Planning out the 2012 races

Republican U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts will face a Democratic challenger this year after all — and the candidate is running right in the lawmaker's own backyard.

Aryanna Strader, 29, of Kennett Square, is endorsed by the Chester County Democratic Committee and has been meeting with clubs here in Lancaster County ahead of Saturday's convention.

She served as a communications encryption specialist in the U.S. Army from October 2001 through October 2004 and is currently the president and chief executive officer of ARYDAN, which provides business consulting services to defense logistics and other firms.

Strader, who served in Jordan in 2003 during Operation Iraqi Freedom, holds a bachelor's degree in business administration, operations management, from DeVry University. She holds an MBA from Keller Graduate School of Management.

Manheim Township businessman Jim Bednarski, an independent, also is running against Pitts.

Pitts, of Unionville in Chester County, is seeking a ninth two-year term in the House. Patrick O'Keeffe of Lititz had intended to challenge Pitts but changed his mind.

Open primary

We can safely say this week that the most interesting local race in the April 24 primary will be that for state House in retiring Rep. Tom Creighton's 37th district, which stretches across northern Lancaster County.

At least three Republicans are circulating petitions to get on the ballot, and the Republican committee there didn't want to endorse either of the two who sought party backing this week — Mindy Fee and Stephen Black.

The deadlocked GOP instead chose to recommend them both for consideration, a move that was widely seen as a victory for Black, a builder from Elizabeth Township who didn't appear to have enough support for party backing but did have enough to block an endorsement of Fee.

"I'm very honored that the committee went that way," Black said. "I think it'll give the voters in our district a choice, which I think they've been looking for."

In an informal straw poll taken by committee members in the 37th earlier this month, Fee had won nearly enough for endorsement, which is a two-third majority, by getting 63 percent of the vote. But when the endorsement convention came Tuesday night, Republicans suggested just beforehand that things had changed.

"I definitely wanted an endorsement. I was pushing for an endorsement. But I'm going to move forward," Fee said later in the week. "There must have been a bloc of voters who didn't want to endorse."

Black and Barry McFarland, a retired schoolteacher who is running, said they were pleased that the primary will be open and that the party didn't side with just one candidate.

Convention delegates

The county GOP has endorsed a slate of candidates for delegate and alternate delegate to the Republican National Convention, being held in Tampa Aug. 27 through Aug. 30.

The delegate candidates from the 16th Congressional District are state Sen. Mike Brubaker of Warwick Township; former GOP Chairman Dave Dumeyer of West Hempfield Township; and Lancaster Township GOP Chairwoman Ann Womble.

The alternate delegate candidates are county GOP Chairman Ethan Demme and Marilyn Schnee of Lancaster city.

The party-backed alternate delegate candidate from the 7th Congressional District, which now includes part of eastern Lancaster County, is prothonotary Katherine Wood-Jacobs, who chairs the Pequea Valley Area Republican GOP.

Republican and Democratic voters will choose their convention delegates and alternate delegates in the April 24 primary. The county Democrats meet this weekend to endorse candidates.

Rhyming judge dissents

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice J. Michael Eakin, a resident of West Donegal Township, was among the three Republican dissenters in the high court's stunning decision to invalidate the newly redrawn House and Senate boundaries.

If it pleases the court, may Eakin — nicknamed the "rhyming judge" for his occasional use of witty quatrains — be allowed to write the dissenting opinion.

If any case deserves a dash of humor, it is this one.

tmurse@lnpnews.com