This is an outdated bio of Joe Hoeffel (from his Senate race against Specter, i think, and it stops there) from ourcampaigns.com, that I am cut and pasting here because it should provide some useful background about his history in Southeast PA.

What is truly remarkable, and you should keep this in mind when you read it, is that Joe Hoeffel has served his entire political career in majority Republican districts.

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Candidate: Hoeffel, Joseph Merril
Website: www.friendsofjoehoeffel.com
Affiliation Democratic
Address 1908 Lycoming Avenue
Abington, Pennsylvania 19001-1106, United States
Email info@hoeffelforsenate.com
Born September 03, 1950

Info Congressman Joe Hoeffel is a Democratic Member of Congress from Pennsylvania's 13th District. Hoeffel is a member of the International Relations Committee, and Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Joe is serving his third term in Congress, and since arriving in the nation's Capital in January 1999 has worked hard on promoting fiscal restraint, paying down our national debt, reforming education, improving international relations, protecting the environment and expanding health care.

At home, Joe works zealously at maintaining good contact with his constituents. He conducts "Saturdays with Joe", which include town meetings, supermarket visits and other appearances throughout the district each month, and "Cuppa Joe with Joe", where he visits diners and restaurants on Saturday mornings to chat with constituents.

Joe also works "Joe's Job Days", when he spends one day each month in a different job to better understand what his constituents experience on the job. Joe has already spent a day on tour with the Norristown police, a library assistant, a pharmacy technician, a UPS driver's helper and a Social Studies teacher.

Joe has worked hard to bring federal money back to Philadelphia and Montgomery County, including over $50 million in his first term alone. He brought a public health center to Norristown; secured millions of dollars in SEPTA funding; brought $2 million to regional private colleges to establish a program to train public school teachers; helped establish the Center for Sustainable Development at Temple University-Ambler with a federal grant of $2 million; and helped restore $3 million in Title I education funds to Montgomery County school districts.

Joe has introduced legislation to create a veterans' cemetery at Valley Forge National Historical Park; to eliminate wasteful Corporate Welfare; to reform federal funding to public schools and provide an additional $35 billion; and to bring antique and replica firearms under the same federal regulations as modern firearms.

He has also fought for the Patients' Bill of Rights that would reform HMOs; is committed to preserving Social Security and Medicare and providing a prescription drug plan for seniors under Medicare; and is supporting legislation that would slow suburban sprawl and make our communities more livable.

As a member of the International Relations Committee, Joe strongly supports a vigorous role for the United States in international efforts to bring peace to the Middle East and the Balkans and to build the international coalition against terrorism. Joe is also promoting legislation that will make America safer from terrorist attacks.

Joe, 52, is a life-long resident of Montgomery County. In 1976, he was first elected as a state representative, becoming the first Democrat to represent the Abington area in 60 years. Joe served four terms in the State House from 1977 to 1984. In 1991, Joe was elected to the first of two terms as county commissioner, serving through 1998.

In 1996, Joe ran for the U.S. House of Representatives, challenging a freshman incumbent and lost by just 84 votes. In 1998 he was elected to Congress, and in 2000 was re-elected.

Joe is a graduate of William Penn Charter School, Boston University and Temple University School of Law. He has been married for 25 years to Francesca, a registered nurse with a master's degree in public health nursing. They have two children, Mary, 24, and Jake, 21