NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA

A lot of political candidates talk about running grass-roots campaigns that grow from the ground up, one person at a time.

AnnDrea Benson, a Green Party candidate challenging fourth-term U.S. Rep. Phil English in Pennsylvania's 3rd District, vows to run such a campaign. Based on her kick-off Tuesday in Sharon, she is doing just that.

Ms. Benson was greeted by one campaign supporter: Tom Macchia, an Alaskan with Shenango Valley roots and relatives that he said he would work for Benson votes in November.

Originally slated to launch her local campaign at Sharon's Bicentennial Park, Ms. Benson was held up at previous campaign stops and arrived in Sharon more than an hour late. Macchia, his sister and her small child had been waiting for Benson at the park and followed the candidate to The Herald's Sharon office.

The 3rd District includes all of Erie County and parts of Mercer, Crawford, Butler, Warren, Armstrong and Venango counties.

As a minor-party candidate squaring off against a well-funded Republican incumbent, Ms. Benson said she is running to win but knows she is facing more than just an uphill battle.

"If I can energize some people and let them know that there is an alternative out there, then I've won," said Ms. Benson, a lifelong Democrat who joined the Green Party in June and decided to run when no Democrats came forward to oppose English.

She said her top priority as a lawmaker would be saving American jobs from being siphoned off to third-world countries. She said she wants to slow the "mad rush into a global economy" and push for national health care that covers all Americans.

She also said she supports a non-violent approach to global problems.

"The U.S. must stop acting unilaterally and imperially against 'our enemies.' Instead we must strengthen international bodies like the U.N. and the World Court so that they have the resources and authority to isolate and disarm terrorists ," she said. "A war against Iraq is both unthinkable and unnecessary. None of our allies, including Canada and the European Union, support such a war. Even Iraq's close neighbors don't feel threatened by Iraq, so why should we?"

Her passion, perhaps, is erasing big money and big business from politics. "The wealthy and large corporations cannot be allowed to continue to buy political parties and candidates," she said.

During her stop at the Herald, she held up an American flag on which the stars were replaced with corporate logos. "This is the flag that flies over Congress, and I want to see that flag come down," she said.

Ms. Benson returned to her native Erie County five years ago after working in Minnesota as a poverty lawyer, a legislative staffer and as director of the Democratic Farmer Labor state House caucus staff, and as a corporate attorney for 15 years.

On her opponent English, Ms. Benson said most of his campaign contributions have come from political action committees and special interests and that he's already broken "one major promise" to constituents by seeking a fifth term. English voted for term limits legislation early in his career but never specifically said he would quit after any number of years in office.

Before leaving The Herald, she and her campaign staff sang a song on the importance of removing English to the tune of "Bye Bye Blackbird" with "English" in place of the bird.