Last night I participated in a conference call with Paul Scoles, Democratic challenger to Curt Weldon, Congressman from Delaware County (though without Darby or Chester). Also in on the conference call were Chris from Rowhouse Logic, Chris Bowers from MyDD and Walter from Project 90, a group that seeks to help go after “under-challenged” Republicans.

Scoles stepped in at the last minute in 2004, when Weldon’s opponent was called into Iraq. Having all of 90 days to campaign, along with about $25,000, Scoles received 42% of the vote. This time, he is in early, and gave the impression that he really plans to come out swinging against Weldon.

When I asked Scoles what were issues that he thought most mattered to the residents in his district, the very first thing he said was healthcare, and how to pay for it. He also mentioned that in a district with a higher than average amount of people collecting social security, that keeping the program out of the hands of privateers was big.

(And, as Scoles noted, in a vote that came down to a single Congressman, Weldon voted for CAFTA, the trade deal that seems to be unloved by virtually everyone. Along with CAFTA, and Weldon’s vote for the Bankruptcy Bill, it is pretty clear that a tag of “opponent of working people” will be hung around the Congressman’s neck.)

Overall, Scoles seemed down to earth, sharp, and dynamic. A perfect candidate in a district that continues to trend blue. And with Rendell and Casey sure to push Dem turnout in all of the Philly burbs, this could be the perfect chance to knock off Weldon.

Finally, a little background on Weldon:

He recently came out with a book, that basically blames the Clinton Administration for 9/11, and for ignoring Muhammed Atta, the chief 9/11 hijacker. The trouble with his accusations? Well, it looks like he basically just making them up, or relying on incredibly unreliable sources. Weldon has already started to retract parts of the book. Nice.

There were also big questions raised in 2004, about how much money Weldon is steering to his daughter in big, fat consulting contracts, sometimes to buddies of war criminals. From the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Feb 22, 2004 (No Link):

Karen Weldon, an inexperienced 29-year-old lobbyist from suburban Philadelphia, seemed an unlikely choice for clients seeking global public relations services.

Yet her tiny firm was selected last year for a plum $240,000 contract to promote the good works of a wealthy Serbian family that had been linked to accused war criminal Slobodan Milosevic. Despite a lack of professional credentials, she had one notable asset: her father, Pennsylvania Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Delaware County, who is a leading voice in Washington on former Eastern Bloc affairs.

She got the contract after he championed the efforts of two family members, Dragomir and Bogoljub Karic, to win U.S. visas from the State Department, which so far has refused them entry.

Intelligence officials warned Weldon that the brothers were too close to Milosevic, who is accused of leading the "ethnic cleansing" in the former Yugoslavia.

And that is not the only plum, problematic deal that Weldon and his daughter have been involved in:

* After a Russian aerospace manufacturer hired Karen Weldon's firm for $20,000 a month plus 10 percent of any new business it generated, Rep. Weldon pitched the company's saucer-shaped drone to the Navy, which signed a letter of intent to invest in the technology. And Weldon, who chairs a subcommittee that oversees $60 billion in military acquisitions, has been working to get funding for the project, Navy officials say. An attorney for Solutions said the firm did not collect the finder's fee, and it was later removed from the contract. Federal law bars companies from paying commissions to lobbyists on government contracts.

* The congressman helped round up 30 congressional colleagues for a dinner at the Library of Congress to honor the chairman of a Russian natural gas company, Itera International Energy Corp., that had just agreed to pay his daughter's firm $500,000 a year to "create good public relations." Records show that Solutions North America helped arrange the privately funded affair for the company, which has been trying to improve its image with U.S. officials after questions were raised about its acquisition of vast natural gas fields in post-Soviet Russia.

* Karen Weldon's firm paid for her father's chief of staff to take a "fact-finding" trip to Serbia, where he met with U.S. Embassy officials about the Karics' visa problems. The congressman approved the arrangement, travel records show. House ethics rules bar members or staff from taking official trips paid for by lobbyists or registered agents of foreign companies. The chief of staff, Michael J. Conallen Jr., said he reimbursed Solutions with his own money last week after The Times raised questions about the trip.

So, in the era of a GOP Congress’ Culture of Corruption, we have someone who fits right in. And, now, it looks like Weldon has a solid challenger in Paul Scoles. When people talk about the possibility of 2006 being the Democratic version of the "1994 Republican revolution," these are the seats we have to win.