After Madeleine Dean challenged Mary Jo Daley’s petitions primarily on handwriting anomalies, Daley has decided to withdraw from contention for PA4.  PoliticsPA:

“After reviewing the state of the race and the current Democratic field of candidates, three women and one man, I realized that we would be facing a bitter and costly campaign that could very well lead to blowing a rare occasion to elect a strong, progressive woman from Pennsylvania to Congress,” Daley said.

Wow, it’s almost as if she is reading this blog.

Anyway, at least as far as the public is concerned, the sisterhood is strong:

Daley announced she is putting her support behind Dean, who had filed a petition challenge against her last week.

“We need a congresswoman who will be a leader across the district, and will serve as a beacon to all women who are thinking about running for office. And most importantly, we need a congresswoman who will be able to win.  I believe Madeleine Dean will be that Congresswoman and that is why I am endorsing her today,” Daley said.

“Words cannot convey the gratitude that I feel toward Mary Jo for her endorsement. In Harrisburg, she has set the gold standard for integrity and hard work. Across the state, she has defined what it means to be a passionate advocate for supporting women and training them to run for office,” Dean said of the endorsement.

Daley was the first to announce her candidacy for PA4, only 24 hours after the PA Supreme Court released the new map.  Daley has also been a leader and mentor for Indivisble PA, mentoring many young pussyhats in an effort to Turn PA Blue.  I’m actually surprised she backed down so quickly.

As mentioned in a previous post, handwriting challenges are extremely difficult to prove and they are ugly.  A handwriting challenge is essentially a charge of falsifying signatures on petitons, or fraud.  To accomplish this, the challenger would have go down to the courthouse and look at every signature on the computer and register them as contested.  It is on the candidate to prove that they are legitimate, which they could do via affidavit.  It’s no cake walk to collect over 2,000 signatures in the first place and Dean was challenging over 1,000 of Daley’s.  That’s a lot of work for both candidates.  Why did Mary Jo back down?  Was there something to the handwriting challenge?

The endorsement of Dean and the gracious withdrawal are a class move on Mary Jo Daley’s part, but I’m not buying the new sisterly unity act.