Posted on 08/11/2008 10:14:14 AM PDT by smoothsailing
BY MIKE FAHER
The Tribune-Democrat
August 09, 2008 11:39 pm
—
While Republican congressional candidate William Russell gave a television interview in an Upper Yoder Township backyard, campaign manager Peg Luksik worked a crowd of about 15 on a nearby porch.
Her high-energy pitch included showing off several varieties of Russell T-shirts and urging supporters to each take two bumper stickers to better advertise the candidate while driving.
“This really is a little-guy campaign,” she said. “Anything you can do, we certainly appreciate it. It does make a difference.”
The campaign event last week, complete with a table covered with snacks and kids playing in the grass, showed that Russell intends to play hardball in a small-ball way as he tries to unseat powerful U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Johnstown.
Even while reaching out to small gatherings of voters on their porches, he will attempt to tap into a still-strong current of anti-Murtha sentiment on a national level – the same conservative-based ire that helped fuel Republican Diana Irey’s campaign two years ago.
Thus, Luksik ended her presentation on a decidedly more grand, sweeping note.
“What happens here is going to echo across the country,” she said. “Because this is a national election.”
While Irey’s 2006 campaign and Russell’s 2008 effort share a political affiliation, there are few similarities between the candidates.
Irey was an experienced politician and Washington County commissioner when she ran against Murtha; Russell never before has sought political office. She was an established resident of the 12th Congressional District; he is a career military man who moved to Johnstown last year in order to challenge Murtha.
And Russell would hope there is another big difference: Irey, despite campaigning hard, still lost to Murtha by more than 20 percentage points in November 2006.
That year may have represented a golden moment for Republicans hoping to unseat Murtha, as the congressman had in late 2005 become a national lightning rod because of his vehement opposition to the war in Iraq.
But it ended up not having much of an impact on local voters. Murtha won every county in the 12th district including Washington, Irey’s home turf.
Nevertheless, Russell has made Iraq a central issue in his campaign, arguing that Murtha is encouraging America’s enemies and discouraging its soldiers by advocating a troop withdrawal from that war-torn country.
He is quick to criticize Murtha – as Irey did – for alleging that U.S. Marines murdered innocent Iraqis in 2005.
And Russell contends the congressman is a “Washington insider” who has taken an increasingly liberal approach on key social issues.
“Somewhere along the line, it seems that Mr. Murtha has lost touch,” Russell told his Upper Yoder audience last week.
Murtha spokesman Matt Mazonkey fired back.
“It’s mind-boggling that someone who has never lived in western Pennsylvania has the gall to accuse anyone who lives here as being ‘out of touch,’ ” Mazonkey said.
So Russell is trying to take his message directly to those who do, in fact, “live here.”
After serving 90 days on active military duty, the veteran of both Iraq wars kicked off his general-election campaign just after midnight on Aug. 1 – rolling into Uniontown, Fayette County, on a motorcycle.
He later served corn on the cob at the Fayette County Fair and plans similar interactions at other community events.
“I’ll be scooping a lot of ice cream,” he said.
The candidate also is staging “running with Russell” jogs and various “front porch” rallies such as last week’s.
“It’s a great way to get out and meet people,” he said. “It’s just sort of a neighborhood networking kind of thing.”
In naming Luksik as his campaign manager, Russell chose someone who knows a thing or two about grass-roots political efforts.
The Westmont resident gained fame in the 1990s by making three runs for governor.
In 1990, having entered the Republican primary in March, she won 46 percent of the vote in May but lost to GOP-backed Barbara Hafer.
Two later runs as a Constitutional Party candidate netted her a combined 776,000 votes.
Republican Tom Ridge won both of those elections.
“I know how to do things outside the box,” Luksik said, adding that she is encouraged by the Russell campaign’s early momentum.
That includes more than 20,000 donors to the Russell cause so far, with the candidate’s Web site and general Internet buzz contributing to that total.
“We’re all working 27 hours a day at this point,” Luksik said.
Much work remains, however.
Murtha still is an immensely popular politician in a sprawling district that favors Democratic candidates.
And then there is the congressman’s economic clout, including his power as ranking member of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.
While Russell shook hands with potential voters last week, Murtha was driving a prototype military vehicle in Johnstown, touring Joyce Murtha Breast Care Center (named for his wife) in Windber and announcing $1.93 million in funding for Somerset County’s Quemahoning Pipeline.
Mazonkey said Murtha has worked “tirelessly” for his district for 34 years.
“We are proud of our region’s success,” Mazonkey said, “and Congressman Murtha has a legacy of working with local officials to attract jobs, better health care, and new roads and bridges.”
Convincing voters to look past those contributions and take a more ideological stance on the longtime congressman is Russell’s primary task – one he is trying to undertake one porch gathering at a time.
“By and large, we want to be as grass-roots as we can be,” he said.
Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.
Photos
The Tribune-Democrat
Bill Russell Ping!
Keep hitting him. Murtha will eventually fall. 2006 we just didn’t have what it took but this Veteran can win.
Here is an interesting story:
Could Murtha lose re-election?
In this era of fear that Republicans are losing the battle for the country’s heart and soul to the likes of Barack Obama and his minions, there is yet cause for hope. This hope comes in the form of political underdog William Russell, a 45-year-old Desert Storm Veteran who threatens to dethrone another Democrat military apologist, Pennsylvania Rep. Jack Murtha.
Russell, who has not been permitted to campaign actively until his active duty with the Army ends today, has managed to raise $670,000 to Murtha’s $119,000. He has already overcome several other hurdles, including relative anonymity and the decision of a Pennsylvania judge that he did not have enough signatures to qualify for the primary ballot. Yet Russell stuck to the fight, managing to collect an 4,000 more signatures, which earned him a spot on the ballot. His campaign, which has survived largely on guts and the support of folks donating under $50, is a true grassroots success story.
While many Republicans have spent precious time and energy trying to repackage the party in order to make it more palatable to the masses, Russell remains unapologetically steadfast in his views. “I am a conservative,” Russell said. “I believe in the sovereignty and security of this one nation, under God. I believe the primary role of government is to provide for the common defense and a legal framework to protect families and individual liberty... I believe that no one owes me anything just because I live and breathe.” Amen.
http://archive.patriotpost.us/pub/08-31_Digest/page-2.php
I’am for Russell
Contact me to be added to ping list.
Bump! Thanks for the post.
"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country, but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us that, the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph…. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to tax) but "to bind us in all cases whatsoever," and if being bound in that manner is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth." -Thomas Paine December 19, 1776
Yes.
Murtha’a legacy.
Let’s work on that, hmmm?
Jack Murtha as a Marine never saw serious action. He was an intelligence officer in Viet Nam, far from where most of the exchange of gunfire was going on. Most of his service was in the Reserves, and while honorable, just does not come up to the same level of valor as the Marine patrolling a side street in Haditha.
Yet Jack Murtha can criticize the actions of someone in whose shoes he has never stood. It seems cynical, and in fairness, most of the people in Murtha’s on district have never been under fire either. Not to say, there were NONE, as surely, more than a few of his constituents also served honorably, some under much more rigorous conditions than Jack Murtha ever faced.
There once was a one-panel cartoon series, “Our Boarding House”, which was under the proprietorship of Martha Hoople. Her ne’er-do-well husband, Major Hoople, whose high point in life was a short stint in the Army, was a self-important blowhard, who spent most of his time scheming for some way to get out from under the thumb of Martha, and down to the local tavern, where he and several of his equally inauspicious buddies were working on various ways to beat the system with some get-rich-quick intrigue and shortcut to Easy Street.
Jack Murtha reminds me so much of what Major Hoople would have been if he had ever been elected to Congress.
Yeaaaah, that’s the one.
The thanks go to you for your continued support, piano-woman. Whatever it takes is right on, Murtha has to go!
BTTT
Thanks for the ping Jaz...As for Murtha and the people who vote for him i can only shake my head and ask: How can any American vote for a traitor-a man who betrayed the military that helped him step up to a higher office and who tried to undermine his President who is fighting a just war ?
Well said, Bill...There are many many who wonder the same thing. It’s a shame that the pork he brings home means more to his voters than our country.
The pork you speak of is true, but it mostly goes to Murtha cronies, very little of it to the average working stiff.
They just vote for the old coot anyway.
If Russell can swing about 25 to 30 thousand of those clowns his way, he wins.
Murtha's hold on the district is more fragile today than it was 2 years ago.
That’s good to hear about Murtha’s hold on the district, you’re in a position to know, Smooth.
Hopefully enough of those working stiff Dems and their families will be tired of his shenanigans and send him packing. I’ve heard even though it’s a Dem district that many are conservative, this is the election for them to show it.
And that's the truth.
These voters here have been slow to catch up, but they are coming around from what I see.
Murtha has drifted far to the left, getting in with the Pelosi and Code Pink crowd, and the folks around here don't like that.
(I'm heading to the foxhole, brother, tomorrow there be more dragons! ;-)
Thanks, MM. Glad to see the amount of support for Russell here at FR.
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