Cardboard babble on the outskirts

“OUR VOICE…OUR ISSUES…OUR CONGRESSMANDENNIS CARDOZA”(who moved his family to Washington DC, taking a physician from the famously medically underserved Valley with him, leaving a whole rooftop of solar panels behind) Loose Lips: …Friday, Mar. 14, 2008Is Cardoza abandoning the Valley?http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/story/182480.htmlLoose Lips readers, your congressman has left the zip code.Lips has learned that the long-rumored move of Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-Packing Up) is now a reality. Cardoza announced earlier this week that his family is moving from Atwater to Maryland.“This was not an easy decision, but many members of Congress with young families move them to Washington,” said Cardoza’s wife, Kathy McLoughlin, in a written statement released Monday. “With Joey and Brittany entering high school in the fall, we believe this is the right time to have the family join Dennis in the Washington area. Even though he travels home each weekend, we miss him during the week and look forward to being together more.”McLoughlin, a family physician, has accepted a position at UniversityCare, a clinic that’s part of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. She’ll leave her Merced practice in May, which means one less doctor in our already medically challenged region. Could we maybe keep the doctor and let the politician go? Just kidding!Hmm. Cardoza is up for re-election this year. Lips wonders whether it’s just a coincidence that Cardoza announced the move on the first business day after the deadline passed for challengers to announce a run against him. No one stepped forward, so he’ll be running unopposed in November. But as Cardoza’s spokesman pointed out, the field is still open for write-in candidates.Note to D.C. junkies: the town Cardoza et famille is moving to, Lothian, Md., is firmly outside the Beltway, which means Cardoza can maintain some street cred as a Non-Washington Insider. Also, he’s keeping the Atwater abode for use on visits back to our humble district — or until property values stop sinking like coins tossed into the Reflecting Pool.