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Continuing our weekly process of unveiling new candidates endorsed via the combined netroots page, it is my great pleasure to announce that the next netroots candidate is Patrick Murphy, the Democratic nominee in Pennsylvania's 8th Congressional district.

I first met Patrick Murphy on August 3rd, 2005, at a massive, movement-launching Democracy for America Meetup for the entire Philadelphia area. Of the nearly 200 people who attended the event--including nearly every major netroots player in the Philadelphia area--most people there will tell you that it was Patrick Murphy who brought down the house. Patrick is an Iraq war vet who supports Murtha's withdrawal plan, and I still remember him declaring, to thunderous applause, "I am the Paul Hackett of Pennsylvania!" However, unlike Paul Hackett, Patrick worked his way through a difficult primary process, which at different times included up to five different candidates, and two weeks ago emerged as the nominee with nearly two-thirds of the vote. Patrick Murphy is a Fighting Dem not only in resume title, but in political practice.

Patrick is not only supported by the local netroots scene in Philly, he is a member of the local netroots scene in Philly. For starters, his blog is excellent. Also, even after the August 2005 Meetup, I have met him at multiple Drinking Liberally events, and it was Anne Dicker herself who first turned me on to Patrick. For a while, he worked at the same law firm as famous netroots lawyer Adam Bonin, and he knows all of the local bloggers by their first names. He is my compadre too. On primary day two weeks ago, as I was running my write-in campaign for state committee, a student volunteer contingent went up to Bucks county to work for Patrick, but only after they had all voted for Kevin and I in our race. Further, as you can see from the picture above, not only is he my age, he is better looking that I am (that really isn't the best picture of me).

Patrick's district, the Pennsylvania 8th, also holds historic significance for the national netroots scene. On July 19, 2004, the netroots quickly raised nearly $50,000 for Ginny Schrader, quickly propelling her grassroots campaign from longshot status to that of a serious contender. The DCCC was forced to support Ginny's candidacy after that point, and her opponent, Michael Fitzpatrick, was only bailed out in the end by $2.5M for his campaign from the NRCC, the most the NRCC spent on any district in country except against Lois Murphy in PA-06. The ads against Ginny were so awful that I remember Liz calling me out of the blue to tell me that she had "just seen the most offensive ad ever, and it was against Ginny Schrader." We can expect more of those ads in 2006, and Patrick is going to need some help to combat it.

It is also important to note that Michael Fitzpatrick, the incumbent in the race, is perhaps the most vehemently anti-netroots member of Congress. The first bill he has authored in Congress seeks to restrict public access to social networking sites, including sites such as Dailykos, Blogger, MySpace, and even MyDD. Obsentibly the bill is to protect children of child predators, but considering that it is written by an endangered incumbent who, as much as any other Republican in Congress, understands the potential power of the progressive netroots, one can only conclude that Michael Fitzpatrick is trying to curb the progressive netroots in order to save his own seat.

This is a winnable district, one that both Gore and Kerry won by around 4%. It is backed up by the nation's best local netroots scene (yeah, I'm bragging), and features a dynamic, young fighting Dem who will be a strong progressive voice in Congress. This is also how you build a bench--elect someone like Patrick Murphy to Congress, and suddenly Pennsylvania has an outstanding netroots favorite to run for even higher office in the future. As Atrios is fond of saying, there are not even "Murphy-Americans" in Congress. Let's change that. I can hardly think of any candidate I can more heartily endorse than Patrick Murphy in PA-08. I just chipped in $50 to get things started.

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