Murphy had a terrible, meltdown town hall earlier this year that made the You Tube rounds. Since then he has been quiet. Just saw his first ad today and it was not good, and he says nothing of his votes. You would think he’s an R. That said, the last numbers had this race tight. I think Fitzpatrick can make ground cramming Murphy’s record down his throat. Rendell’s name is mud here, 26% approval, and Obummer is not well liked. He has no one to back him up anymore. Plus Toomey and Corbett are on fire and energizing the base.
Murphy will do anything to avoid facing his constituents, it seems. That’s why he was covertly trying to get Lingenfelter on the ballot to split some of the conservative vote and let him win with a minority. Now that that’s failed, it’s going to be hard for him to keep his head down.
It’s also not surprising that he is downplaying his voting record. He claims to be a member of the Blue Dog Caucus, and maybe he is nominally, but he votes with Pelosi 97% of the time.
From what I’m hearing from the Fitzpatrick camp, he’s planning on running a much more aggressive campaign than he did in ‘06. I think he’s taken a lot of what Murphy did during the campaign personally.