Posted on 03/24/2010 11:09:55 AM PDT by smoothsailing
by David Croyle
Harrisburg is talking about last night’s cable show in Kittanning where the Republican candidate for the 12th Congressional District accused the state Republican Party chairman of collusion.
Bill Russell ran two years ago against John Murtha in his last election in 2008, raising $3.6 million and earning an impressive 42 percent of the vote. Following his loss, Russell announced he would run against him again.
Since Murtha’s unexpected death on February 8, a special election will now be held simultaneously with the Primary on May 18. However, while Russell is already on the Republican ticket for the May primary, Republican insiders rejected him as their candidate to run against Murtha staffer Democrat Mark Critz of Johnstown in the special election. Although Russell already has a district-wide organization in place and excellent name recognition from his last campaign, the GOP conferees voted by a 2-1 margin for Tim Burns from Eighty Four, Pennsylvania in Washington County to run in the special election.
Russell, appearing on Family-Life TV’s Talk of the Town, criticized state Republican Chairman Rob Gleason.
“Unfortunately we’ve got a state Republican chairman who has a direct conflict of interest and really had no interest in, one, either defeating Jack Murtha when he was in Congress or, two, in taking that seat,” Russell said, referring to Gleason’s ownership of an insurance agency. “His direct personal interest is in keeping that the status quo. The direct financial interest is the fact that his insurance company writes the insurance policies for many of the companies Mr. Murtha used to bring in, and he has a vested interest in keeping the status quo for that. It is really unfortunate because, one, he has a vested financial interest in going against the Republican party, two, in a recent news interview, he attacked me for doing too well in the 2008 election because that caused Jack to bring out the Democratic forces including Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton for six robo calls,and Barack Obama. With the turnout of the Democratic electorate to save Mr. Murtha’s seat, he says that actually led him to lose a state legislature seat. So he was angry with me for doing too well against Mr. Murtha.”
D. Patrick Mahoney in The Washington Times yesterday also criticized Gleason and conferees, alleging Burns’ financial fortune that tops nine figures will enable him to self-fund his campaign and also contribute to other campaigns as well.
“It’s an unfortunate reality of what’s going on. As unhappy as people may be about what is going on in Washington, we can’t change things in Washington if we don’t first change the way we do things here in Pennsylvania. With the populist support I have had, I was 30 points ahead in the polls in the Republican running, I’m the largest non-incumbent fund raiser in the nation, but yet they chose somebody else with a 7% name recognition.”
Because the special election will be held at the same time as the state’s Primary election, it will be possible for Burns to actually win and occupy the seat from May until November while Russell wins the Republican nod in the Primary. If Russell wins the Primary and also the General election in November, he could still become the 12th Congressional District’s choice.
Russell, a retired 82nd Airborne officer and Iraq War veteran, seemed undaunted by the politics surrounding the special election.
“My focus right now is running in the Primary and winning the November election,” Russell said.
Nice thought. But just a thought, I’m afraid.
You know the fact that there is no railroading .
Russel is a sore loser and peddling a pack of lies to prevent Burns from becoming the incumbent in the upcoming midterm elections.
Exactly...Bill Russell faced Murtha when no one else would. He’s done his homework, built a campsign base and Gleason pulls the rug out from under him.
Typical of Gleason after not supporting Diana Irey or Bill Russell in prior elections against Murtha.
Why are you trolling Russell threads for Burns votes?
Yesterday morning you didn’t even know Russell’s name.
This is not the truth
Russel is sad pathetic SORE LOSER .
Burns is a local tea party activist, a conservative ,and a true PA local.
Burns won the local special election delegate vote by a hundreds of people .That is PA state law for special elections .
No one has a full blown primary for special elections since its a huge taxpayer expense.
Russel needs to stand down and divide the vote on purpose !
I would love to see Irey jump back in. She was very popular on FR, unfortunately, that campaign took a big financial toll on her.
I am not spreading lies and propaganda about Burns .
I am just making sure the Russel smear strategy is
shut down .
Its a disgrace.
Which tea party groups does Burns represent/work with?
Also, you said Burns won by “..a hundreds...”
Was it “a hundred” or “hundreds”?
Yes, I liked Irey a lot also. She was on Quinn and Rose’s show a lot back then. I think she knew Rose somehow. I take exception to smoothsailings characterization as Bill Russell being the only one to ever take on Murtha. Irey ran a tough campaign against him and didn’t let up on any punches. I don’t want to disparage Russell. I like him. But right now he is being selfish and needs to just run for the primary win and quit whining about the process to take the rest of Murtha’s term.
The vote was Burns 85 to Russell's 46.
Here's a post of yours from yesterday morning.
Because this Russert LOST BEFORE and never Lived in the district and ran a crummy campaign.
Russert needs to grow up and move on.
15 posted on Tuesday, March 23, 2010 5:14:40 AM by ncalburt (e)
Who are you talking about, Tim Russert? He's dead, Jim.
One other thing, it seems to me that Russell is trying to make out that this is like the Hoffman/Scozzafava situation up in New York. It is nothing like it. He has a chance to run in the primary just like everyone else. The state was not going to have a special election so close to the regular primary. That would have been a waste of money and there would not have been a good turnout anyways.
>> I am just making sure the Russel smear strategy is shut down .
Dude, get lost.
I'm surprised this should be such a controversy. It seems that party rules should be clear as to when to call a special election. For example, in New Mexico, you have to get above 20% of a vote like this to be on a ballot, if only one person gets above 20%, a special election is not needed unless the other party can get a certain amount of signatures. If the rules are similar it seems Russell has a very strong case here.
Done!!
Yes, I don’t know all the rules in PA on special elections, I live in WA. Smoothsailing is up on this and was at the meeting where the conferees voted.
There was a hit piece against Russell yesterday and it sounds like it started a lot of rumors against him.
Russell has a legitimate gripe with PA Republicans, especially Rob Gleason, IMO. But Russell is running in the primary against Burns and I believe will beat Burns.
Actually Col. Russell wished Burns luck in the special election. And that’s a fact. He half-joking said he might wtite himself in at a town hall meeting in Indiana, PA, both he and Burns were there and the crowd laughed. He also said he’d vote for Burns should Burns be on the ballot in November.
Alot of the reporting on this has been taken out of context, or in some cases distorted by partisan commenters.
I volunteered for Diana’s campaign, I live in the district. Both Irey and Russell ran virtually unopposed in their respective primaries. There has not been a competitive Republican primary in the 12th CD in years.
You say Russell is being selfish, I say Russell is being honest and courageous. And guess what, Gleason created the situation the Republican party here finds itself in, not Russell. Russell just wants clean politics and honest party officials.
So do I.
Here we go. Murtha’s rigormortis has barely set in and we’ve got the Chiefs leaving town and Republicans fighting with each other.
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