Mike Livingston is a law professor at Rutgers-Camden. Graduated from Yale Law just like famous Democrats Bill and Hillary. Except he's a Republican who's running against Chaka Fattah for Congress.Our party is always on the lookout for talented, dedicated and determined people, Mike. Why don't you check this out?
Make that "was running."
Last week, Livingston quit the race.
He says GOP elected officials and the party apparatus had little interest in helping a guy fight uphill in a Democratic district.
And that the national Republicans are so scared of a Democratic landslide in November, they are focusing on all their resources on protecting incumbents.
"There's not much charity in lifeboats," Livingston, from Cheltenham Township, told us.
"I can't think of a single Republican elected official who returned my phone call," he said. "Not [U.S. Sen. Arlen] Specter, not [U.S. Rep. Jim] Gerlach not the [Montgomery] county commissioners.
"I felt like the guy who couldn't get a date in high school," he said.
He reached out to the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee and other groups to ask about fund-raising help and candidate training, and "they always seemed to direct me to the youngest person in the office."
When he asked the RCCC to put him in touch with donors, "they would sort of change the topic or say, 'That's not gonna work for you,' " Livingston said.
The last straw came on May 28, when Specter and U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell held a rally to show support for local candidates. Livingston wasn't invited.
Vito Canuso, chairman of Republican City Committee, said that once Livingston filed a formal withdrawal with the secretary of state, the party would take steps to find a replacement.
And in a related story, as they say, I think there are acres of wisdom in Frank Rich’s New York Times column yesterday, but this item commanded my attention in particular…
Last week The Hill reported that at least 14 Republican members of Congress have refused to endorse or publicly support Mr. McCain. Congressional Quarterly found that of the 62,800 donors who maxed out to Mr. Bush’s campaign in 2004, only about 5,000 (some 8 percent) have contributed to his putative successor.I should tell you, though, that I am not of a mind to celebrate at this moment, what with the political party that is the beneficiary of this good news instead tabling Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s articles of impeachment against Dubya (I thought this column by Marie Cocco was good), and now threatening yet another FISA cave-in (here).
Sometimes I seriously wonder which national Democrats, aside from Patrick Murphy and Barack Obama (and probably Russ Feingold and Chris Dodd), are worthy of one speck of my time and effort (if you can help inject some spine, Mike, be our guest).
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