McCracken for Congress – Progress Report – 3/23/2008

Press Release

This week, the highlights of the campaign included a visit to Franklin in Venango County to participate in a candidate''s forum on veteran''s issues along with a trip to Johnsonburg in Elk County for their county Democratic Committee meeting. I also made several visits to Centre County to meet with the Bellefonte Democrats, attend the opening of the Obama campaign headquarters in State College, do several media interviews and attend the monthly breakfast hosted by the Centre County Democratic Committee.

The candidate's forum in Franklin offered great opportunity for me to address several issues important to veterans in the 5th district. Several weeks ago I spoke with Ed Scurry, one of the veterans who set up the forum, and he mentioned to me the frustration that veterans in the north central region feel in trying to get regular attention from the current congressman.

Understanding their frustration, one of the ideas I offered during the forum is that I will employ a person on my district staff in the position of "Veteran's Liaison". The top priorities of the Veteran's Liaison will be to meet on a regular basis with veterans and veterans groups on issues important to veterans on the local, regional and national levels. Additionally, I will utilize this person to keep me informed and up to date on all issues important to veterans. Perhaps the most important part of my idea, and a promise I will keep, is the person I hire as the Veterans Liaison will be a veteran from the 5th district.

I also continued to press my idea that the Veteran's Administration should have the ability to subcontract with local health care providers so elderly veterans can get health care services closer to home. I've told the story several times during the campaign of the Clearfield area World War II veteran who has to travel to Pittsburgh to get cardiac care when we have a state of the art cardiac facility at DuBois Regional Medical Center.

As a nation, we owe a tremendous debt to our veterans. It's a sad day when we hear the stories coming out of Congress that they fail to adequately fund services for our veterans.

As I attended the various Democratic events during the week, I couldn't help but notice the excitement is the air. In case you haven't heard, all across Pennsylvania, and especially in the 5th district, there is a huge surge of people either registering Democratic or changing their registration to Democratic. This mirrors what I have been hearing out in the communities I've been visiting during the campaign. People are fed up and they want a change in direction for our country. This bodes well for our efforts to elect a Democrat in the 5th congressional district. I've been telling everyone that I'm not only hearing the call for change from Democratic voters but Republican and other party voters as well. 2008 is going to be a great year for the Democratic party!

Finally, an update on where things stand with getting the word out about the campaign. Campaign billboards are going up around the district. Campaign yard signs are scheduled to be delivered to Clearfield on Monday the 24th. Anyone who would like yard signs, please let us know via email. Additionally, if anyone would like flyers to take around their communities to help educate the voters about the campaign, let us know and we will get you as many as you need. At this stage of the campaign it is important that you let your family, friends, neighbors and coworkers know about the campaign. Unfortunately, we can't do a $1 million media campaign like one of the Republican candidates is doing. However, I feel confident that a grassroots campaign can be effective and the more people who are talking about the campaign, the better chance we have of success on April 22nd.

Less than a month to go.....
Mark B. McCracken
Your Candidate for Congress

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