that angry old man Schultz want to think that my entire purpose in life is to go after Pat Dowd but even those two (who are totally in the tank) for Patrick, have to admit Patrick doesn't have a leg to stand on here.

Can someone help me here?  As a member of council Pat was called upon to vote up or down on a bond transaction.  One would imagine that the eminent Dr. Dowd would have studied the matter thoroughly, and after consulting with a broad range of opinion makers and experts, and duly weighing the pros and cons, finally came up with the proper, educated, "thoughtful" decision. And HE VOTED YES

Now he runs for mayor and all of a sudden, the deal that he was elected by the people of the 7th council district to examine, all of a sudden, over night, it seems, becomes a bad thing. What happened Pat?

It seems to me that Pat - not raising any money, nor finding any support, nor winning over the Peduto lovers and the friends of Shields, had a sudden memory lapse. Or is he just a craven politician?  My patience is wearing thin....what's this Doc Harris all about?

More to come.

Update

Just wanted to add a quick update. Yes I ended up deleting the comments on the last post. I deleted them because some of the comments were way out of line. I still want to have an open discussion with the burgh-o-sphere about our city so from now on comments are moderated. The only criteria for being posted is no vulgarity. Have something constructive to say? Your comments will be posted.

Do I regret my last post? Absolutely not. I think it is a fair question. Can the bloggers that post things be held accountable just like the people they blog about? I don't understand why some people got all up in arms once I posed that question. I'll continue to report things as I see them and if anyone has a problem with that, I guess its too bad.

Comments on a Masseur

UPDATE: COMMENTS WERE DELETED AND AN UPDATE COMING SOON

Ok, so I'm fairly new to the blog writing scene but I've been a reader of the burgh-o-sphere for a while. I started this blog because there was a sudden void created when a whole bunch of bloggers left us. When I started this blog I made the decision that I would always allow comments and never delete anything that was posted. I wanted to have an open discussion about Pittsburgh politics.

However, I don't like the personal attacks that have suddenly appeared in the comments on my last post. Yes, Bram was a bit pushy with me, calling me satirical, but is it proper to be attacking him in my comments?

Bram is in a way a public figure, so is it fair to be overly critical and attack him? Of all the burgh bloggers, he's the one who's most out there being seen.

I have a friend of a friend who's been rubbed by Bram and can confirm that he is a physical therapist. But is that really anything to hold against the author of one of the most read burgh blogs?

The Old Standard Bearer

Peduto Press release from a few days ago:

PITTSBURGH – Pittsburgh City Councilman William Peduto will introduce a resolution at this morning’s City Council meeting calling on Pittsburgh to join the international effort to combat global warming

I am constantly amazed by Bill Peduto and his leadership on issues that are so vitally important but city officials knowingly or unknowingly ignore. Its things like taking care of the environment and improving public transit, things that Peduto advocates for, that will help bring about a new Pittsburgh renaissance.

I, unfortunately, didn't have the pleasure to experience Peduto's first mayoral campaign and only the very tail end of his second, short lived, mayoral campaign. Have the progressives and the bloggers left Bill in the dust? Where were the cries for "Draft Bill" this time? Why so fast to jump from an elected official who has always stood up for what alot of the blogging progressives are all about and switch over to what appears to be a "not-always-too-progressive" candidate in Dowd? What has Dowd done in his just over one year on council to steal the progressive crown from Peduto? Is Dowd really the one we bloggers want as our front man, or is he severely lacking in credentials for this title?

If my commenters could enlighten me, I would gladly hear it.

To Bill Peduto: I still like you, don't let Dowd steal your progressive thunder

and a side note: Why doesn't Dowd have one of these yet?

its a Triple Threat, not a one-on-one face off

Today I wanted to talk about the fact that the mayor's race is a three way race, but people seem to be forgetting that. I recently had the privilege to meet Carmen Robinson, she was very impressive and I liked her a lot.

All the other blogs in the burgh-o-sphere seem to have forgotten Robinson and are focusing on the scrappy Mr. Dowd. But I don't think its just the blogs suffering this case of amnesia, candidate Dowd seems to think he and Luke are the only ones vying to lead the city.

Dowdy's been challenging Lukey to debates but has he been directly including Robinson in these discussions? or does he want to count her out so he can be the vessel of change?

What I'd like most in the coming weeks is for ALL THREE candidates for the top post begin a conversation with the city residents, not just someone grand standing for another run in the future. That's what would be best for the city.

Dowd: Autobot or Decepticon?

Transformative times call for a transformer I guess, but is Dowd an Autobot or a Decepticon?

One week of Dowd

Ok so its been about a week now since Dr., School Board Member, Councilman Patrick Dowd announced his intentions to run for mayor. So how have things been shaping up?

Well Dowd's facebook group seems to be fairing well. But what's this? Its his pledge drive to raise money, but it was promised he would raise $5,000 in 48 hours. So one week later, Pat still only has $31.27. Not off to a good start. I'm a little curious as to what else Dowd is doing to get his campaign going. I mean his website is barely functional and he has a little bit of name recognition with the Facebook crowd, but thats not exactly the demographic that wins you elections in Pittsburgh. At this point, Dowd isn't even just token opposition.

One week after Patrick announced, I'm left with more questions than answers.

• What are you doing to get your name out there, Patrick?
• Why did you get in the race too late to file for the Democratic endorsement?
• What are the issues you are running on? (we know you think these are transformative times, but for what?)
• Is it too early to start calling Dowd a lazy campaigner?

Is there really any support for Dowd if this is all he can muster up in a week? Maybe transformative times need to visit the Dowd campaign.

Obama's Address

When Obama addressed the nation on Tuesday it was everything that we needed it to be. Heck yeah!

Now its time to get to work, rebuilding our economy! Yes we can!

Lefty Pride

This just gives me a moment of pride:

Parade Muck Slinging

Ok, so I guess I'm going to out myself a little here -- I'm a progressive and ... I kinda like Luke. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not sure if I'm going to vote for him or not and I am going to have to analyze Pat Dowd but Mayor Ravenstahl has put up with a lot of bull from the media.

Especially the muck Tim McNulty (and some over-active personalities with so much time on their hands that they tweet EVERYTHING) has been putting out ridiculing Luke for riding in the Super Bowl parade with Big Ben. What's wrong with Luke showing his Steelers Nation pride? Isn't this what mayors do? I seem to remember my mayor back home in Philly riding with my beloved Phillies when they won the World Series in 2008 and he even carried the Commissioner's Trophy! No one feigned outrage about this because that's what mayors do! They show support and pride in the local sports teams. Could you even imagine the cries of "He has no Steelers pride!" Luke would have gotten if he had been MIA from the parade?

Campaign Money

I don't know what to think about this:

"relying on private donors to fund travel that's not clearly election-related could be corrosive."

Seems to me like Lord Dick is trying to make something out of what appears to be nothing. If its completely legal and everyone does it (seems like Dougy and Patty are doing the same thing as Lukey and Danny), what's the problem? No tax payer dollars were used for this and the politcal intent is clear. Can someone please explain to me what exactly is wrong with this practice?

28 Days Later

So President Obama has been in office for 28 days now. How has he been doing? Has he kept his promise to bring change thus far? Let's review:

He has:

• Frozen salaries for top White House staff members
  
• Signed a detailed executive order to ban torture of prisoners
• Ordered the closure of Gitmo
• Signed Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act extending the statute of limitations for filing pay discrimination lawsuits
  
• Signed into law CHIP, providing healthcare for 11 million children
• Passed the Economic Stimulus bill
• Has posted weekly "fire-side chats" on Youtube

President Obama has certainly started down the road towards the change he promised. He will fulfil our hopes as long as we unite and support him in his efforts. No man can do this alone.

The Pittsburgh Left

After Burgher and Pitt Girl flew the coop, I decided to fill the void of my daily blog reading by doing some blog writing myself. Enough with the introduction, let's get down to it.

PS: Who am I? No interesting back story here. Just a progressive living in the 'burgh who needs a forum to vent :-)