Earlier today, PolitickerMA.com's Wally Edge connected the dots between U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Worcester), the Progressive Democrats of America and U.S. Senate candidate Ed O'Reilly (D-Gloucester) in his ongoing commentary on the "Inside Edge."

McGovern's office has since responded, stating that McGovern fully supports U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-Boston) in his re-election run and highlighted the congressman's work with the Bay State's junior senator.

Below is the entirety of the McGovern's response.

Wally Edge,

I want to address your assertion that Congressman McGovern's involvement with the Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) both as an advisory board member and a participant in a PDA-sponsored panel discussion at the DNC is somehow evidence of his lack of support for Senator Kerry's re-election.

First and foremost, Congressman McGovern has directly and repeatedly informed the leadership of the PDA that he is enthusiastically supporting Senator Kerry's campaign for re-election. He even went so far as to suggest to the PDA that it reconsider its position on the senate race. In fact, Congressman McGovern encouraged the leadership of the organization to meet with Senator Kerry to discuss their differences which they did. A phone call or e-mail to Tim Carpenter as the President of PDA would have confirmed this. Furthermore, a cursory review of the numerous PDA panel discussions being held on a broad range of topics over the course of four days at the DNC, many of which are jointly sponsored with The Nation magazine, would reveal that there are several members of Congress, journalists, activists and policy experts participating on these PDA panels. Congressman McGovern is participating on the economic justice and ending poverty panel in order to highlight the need for greater attention to the alarming increase in both domestic and international hunger and his work as Co-Chair of the Congressional Hunger Caucus. There is simply no nexus between Congressman McGovern's participation on a PDA panel discussion at the DNC and Senator Kerry's campaign. Your blog post would suggest that every participant in these PDA panel discussions is supporting Senator Kerry's opponent. I doubt very much that is the case. Incidentally, Congressman McGovern is scheduled to attend Senator Kerry's reception at the DNC two days before the PDA panel discussion.

Finally, Congressman McGovern has been actively campaigning for Senator Kerry in his congressional district this summer. Most recently, they made a joint campaign appearance at the Fall River Senior Center with Mayor Bob Correia on August 6th. A link to that story is included below. I would call your attention to Congressman McGovern's unequivocal and explicit expression of support for Senator Kerry's re-election in the article. A simple google search would have produced this same article.

http://www.heraldnews.com/homepage/x903586030/Kerry-calls-for-a-break-from-Bush

We have been very responsive to PolitickerMA when it has sought to interview Congressman McGovern on a number of issues. Unfortunately you didn't extend us the same courtesy before posting your blog in this instance. PolitickerMA is a promising new website but its efforts to establish credibility with a wider audience as a serious forum for political discussion are undermined by blog posts like the one you posted today.

Christopher Philbin
Chief of Staff
U.S. Representative James P. McGovern (MA-03)

RELATED: Wally Edge responds to Chris Philbin responding to Wally Edge