Al Neri posted this extensive interview with Josh Shapiro for The Insider:
Things got off to a fast start for Montgomery County native Josh Shapiro in 2004 when he started his career in elective politics.
A former congressional chief of staff, he decided to go his own independent way when his boss, then U.S. Rep. Joe Hoeffel, ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate as a Democrat against veteran Republican Arlen Specter.
Shapiro had the opposite result. He too took on a veteran Republican, Jon Fox, who his boss had defeated for the congressional seat. Fox, the former congressman, county commissioner and state representative, was trying to restart his political career by returning to the state House as a Republican.
But Shapiro out-raised, out hustled and outdistanced Fox to grab that first rung of his own political ladder.
