What is yellow or blue and has hundreds of feet?

What is yellow or blue, has hundreds of feet, and took a walk on Sumneytown Pike this morning in North Wales Borough ?
Give up ?
It was the "Walking School bus" organized by The North Wales Elementary School and St Rose of Lima School. St Rose wore yellow t-shirts; North Wales, blue.
They got a beautiful day for the walk down Sumneytown Pike from each school to the Parkside Place Pavilion in Upper Gwynedd and back again -- all to remind the moms and dads how they once walked to school, and to show the children, the parents, the teachers and the community how walking to school is a good thing for promoting healthy lifestyles, a friendly, walkable community, and needing a few less big yellow school buses on the roads. I got to walk too and it was lots of fun.
Of course, the walk also shows the need for sidewalks in key places. Oddly enough, this need was also recognized at my table at the recent Montgomery County Transportation Summit I attended recently as the type of project that might provide a needed boost to Montgomery County's communities and lessen traffic congestion at the same time.
I love it when bright ideas come together like that. Maybe the County program will help North Wales add a few sidewalks where they are needed to have these children walk to school every day.
Then, it was back on the Turnpike to Harrisburg, where we are finishing up a flurry of bills before the election break. Ironically, I had visitors from North Wales waiting for me -- North Wales Borough Council member Jocelyn Tenney and Borough Manager Sue Patton up in Harrisburg with the Pennsylvania Boroughs Association. Jocelyn is the current President.
After they were introduced on the Floor, I lost track of them as the Speaker called up dozens of bills concerning nurses, dogs, electricity, gun trafficking, scrap metal -- you name it, we worked on it today. As I struggled to keep each bill straight (how did they do this before computers ?) I had the feeling that, incrementally, like all of those legs in the Walking School bus, we are improving lives for Pennsylvanians, step by step.
Kate Harper

Negativity

Well, I guess it's that time again. At all levels, the negative ads, negative commercials, negative press releases are the tactic in vogue.
If I could have it my way, I would simply stress my own accomplishments and value to the District, but politics is a contact sport, some would say a "blood sport," and it sure isn't Burger King.
In my first race for State Rep, a professional asked me to tell him about myself, my background, my qualifications so he could help me prepare an advertising campaign. Then he said, "Tell me the bad things."
I thought about that for a while and said, "Well, I don't know. I think I've been a pretty good girl all my life and I don't think I have ever done anything really bad."
He didn't miss a beat:"They will make it up. What will they make up ?"
Sure enough, they did. I was astonished how a record of being tough on development was turned around to suggest I had encouraged it!
I've gotten a little bit thicker skin these days, but I still don't like it. No one does. It's not that there isn't some element of what comedian Stephen Colbert would call "truthiness" in a negative ad, it's just that it's put together in a way that leaves a false impression of who the candidate is and what she's done.
The professionals will tell you that negative ads work, that while voters say they hate them, they actually remember them, believe them, and they believe them more than the ads which state the candidate's accomplishments.
There's a reason political contests are called "campaigns," which is a military term that evokes war and winning battles.
For the record, I have a 98% attendance record and have made more than 10, 852 votes. It's after 9 PM, and I am writing this after coming off the Floor. In a few minutes, I will jump in my car and drive home so I can be in North Wales tomorrow morning before driving back up here to Harrisburg. I know I work hard for the District, whatever the negative ads say, and a lot of other people know it too.
And anyway, here's some food for thought : campaigning here beats campaigning in Iraq, either the military or political kind. Today's newspaper carries a story about women afraid to list their names on the ballot for fear that others who disagree with her beliefs will retaliate violently against members of her family.
The photos of me on the other side's mailers are ugly but they don't draw blood. And I know from experience that later people will say, "Have you lost weight ? You look so much better in person."
To which the appropriate response is, "Well, thank you very much" without noting that in person, I'm in color and three dimensional, too.
Kate Harper

Days in the Lives of a Community

This past weekend was so busy, I didn't get a chance to mention two very important events. I was honored to be a part of the anniversary celebrations of the Upper Gwynedd Fire department (the West Point Volunteer Fire Company) and Boy Scouts of America Troop 610 in Lansdale.
The Fire Company, still all volunteer after all these years, celebrated 100 years of people in the community coming together for the Common Good. The old leather bucket among the memorabilia was a perfect metaphor for the day -- the simple notion of a community passing the bucket along to fight a fire as each in his turn did what he could, always recognizing that it was the joint action, the coordinated response, that made it work. It's inspiration to watch these firefighters of today, men and women, highly trained and high tech now, with fire engines that function like mighty mechanical horses, go out to meet whatever challenge comes after a call for help.
The other event I wanted to note was the fortieth anniversary of another volunteer organization, Boy Scout Troop 610 in Lansdale, which celebrated their milestone with an "alumni" dinner, photos of boys camping, hiking, earning merit badges and clowning around for the last forty years. Once again, it's forty years of volunteers, men and women in the community and their boys, coming together to learn that "Character Counts," and what the boys learn in Scouts will provide them with a compass bearing for life's challenges as long as they live.
These groups are what makes a community great. Heck, corny as it might sound, they are what makes a place a community at all.
Kate Harper

Bert DeAngelis and Kate Harper

Bert DeAngelis and Kate Harper go Door to Door in Plymouth Township.

Door To Door

For years now I have been going door-to-door with my friend Bert DeAngelis, former Plymouth Township Councilman, and GOP Committeeman, in his eighties and still going strong. I was introduced to Bert by former State Representative Joe Gladeck, who also walked some of these same streets with Bert. Of course, the streets we've been doing recently are brand new and didn't exist then. Bert's claim to fame is that he and his late wife, Mav, actually cooked dinner at their home for George and Barbara Bush, when THEY campaigned in Plymouth. Bert and Mav were great Italian cooks and everyone enjoyed that meal, I am sure.
We have a routine, Bert and I. I knock on the door, he stands on the step or sidewalk behind me, and I say, "Hi! Welcome to the neighborhood. I'm Kate Harper your State Rep and this is Bert, your neighbor. " The usually startled, usually sleepy 20 or 30 something new homeowner tries to be gracious. We chat and move on, with Bert accosting dog walkers, power walkers and joggers as they pass, "Hey, come here. I want you to meet your State Rep." It's actually a lot of fun. I like door to door because when someone calls the office and sends me an email, I can picture the neighborhood, and even the street, as we work out problems. And, of course, I love Bert DeAngelis. You're the best, Bert !
Later, if I can figure out how to do it, I'll get a picture of Bert up on this blog. It will take a while because the family IT department went back to college.
Kate Harper

Frisbees, water bottles, magnets and jar openers

Want to see a candidate cry ? Stand next to the trashcan at your local post office and systematically weed through the political mailers in your stack of mail, dropping each smoothly into the trashcan, pausing only to ensure that it IS political mail before you toss it. Oh, the heartburn! Each beautiful mailer represents thousands of campaign dollars in photography, design, printing and postage to the hopeful candidate but junk mail to the average recipient. Seeing it in the trashcan (before it even makes it to your home) is enough to make any candidate cry.
But stuff is different. Giving away stuff is a good thing. The candidate is happy and the recipient is happy. Generally, "stuff" has a longer shelf life too.
OK, so it has nothing to do with qualifications, positions or votes, whether you want "change" or not, but if it's useful, people accept it gratefully.
I am always on the look out for "stuff" that's not too expensive, not too heavy, and, in some way, useful and long-lived. At an event I attended recently, Todd Stephens was giving out "Todd Stephens" bottled water. I am sure he borrowed that idea from Dr. Gordon Clement, last year's candidate for County Coroner, but it's a very good example of "stuff." I myself borrowed Senator John Rafferty's idea to give out "Kate Harper" Frisbees, and that's a good giveaway at events that draw children or dogs (but the shelf life with dog lovers is not so hot for my Frisbees). Refrigerator magnets are always a good idea since they are small, can carry printing, and "stick around" for a long time on metal surfaces.
But my best giveaway is the one I inherited from my predecessor in office, former State Representative Joe Gladeck. He gave away those rubber jar openers that lasted so long they acquired a life well beyond campaign season. One GOP supporter from Plymouth Meeting told me her family used the thing so often, they called it "The Gladeck," as in "I have to open this jar of spaghetti sauce--give me the Gladeck." Of course, Joe served 22 years, and probably only ordered the things once or twice. That's how long they last!
I have also heard them called "rubber husbands" (?!) or "grippers," causing me to wonder if The Gipper might also have given away the gripper ?
Anyway, I give away Kate Harper Grippers with the slogan "Kate has a GRIP on the issues." Duh. No, I did not pay anyone to think up that slogan, but when they ask, "Why do you give these out?" My answer is swift and sure: " Because they work and so do I."
Works for me.
Kate Harper

War and Peace in the Campaign Season

The Maple Glen Community Association, Jack Easton, Ross Schriftman and the Supplee Memorial Presbyterian Church hosted a "Political Preview on What's Ahead from Our Local Political Leaders " this morning which was well-attended by area state rep candidates. The forum drew State Rep. Rick Taylor, Candidate Todd Stephens, Esq., State Rep. Tom Murt and Candidate Lisa Romanello, as well as Candidate Frank Custer and I. What never fails to surprise me at these things is how close we all are on the issues that are important to eastern and central Montgomery County.
At Plymouth Country Club this morning, GOP Thirteenth Congressional Candidate Marina Katz, State Senate Candidate Lance Rogers and I spoke to a mostly Republican crowd to garner their support in the Fall election. Marina told her truly inspiring life story--of coming here from Russia as a teenager, learning the language, working her way through college and law school while juggling two jobs, and now running for Congress. Lance's stump speech features a Floor debate where, ironically, State Rep Daylin Leach, his opponent for the Senate seat, was debating me about the DUI bill I worked on.
Clearly, however, the best event of the day was a luncheon held at The Bethlehem Baptist Church where my friend Thaddeus W. Smith Jr. was being honored by the Golden Chain Missionaries for a lifetime of community leadership. He and Judge Horace Davenport reminisced about the lawsuit that desegregated the local schools. Then many in the room, including Reverend Quann, the Ambler Olympic Club's Larry Wilson, and I all confessed that Thaddeus was, and remains, a mentor to us. His four daughters were warm and funny and everyone agreed his wife Irene gets much credit too. You could really feel the love in that room. And did I mention that Thaddeus is a Republican and Irene a Democrat ? She says that it was lucky her dad, a longtime Democratic Committeeman, was dead before Thaddeus switched to the GOP. "We all knew Daddy was kickin' the slats out of that coffin," she told me.
Later, at a picnic in Bucks County with LaSalle University Honors Program classmates, it was clear reports of the 'burbs being a "battleground" in the Presidential Campaign is true. Let's just say we had a "spirited discussion" and parted, as we always do, as friends.
Kate Harper