That didn't take long.
There will be no "standing Pat" in the 7th Congressional District. For a couple of reasons.
We may not know what the district will look like when the crucial mid-term elections arrive in November, but we do know something about who will be sitting in it.
It won't be Pat Meehan.
The incumbent Republican who has been under fire since a weekend story indicating he used taxpayer dollars to settle a sexual harassment complaint filed against him by a former staffer, Thursday night told party officials he will not seek re-election.
Meehan will instead retire when his current term expires.
Meehan, who denied any improper relations with the former aide and insisted the settlement was little more than a severance package, becomes the latest in a long line of men - from politicians, entertainment moguls, media stars and others felled in the national cauldron that has surrounded the issue of sexual harassment now for months.
#MeToo has now added #MeehanToo.
Meehan's biggest problem was the fact that he used taxpayer money to settle the complaint, despite his argument that everything was done by the book. And the fact that he did this - settled a harassment complaint - while he was sitting in judgment of others being reviewed by the House Ethics Committee.
The "soul mate" comment was just the icing on the cake, or maybe the ice cream to go with the cake, since the congressman detailed asking the former aide out to ice cream to talk things over.
House Speaker moved quickly to remove Meehan from his Ethics Committee post, start an investigation of the incident, and urged Meehan to pay back the money.
Meehan has been under fire ever since the story, first reported by the New York Times, hit Saturday.
Yesterday his district office in Springfield was hit by two separate rallies.
Meehan had done a series of interviews with local media outlets, including the Daily Times, on Tuesday.
He spoke openly about his relationship with the woman, noting that nothing sexual ever took place with the aide. But he did admit to having romantic feelings and expressed those to the woman. During one of the interviews, he referred to the aide as his "soul mate."
That drew widespread ridicule and even earned him a bit of national scorn when late-night TV host Stephen Colbert did a five-minute skit on Meehan's predicament.
His decision not to run means the race for the coveted 7th District seat is now wide open.
It was already expected to be targeted by Democrats in the wake of the anti-Trump fervor that saw Democrats capture two seats on Delaware County Council for the first time decades, as well as sweeping all three county row offices. Hillary Clinton carried Delco last November.
But no one knows exactly what the 7th District is going to look like after the state Supreme Court tossed out the state's Congressional maps, saying they were unconstitutionally gerrymandered.
The 7th was Exhibit A in the lawsuit brought against the redistricting performed by the Republican-led state Legislature. I fact, so bizarre and contorted was the 7th's boundaries, stretching into parts of five suburban counties, that it earned the nickname "Goofy kicking Donald Duck."
A slew of Democrats are vying for what they thought was the right to challenge Meehan. Those include state Sen. Daylin Leach, once thought the Dem frontrunner who has stepped back from his campaign after he was accused of inappropriate conduct himself.
Now Republicans are in the market for a candidate.
Pat Meehan won't be the 7th District Congressman anymore.
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