Beating Jack Murtha

RedState ^ | 5/18/06 | AaronVB

[Coop]

...[u]nseating an incumbent in the House is always difficult. Unseating a 32-year incumbent is harder still. However, Murtha may be up for a "Daschle moment" - a high-profile defeat earned by running far to the left of one's constituents. To start with, we should take a look at the voting results for the counties within the 12th district for the 2004 Presidential election:

2004 Presidential voting results, counties within Pennsylvania 12th:

Greene County:
Bush 7,786 (50%)
Kerry 7,764 (50%)

Fayette County:
Kerry 29,129 (53%)
Bush 25,045 (47%)

Washington County:
Kerry 48,225 (50%)
Bush 47,763 (50%)

Westmoreland County:
Bush 100,087 (56%)
Kerry 77,774 (44%)

Cambria County:
Bush 34,048 (51%)
Kerry 32,591 (49%)

Indiana County:
Bush 20,254 (56%)
Kerry 15,831 (44%)

Armstrong County:
Bush 18,925 (61%)
Kerry 12,025 (39%)

Overall:
Bush 253,908 (53%)
Kerry 223,339 (47%)

The counties in the district have a clear Republican lean. Of course, the district does not contain the entirety of these counties because of the 2000 gerrymandering, but that gerrymandering was carried about by a Republican controlled legislature, and the results are generally agreed to have favored Republicans. For this reason, without having a more detailed set of data for the voting by precincts within the 12th, I'll stick to the assumption that Murtha's district has a Republican lean in national elections...

This Pennsylvania district is rural, and if it has been following national trends at all, is solidly for strong enforcement of the borders against illegal immigration. Unfortunately, I do not have polls available to show this, but if rural voters in Virginia were willing to vote out incumbent town councilmen over the issue, rural voters in Pennsylvania may be inclined to do the same thing. And as luck would have it, Murtha voted "nay" on HR4437, the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act sponsored by Sensenbrenner. If Irey can succeed in making this an issue in the campaign, it may prove a major weakness for Murtha, especially since it seems to contradict his stated concern for national security and ties him to the very poorly received national illegal immigration demonstrations.

In sum, Murtha is beatable, despite the advantages of 32 years of incumbency. On the two major issues of the day, the war and immigration, he appears to be running far to the left of his constituents, and now because of his national media presence, they know about it. I have not seen any early polls taken on the Irey-Murtha matchup so my arguments are based on inference from other data, but I believe my assumptions can stand up to scrutiny. This is a campaign RedState can get behind and have a reasonable chance of success at. When the benefits are as great as unseating a Democrat hack like Murtha, the price of tapping a few keys to blog for Irey seems quite small!

[Coop]

Anyone who says Murtha cannot be beaten is simply not familiar with this race. Will it be easy? No.

Help Diana Irey send this disgraceful EX-Marine into retirement.

http://www.irey.com

[Always Right]

Anyone who says Murtha cannot be beaten is simply not familiar with this race.

Maybe not, but I have been to Johnstown and I know most people there rely on pork from Murtha. If anything might trip up Murtha it will be the scandal involving his brother's $20 million lobbying efforts on defense contracts that John Murtha has oversight of. That is a dirty setup.

[Coop]

I remember a while back AuH2ORepublican did a breakdown of voting data, which resulted in a 51-49% Kerry advantage in the 12th district. Now we have a second analysis with slightly different numbers (even more favorable to Irey's chances). I'd say the "unbeatable" tag on Murtha can be put to rest.

Murtha does have a substantial fundraising advantage. However, he just helped out Diana Irey considerably with his idiotic comments.

Take a stand against Murtha and for our troops. Support his opponent, whether through donations of time/money, signing up for her campaign E-mails, distributing her URL and key information, or simply bumping these threads. Thank you.

[Lexington Green]

Will PA continue to elect this wartime traitor?

[CPT Clay]

bump for his defeat.

With Swan and Santorum on the ticket, alot of $$$ should be going to Penn.

[Coop]

AuH2O's original post from a couple of months back:

My source for stating that Kerry carried Murtha's PA-12 by only 51%-49% is Michael Barone's 2006 Almanac of American Politics. Barone reported that Kerry got 141,046 votes to President Bush's 133,088 in 2004; I just did the math, and it would give President Bush 48.55% (rounded up to 49%) to Kerry's 51.45% (rounded down to 51%).

Barone got his numbers from Polidata, which apparently was unable to compute the number of votes obtained in the district by third-party candidates, but it was certainly more than 0, so the CD's percentages for both Kerry and Bush are a bit inflated. Third-party candidates got 0.65% in PA in 2004, and assuming that they got the same percentage in the PA-12, they would have gotten 1,801 votes there, increasing the total votes cast to 275,935. Thus, under such an assumption, President Bush actually got 48.23% (rounded down to 48%) while Kerry got 51.12% (rounded down to 51%).

[Coop]

Pinging you all to an existing thread on helping counter Murtha's despicable actions.

[Sisku Hanne]

Besides Murtha's toxic case of foot-in-mouth disease, there is another factor working against him. This week PA citizens have risen up in large numbers against their legislators and shown many incumbents the door. They are sick to death of being treated like serfs by these corrupt overlords. Granted, it was not surprising that Republicans, traditionally people who hold principle over politics, outsed far more of their incumbents than did the plantation Dems. BUT....2 of the 3 Dem incumbents that were ousted came from Allegheny county. Why? Because western state Dems are "yellow-dogs", not "plantation slaves" like Philly Dems. It explains why they are more likely to vote for a Rep if corruption or national security is an issue. They are waking up to the reality that their party is incapable of keeping our country safe, and will sell them down the river for power.

I hope Irey's team is agressive in exposing the corruption of Murtha in addition to his treasonous behavior. Who wants a politician that gambles the lives of our sons and daughters in his partisan games? Murtha will feel the backlash of the PA electorate, but there is still much hard work ahead. It won't be easy, but it can be done.

[Coop]

You bring up an excellent point! Thank you.

[Wristpin]

He's had a long tenure on the Armed Services Committee. He has direct responsibility for the manpower, equipment, pay, and readiness issues we faced back in 2003. While he is lauded as a champion for the military, ask anyone who served through the 90's what they think of him. His record is poor except for gleaning funds for pet projects.

Body Armor Murtha

[SevenMinusOne]

He's had a long tenure on the Armed Services Committee. He has direct responsibility for the manpower, equipment, pay, and readiness issues we faced back in 2003. While he is lauded as a champion for the military, ask anyone who served through the 90's what they think of him. His record is poor except for gleaning funds for pet projects.

Exactly right - Here's hoping this traitor / fool is defeated this Nov -

[Coop]

I can assure you both that a few of us veterans are/will be working very hard to send Mr. Murtha home from Washington.

[Coop]

With Swan and Santorum on the ticket, alot of $$$ should be going to Penn.

Don't know about Swannie, but I remember Santorum had a huge warchest built up. Diana Irey, on the other hand, had very little money coming in from out of state.

At least until this week. :-) Her online donations were significant yesterday and the night before, and her phone was ringing off the hook asking for the snail mail address.

I don't have any details, but I heard that Ms. Irey held a fundraiser last night and there were more attendees than anticipated. Nice to hear. And I imagine their wallets and purses were just a bit looser after Murtha's despicable proclamation.

[AuH2ORepublican]

The more heavily Republican parts of Westmoreland and Washington Counties are in PA-04 and PA-18, respectively, and the PA-12 also includes a Democrat-leaning portion of suburban Allegheny County, so President Bush actually got around 48% in the PA-12, not 53%. Still, it is a race that we can win.

[Coop]

So you're saying the Red State analysis likely neglected to subtract the two other districts' influence on the 12th's numbers, while your original 48.x% (rounded up to 49) still stands?

[Jabba the Nutt]

"...gerrymandering was carried about by a Republican controlled legislature, and the results are generally agreed to have favored Republicans."

I don't know specifically about the PA-12 District, but gerrymandering does not in general work only to benefit one party. It works by concentrating Dem or Rep voters into districts. It helps incumbents.

To me, creating voting districts is a top political reform priority. The situation today, especially for the US House of Representatives, is that the politicians get to elect their voters and voters get screwed.

[Coop]

I don't know specifically about the PA-12 District, but gerrymandering does not in general work only to benefit one party. It works by concentrating Dem or Rep voters into districts. It helps incumbents.

I agree. However, I believe this author was specifically referring to PA-12, so any redistricting would likely favor one party over the other here.

[Allegra]

Darn! When I saw the headline, I was hoping it was about PHYSICALLY beating Jack Murtha.

[Grampa Dave]

I have donated and will be donating each month.

No one is running against the Castro/Saddam sob congressit in my area, so I can send some of my retirement $'s to help this lady.

I'm surprised that more Marines, out of the Corps, haven't been screaming for the defeat of this a$$hole and starting contribution drives of their own.

[Coop]

No one is running against the Castro/Saddam sob congressit in my area,

So I take it you won't be volunteering for this person's campaign? :-D

Thanks for your support! I know THIS Marine is raising heck about Murtha, and a few others around here have joined in. But I hope still more do.