Sheila Dow Ford runs for Congress
I stopped by the Broad Street Market on Saturday, where my wife was running a booth sale of Girl Scout cookies, and ran into Sheila Dow Ford and her husband, Les Ford. They were gathering signatures on a petition to put Sheila on the Democratic primary ballot this spring. She hopes to run against Congressman Tim Holden of Schuylkill County for the < a href="http://www.sheilaforcongress.com/">Democratic nomination to Congress from the 17th District, which includes Harrisburg. I added my signature and stopped to chat.
Les Ford is well-known from his run for the Democratic nomination for mayor of Harrisburg last spring. He and Mayor Stephen Reed lost that election to Linda Thompson, who is now mayor. Sheila is a force in her own right, however, with a strong background as an attorney, past president of United Way of the Capital Region, co-founding the Sylvan Heights Science Charter School, and service on many other charitable boards.
Dow Ford is the challenger from the left that Holden has been courting with his conservative votes in Congress. She seems moderate-to-liberal in her positions. Holden lost me when he became one of a handful of Democratic congressmen to vote against the Obama healthcare bill. Dow Ford told me she both supports that bill and favors adding the so-called "public option," a Medicare-like entity that would provide competition to the health insurance giants who have been making life (if they allow it to continue) miserable for so many millions of Americans.
She and her husband are also no fans of Mayor Thompson, believing her to be disastrous for the city. Holden not only endorsed the lamentable Thompson for mayor, but made her his guest at the State of the Union speech last month.
Dow Ford doesn't underestimate the challenges she will face as an African American candidate in the non-Harrisburg parts of the 17th District, but intends to run everywhere and has already made appearances in Schuylkill County. She is finding Perry County a harder nut to crack, however, and is looking for help from Democrats there to find her way in.