Independent and Constitution Party candidates for Congress participate in debate

A press release from John Murphy, the independent candidate for Congress in PA’s 16th:

GAP, PA – On Tuesday, September 23^rd WGAL-TV held a roundtable discussion in Gap, Pennsylvania moderated by reporter Anne Shannon. The television station invited all of the candidates for House of Representatives in the 16th congressional district to participate. The independent candidate, John Murphy, the Constitutional Party candidate Dan Frank and the Democrat Party candidate Bruce Slater were present and participated in a discussion of the issues most profoundly affecting the people of our nation and our district.

Conspicuous by his absence was the incumbent Mr. Pitts. WGAL-TV told the three candidates that while Mr. Pitts was invited, he refused to participate in this televised event with the three other candidates. Mr. Pitts consented to be interviewed individually but apparently had some hesitation about facing three candidates from three different political orientations, all of whom disagree strenuously with Mr. Pitts’ support of the Bush agenda.

While John Murphy, Dan Frank and Bruce Slater had differences of opinion on several issues, it was noteworthy that they all agreed that the occupation of Iraq must be brought to an end either immediately or very quickly, free trade agreements such as NAFTA which kill American jobs must be repealed, our civil liberties must be restored through the repeal of the USA Patriot Act and Military Commissions Act and that the bailout of the Wall Street robber barons, as proposed by the Bush administration, is an outrageous assault on the American taxpayer.

John Murphy said “this is not just corporate welfare run wild but it represents a form of state socialism — National Socialism or Fascism. It’s not the so-called welfare queens who are hurting America is the welfare kings on Wall Street who rip us off for hundreds of billions of dollars every year”. In fact the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in the 1940s said “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” All three candidates also expressed their opposition to corporatism.

John Murphy said that “Mr. Pitts, who promised to serve only five terms and is now running for his seventh term is not representative of the overwhelming majority of people in the 16th district. I understand nevertheless that Mr. Pitts will face the three of us in a debate being sponsored by the Berks County League of Women Voters in Reading, Pennsylvania on September 30. Since that debate will have a much smaller audience than WGAL, Mr. Pitts probably assumes that his campaign committee will be able to perform the necessary damage control when he is attacked from all areas of the political spectrum”.

John Murphy congratulated WGAL-TV for including both himself and the Constitutional Party candidate Dan Frank in this debate. According to the independent congressional candidate John Murphy, “two years ago the Lancaster County Rotary Club refused to allow me to participate in a debate against the two corporate parties. They told me I had no support even though I had submitted 7,000 signatures in order to obtain my position on the ballot and was endorsed by two county-level Green Parties, two county-level Libertarian Parties, the Reform Party of Pennsylvania and the new American Independent Party of Pennsylvania”.

(Full disclosure:Â I’m a volunteer for Murphy’s campaign.)