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DEL.ICIO.USLewis: No friend of thine
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rep. John Lewis has many friends. But Keith Leaphart, a novice congressional candidate in Pennsylvania, just found out he isn’t one of them.
Two Philadelphia newspapers reported today that Leaphart, a doctor and Democrat making his first run for public office, hoped to draw potential donors to a major fundraiser by promising them a “special invited guest.”
That guest was supposed to be Lewis, an Atlanta Democrat and civil rights icon - except Lewis never agreed to attend the event.
It fell to Lewis’ chief of staff, Michael Collins, to bring Leaphart, 32, back to earth. Collins told Leaphart that Lewis didn’t remember ever meeting him. Moreover, the guy Leaphart is running against, Democratic Rep. Bob Brady, is a decade-old friend of Lewis’ - and not the imaginary kind, either.
Leaphart said he met Lewis and was promised his support at a Congressional Black Caucus event in Washington in September.
“I’m sure that you did meet the congressman and that he wished you well and offered his support of you as a young, aspiring public servant,” Collins wrote to Leaphart. “But not as an endorsement of your candidacy.”
David Dix, finance director for Leaphart’s exploratory committee, took the bullet for the campaign.
“I mistook his encouragement as support, at which point we offered an opportunity for Congressman Lewis to join us,” Dix told the Daily News. “In no way did we intend the special invitation as an endorsement,” Dix told the paper.
Lewis’ name has since been removed from the invite, Dix said.
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