Lentz battles against the odds in Seventh Congressional District race

Bryan Lentz surveyed the multitudes gathered to watch fire trucks, clowns, cheerleaders, and politicians parade down Eagle Road in Haverford Township.

Then, clutching a fistful of tiny American flags, he ran. He crisscrossed the street, ducking between marchers and cars, to shake hands with seemingly every man, woman, and child along the two-mile parade route during the township's community day on a recent Saturday.

Two hours later, Lentz had slowed to a walk. The culprit was campaign-trail fatigue, he said - "It hits all at once."

But Lentz, 46, a Swarthmore Democrat in a hotly contested race to replace U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak (D., Pa.), knows he must keep sprinting between now and Nov. 2.

His Republican foe in the Seventh Congressional District has much more campaign cash on hand in a year expected to favor the GOP. Plus, former U.S. Attorney Patrick Meehan is well-known, having been district attorney in Delaware County, the heart of the Seventh, which also extends into parts of Chester and Montgomery Counties.

"You always worry about people not knowing who you are when they go to the polls," Lentz said while rushing between events. "I'm doing everything I can to make up that gap."

Lentz, a two-term state representative, is no rookie campaigner. In 2006, he won his House seat by beating a 28-year Republican incumbent.

For his congressional run, Lentz has kicked it up a notch.

Even when recent rain flooded the region's roads and knocked out power, Lentz was out of his house at 6 a.m., ready to greet commuters at the train stations he visits several mornings a week. The sight of the chipper candidate through a rain-soaked windshield impressed his bleary-eyed driver, 23-year-old Sean Coit, who had dressed in the dark that morning because of a power failure.

One aide told of losing 15 pounds because Lentz never tarries to eat. At an Aston event after the Haverford parade, Coit scarfed down a pizza slice and stuffed a brownie into his pocket before heading to the next event.

The third of five children, Lentz followed in his father's footsteps into the Army and, later, the law. An 82d Airborne ranger, Lentz is the fourth generation of his family to serve in the military. He served with NATO peacekeeping missions in the Sinai and Bosnia, and later in Iraq.

Lentz considers his father, Martin, his role model.

"He's the most selfless person that I've ever observed, with the least ego and zero vanity," Lentz said. "He sent all his kids to college and graduate school, never made a peep of it being hard on him. . . . He was a prominent labor lawyer in Philadelphia, but he didn't come home and say, 'Hey, listen what I did today.' He came home and asked how our day was."

Lentz is a father, too. He and his wife, Jennifer, a lawyer, have a year-old son. In 2009, they lost their other boy, 2, to brain cancer - a loss Lentz never mentions in his public life.

He worked as a prosecutor in Philadelphia from 1993 to 1999. It was then, he said, that a mistake of his own taught him to speak up even when it's difficult.

In 1995, he prosecuted an Asian gang member in a shooting. The conviction, based mostly on testimony from a fellow gang member, was undone months later when another gang member confessed, Lentz said.

"I had to go into court and tell the judge, 'We've got the wrong guy in jail,' " he said. "That bothered me, because he was part of a gang, but he spent time in prison for something he was not guilty of."

Lentz said running for office didn't dawn on him until 2004, when, as an Army Reserve major, he led a civil-affairs unit helping to rebuild a city in the midst of a war he opposed.

In 2006, he beat Republican incumbent Tom Gannon in the 161st Legislative District, running as a reformer after the 2005 legislative pay-raise scandal. Lentz vowed to shun such perks as a taxpayer-funded car.

But at the start of his second term, in 2009, he began using a Ford Escape hybrid from the state fleet. He said it was cheaper than being reimbursed for his 200-mile round trips to Harrisburg.

Meehan has seized on that, portraying it as a broken promise and evidence that Lentz is a creature of the much-maligned legislature. Lentz's retort: "Pat Meehan has been a politician for 30 years; I've been here for four."

Besides, he said, he's broken ranks with his party more than once - "I stood up against the equivalent of Nancy Pelosi in Harrisburg" by criticizing top Democratic legislators tainted in the so-called Bonusgate scandal, and by opposing the legalization of poker and other table games, a measure trumpeted by Gov. Rendell.

"People can minimize that," Lentz said, "but a lot of very powerful people wanted that gaming bill passed." He said he opposed the bill because it contained pork for some legislators and taxed the games at a rate too low to provide property-tax relief.

More recently, Lentz has taken a hit over his supporters' role in helping a conservative "spoiler" candidate get onto the Seventh District ballot in an effort to siphon votes from Meehan. Lentz said this week for the first time that he knew of his volunteers' involvement and was untroubled by it.

His aides pointed back at Meehan, whose own nominating petitions have been under investigation by the state Attorney General's Office since irregularities were discovered.

Lentz's years as a prosecutor made him a skilled arguer; after four debates with Meehan, the pugnacious Democrat has sought more. His side thinks he fared well enough in the latest round, at the Suburban Jewish Community Center in Haverford in September, to use footage of a seemingly flustered Meehan in an attack ad. The rivals meet again at Neumann University in Aston on Monday.

No amount of debating skills will disguise Lentz's party label in a year when many voters are angry at the Democratic administration in Washington. Lentz hopes smarts and campaign grit will make up for any Republican wave that may be mounting. If elected, he plans to study hard on health care and job creation.

"If you become the smartest guy in the room on an issue, people are going to listen," he said. "You only need to get a critical mass to agree with you."

He was referring to legislating, but he may as well have been speaking about the race.

Age: 46. Born June 5, 1964, in Philadelphia

Residence: Swarthmore

Education: Wissahickon High School, 1982; Valley Forge Military College, 1984. B.A., philosophy, Georgetown University, 1986. J.D., Temple University Law School, 1993

Professional experience: Army, airborne ranger, 82d Airborne Division, 1986-90; Army Reserve 1998, 2003-04. Assistant district attorney, Philadelphia, 1993-99. Lawyer, Bochetto & Lentz, 1999-03. Partner, Villari, Lentz & Lynam. 2004-current.

Political experience: State representative, 2007-10.

Party: Democratic.

Family: Wife, Jennifer, and one son. Another son died at age 2.EndText