MERCER COUNTY AREA — A forum for congressional candidates Wednesday featured the Neopolitan ice cream of small government politics, offering up healthy servings of anti-Washington fervor, free-market ideas and a dollop of social conservatism.

Patriots in Action Pa., an anti-incumbent group with clear tea party sympathies, hosted the event at The Radisson Hotel of Sharon, Shenango Township, for 3rd and 4th District candidates challenging incumbent Democratic Reps. Kathy Dahlkemper and Jason Altmire.

The 80 or so people packed into a small banquet room were receptive as the seven Republicans and one independent presented their platforms and answered questions from the audience.

Scott Boyd wanted to know if 3rd District candidate Clayton Grabb, who said he was a tea party candidate, thinks the U.S. government can really be shrunk.

Grabb said it could, and advocated a freeze on federal jobs and laws that would force any incoming employees to accept private-sector equivalent pay and benefits.

Another man asked if candidates could stand to be “vilified” by the press, as he said the tea party movement has been.

Independent candidate for the 4th District John Vinsick, who had a boisterous and aggressive attitude, said he could.

“Bring it on,” said Vinsick, who promised not to “fold like a tent in the wind” and said conservatives are too often afraid of fighting back against those he described as “leftists, socialists, Marxists, communists, fascists and RINOs.”

Some conservatives are afraid of making people angry, said Vinsick. “Anger who? We’re already angry. Stevie Wonder can see we’re angry,” he said to a chuckling crowd.

He also took a shot at 4th District Republican candidate Mary Beth Buchanan — a former federal prosecutor —  when he said Washington doesn’t need any more attorneys.

Ms. Buchanan fired back with her credentials: an assistant U.S. Attorney by 25, the first female U.S. Attorney in Pennsylvania by 38, and a woman who has prosecuted 18 corrupt politicians on both sides of the aisle and has already been vilified by a smear campaign put on by one of the defendants she prosecuted, she said.

“I have stood up to terrorists, to drug dealers, to pedophiles, and I will certainly stand up to Nancy Pelosi,” she said.

One audience member wanted to know if the tea party and Republicans can get along well enough to get the requisite number of Republicans in office to defeat Democratic legislation.

Keith Rothfus, an Allegheny County attorney who is also seeking the 4th District seat, said they have to work together by putting real conservatives in office.

Rothfus said he campaigned heavily for candidate Pat Toomey against U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter in the 2004 primary, where Specter narrowly beat Toomey. He said it was the establishment’s support of Specter over Toomey that gave Democrats a filibuster-proof majority to pass health care this year.

Tea partiers, Rothfus added, should be embraced by Republicans because they “love their country.”

All candidates focused on a conservative agenda, and the audience applauded their stances on deregulation, lower taxes, gun rights, abortion, criticism of an elitist or meddling government, military strength and American exceptionalism.

The 3rd District, represented by Mrs. Dahlkemper, includes most of Mercer County. The forum featured Republicans Grabb, Ed Franz, Paul Huber, Steven Fisher, and Dr. Martha Moore, who are seeking the party’s nomination in the May primary to challenge her. A sixth Republican, Mike Kelly couldn’t attend the event, moderator Richard Edmiston said.

The 4th District includes Farrell, West Middlesex, Shenango Township and a sliver of Hermitage. Rothfus and Ms. Buchanan face off in the primary. Vinsick is running as an independent.