Christopher Paul Carney[1] (born March 2, 1959) is an American politician who was the U.S. representative for Pennsylvania's 10th congressional district from 2007 to 2011.

[2] From 2002 to 2004, Carney served as a counterterrorism analyst for the Bush administration, under Douglas Feith in the Office of Special Plans and at the Defense Intelligence Agency, researching links between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

[6][7] A commander in the United States Naval Reserve, Carney served multiple tours overseas and was activated for operations Enduring Freedom and Noble Eagle.

[10][11] Carol Rosenberg, writing in the Miami Herald, wrote that although Carney had traveled with fellow Congressional Representatives on fact-finding trips to Guantanamo, he had never informed them that he himself had served there.

In January 2007, Carney was named chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Management, Investigations, and Oversight, a surprising achievement for a freshman congressman.

In hopes of protecting Sherwood, the Republican-controlled state legislature made the 10th significantly more rural and Republican after the 2000 census, and the Democrats hadn't even put up a candidate in the last two elections.

[27] During the campaign, Carney raised money with a wide variety of supporters, including Sen. Barack Obama, Sen Joe Biden,[28] Rep. Jay Inslee,[29] Rep. Jack Murtha,[30] and Richard Perle, former chairman of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee[31] Douglas Feith, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, congratulated Carney on Election Night.

On paper, Carney was one of the few incumbent Democrats to be rated vulnerable in this election cycle, because he was a freshman running in a strongly Republican district (its Cook Partisan Voting Index was R+8).

The National Republican Congressional Committee advertised for Hackett, while the Service Employees International Union and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee—which were among those organizations identifying Carney as especially vulnerable—advertised on his behalf, placing special emphasis on his vote for an increase in the federal minimum wage to $7.25 by 2009, a measure passed by both houses of Congress and signed into law by Bush on May 24, 2007.

Public opinion polls conducted in January 2008 indicated a lead over Hackett (then a candidate in the GOP primary), by significant double-digit margins and even a majority of registered Republicans, 53 percent, approve of Carney's job performance.

Another northeastern Pennsylvania Congressman, Paul Kanjorski, had long endorsed and actively campaigned for Clinton, alongside a number of other Democratic politicians in the state, including Governor Ed Rendell, while U.S. senator Bob Casey, Jr. was Obama's most significant supporter.

[34] Carney is a board member for the American Edge Project, an advocacy organization for the technology industry.