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OK, I wasn't able to paste the image. But here's the info from that page of Barone's Almanac:

"Politically, this was one of the most Republican parts of America from the Civil War up to the 1930s. Republican policies, including high tariffs and hostility to labor unions, were seen as protecting jobs and increasing growth in the steel economy centered on Pittsburgh. With the coming of the New Deal, and success of the United Mine Workers and the United Steelworkers, the area began voting mostly Democratic. Since 1945, on the Monday before primary and general elections, Democratic pols from across southwestern Pennsylvania have attended the "rally in the valley" held at the Slovak Home in the mill town of Monessen. But it has not followed the national Democratic Party on all issues. Voters here have strongly favored trade restrictions on steel imports, even when most other Democrats were free traders in the 1960s and 1970s; more recently most House Democrats have been opposing free trade measures. Voters here also tend to take conservative stands on cultural issues and foreign policy. This carefully carved district voted 55%-44% for Al Gore in 2000. But after George W. Bush imposed import quotas on steel and boosted clean coal technology, the district voted only 51%-49% for John Kerry."

"2004 Presidential Vote

Kerry (D) 141,046 (51%)

Bush (R) 133,088 (49%)

2000 Presidential Vote

Gore (D) 131,960 (55%)

Bush (R) 105,451 (44%) "

That's good solid documentation, Goldy, and I'm in debt to you for posting it.We'll have it archived with a link whenever this issue needs addressing.

It took me a while to actually see your post, I kept on getting a pop-up screen that said "enter password".It's gone now thankfully, since I have no idea what the "password" is!LOL!

I've never had that happen on a Free Republic thread before, it was quite strange.

Thanks again for the great post! ss

That's good solid documentation, Goldy, and I'm in debt to you for posting it.We'll have it archived with a link whenever this issue needs addressing.

It took me a while to actually see your post, I kept on getting a pop-up screen that said "enter password".It's gone now thankfully, since I have no idea what the "password" is!LOL!

I've never had that happen on a Free Republic thread before, it was quite strange.

Thanks again for the great post! ss

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%).