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 :-)