That assumes he won’t a Pelosi robot or Murtha clone. Once he’s in office, he won’t give Pelosi heartburn. EVERY DEMOCRAT IS A WEASEL IN OFFICE — REMEMEBER THE STUPAK 14?
Quite right...this was the seat that Murtha held AFTER accusing marines of cold blooded murder...
Not surprised we didnt take this one...
Aren’t Burns and Critz having a rematch in November?
They face off again in November. Let’s wait and see if Pelosi tames Critz in the interim.
On paper, anyway. But, what has recently been proven is that there ARE no conservative Democrats. Clearly, this guy is trying to paint himself as a conservative - no on cap & trade, no on Obamacare, yes on guns, no on abortion, are all about as orthodox conservative as you can get, yet he's a democrat
This is my worry - Pelosi will schedule a bunch of crazy-left votes (things that have NO CHANCE of passing) for this summer that will allow people like this Critz to vote against, and bear the "conservative" teeth. Americans, sadly, are just stupid enough to fall for, just like the voters in the PA special election.
Sounds like a southern democrat. Some of those guys are more conservative than a lot of republicans.
I’m not democrat or republican. I’m conservative, and the conservative candidate will get my vote.
‘Cept I don’t vote any more. That dog has proven it won’t hunt.
They want to make certain that even if Democrats are swept out of power a "centerist" cadre (read "center-left") still has a controlling majority.
That's not what this is. If a candidate missteps, shows indecision, or otherwise spooks voters in any way, he won't win. Especially if he's a Republican. It's hard to say what went wrong here, but I'll bet the Russell issue had a lot to do with it.
I heard a couple of things from Burns that made him sound pretty milquetoast and establishment to me. I don't know if that affected him with his base in the district, but it may have. It's nearly impossible to tell from several states away just what happened inside the district.
These are serious times and people are clamoring for something more than just voting for 'the other party'. Either they're going to get it, or they won't change their voting habits.
I wouldn’t read too much int this race. The (D) to (R) ratio is 2 to 1 and will likely be a much closer race in November. Once Critz gets to DC he’ll show his stripes to be just like his old boss, Murtha’s. Then November will be a lot more interesting................
How is this a disaster? I didn’t think we could win in district where a former marine can blame US soldiers for atrocities and still get elected..
Are the idiots this stupid at NRO ? WE all know that answer. These DC beltway types are clueless.The reason the Murtha special election was schedule so late was because the Dem crook Rendell knew the Dem senate primary race and the chance to vote on Specter would drive up more Dem turnout than GOP voters!
What the writer is forgetting is that the dem primary was a highly contested contest that drew a much more enthusiastic turnout than the GOP primary. In November they’re will be a much more motivated Republican electorate, a newly installed congressman with actual recorded votes (which will likely be more party line than not), and another 5 months of Obama economic malaise will have passed. The defeat of Specter is a victory for conservatives, and opens up an opportunity for another Senate pickup this fall.
There is not such thing as a moderate or blue dog democrat!!! They are all rats and they will turncoat as soon as the leadership puts some pressure on them. Remember a Democrat will say what ever is nessesary to get elected then do what ever he wants once in office, this is their SOP. How many times are the American public going to get fooled by these rats??
I don’t know much about PA-12, but it looks like one of THE most gerry-mandered districts in the country.
The fact that this was a "special election" for a seat that will be contested again in just six months gave many Republicans no incentive to support the GOP candidate while he is still facing a primary contest for the November election.
Critz was Murtha’s long time chief of staff. He will vote like Murtha, which will not give Pelosi heartburn.
I like Jim, but I think he’s wrong here. This is an area that elected Murtha even after he insulted our military, had a huge edge in Democrats, is unionized etc.
The candidate ran on a conservative platform. He even said he would have voted against Healthcare. (Yes, I know that’s a laugh, but a lot of people are stupid enough to believe these politicians.) But I just don’t see this being the bellwether county people think it is.
Spector, who jumped to the Dems and is from the same state, got thrown out last night. Anyone status quo is going to go.
I think we can chalk PA-12 up to a failure of the GOP Establishment in PA. How do you let a career political operative from DC run to the right of your candidate in the current political environment?
Go take a look at Critz issue page. He ran as a Republican. He hypes how he is Pro Life, Pro 2nd Amendment, Pro Domestic Energy production and Pro Military. He also stressed his ties to the US Military and his getting some big award from the National Guard.
Burns on the other hand has no solid creditably with the military plus he is easy to caricature as an “Evil big businessman” in a solidly blue collar district. In addition to that the GOP Establishment threw over solidly conservative, ex military man Russel to run the light weight Country Clubber Burns.
On the surface PA-12 voted for the more Conservative candidate. We all know that is nonsense but most voters are not so involved in the process as Freepers
Once again it seems the GOP was more interested in a candidate that could self fund then one who actually had a serious shot at this seat.
The questions for Nov are:
Are there enough of these sorts of newbie Dems running as Republican Lite to hold these districts for the Dems?
Is the GOP Establishment so uniformly incompetent that they cannot find credible candidates who have a serious connection with the voters in these sorts of district?
How would these voters break if they are confronted with a serious Establishment Democrat vrs a serious challenger Conservative rather the being forced to choose between a faux “Republican lite” Democrat and a Establishment Country Club Republican?
PA 12 indicates nothing about Nov.
PA-12 was the Dems seat to lose and they didn’t. Big Whoopie! Kerry carried in in 2004 and McCain won it by like 1% of the vote. It is NOT a “Swing District” it is a solid “Safe D” district.
The take away from PA 12 should be that the Dems had to work this hard to win this safe seat. Those facts should be ringing warning bells in DNC circles not generating the sort of arrogantly smug complacency being expressed by Democrat Propaganda Press
Remember where NRO comes from. They are squarely in the GOP Establishment Corner and are BIG supporters of Mittens. They want to frighten the Tea Partiers with crap like this.
There were 80,736 votes cast in the dem primary vs. 45,852 in the GOP primary.
In the primary, Critz got 57,704. In the special election he got 70,662. In the primary, Burns got 26,120. In the special election he got 60,500.