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Next Tuesday’s “other race” in Pennsylvania

By: LaborUnionReport (Diary)  |  May 11th, 2010 at 10:35 AM  | 

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[from the diaries by haystack]

Union bosses are nervous about Pennsylvania.  They should be.

Next Tuesday is a BIG deal in Pennsylvania, as it is one of the six union “firewall” states that union bosses want to keep in union Democrat control.

So far, things aren’t looking so good for them.

After the desperate party-switching Arlen Specter got the endorsements of Barack Obama, the SEIU, the PA AFL-CIO, the Teamsters and a host of other unions, his primary opponent Joe Sestak passed the octogenarian in the latest Rasmussen poll.  However, as HuffPo notes:

Both Specter and Sestak poll similarly against Toomey, but the bad news is that they both poll about ten points behind Toomey. It may not matter which one of them wins the Democratic nomination, if Toomey wins the general election. The choice for Pennsylvania Democrats is going to be which of the Democratic candidates would have a better chance against Toomey. [Emphasis added.]

Meanwhile, unions are also getting very worried about next Tuesday’s special election in Western Pennsylvania (the “other” Pennsylvania election) where the voters in PA-12 will be choosing a Congressman to replace union-water carrier John Murtha.  The choice for voters is whether to replace Murtha with his long-time elf-like aide Mark Critz or to choose Republican Tim Burns.

For union Democrats, PA-12 should be a no-brainer.  After all, there are more than two registered Democrats for every one Republican (256,281 Democrats compared with 118,175 Republicans).  However, even though this is an uphill battle, PA-12 is also where people cling to God and guns and, as a result, the special election is going down to the wire:

The ghost of John P. Murtha looms large over this congressional district: from the hundreds of millions of dollars the late Democratic legislator famously funneled to western Pennsylvania to the many eponymous buildings, highways and even an airport that memorialize him. And now he is the elephant in the room in an increasingly contentious congressional race to succeed him.

This once safely Democratic district where Murtha reigned for 35 years is now a toss-up. Longtime Murtha aide Mark Critz, 48, vows to carry on his former boss’s legacy…

Apparently, Murtha’s legacy as the King of Congressional Pork is important to carry on for union bosses and they’re sparing no expense at seeing Mark Critz win.

The leadership of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO:  William George, President; Richard Bloomingdale, Secretary-Treasurer; and Frank Snyder, Secretary-Treasurer-elect; will lead a Get-Out-The-Vote Bus Tour in Western Pennsylvania visiting work sites in the 12th Congressional District with AFL-CIO endorsed Democratic Candidate Mark Critz for the Special and Primary Election on Tuesday, May 18 as well as endorsed candidates for the State Legislature and local elected officials.

Area labor leaders will join the Bus Tour at events and worksites in Johnstown, Ebensburg, Greensburg, Brackenridge and Latrobe, PA. The tour will begin on Monday, May 10th through Thursday, May 13, 2010 to encourage workers and their families to vote and to support Pennsylvania AFL-CIO endorsed candidates on Primary Election Day.

This, of course, is in addition to the $800,000 the DCCC is spending on ads, despite the fact that Critz says he wouldn’t have voted for the union’s nationalization of health care.  While Critz must have forgotten his former boss would have voted for health care ‘reform’ and, since it has already been signed into law, Critz can lie say whatever he likes (because it’s already passed), yet he refuses to give a position on repealing it.

On the other hand, Republican Tim Burns seems to be pretty clear on the issues:

As next Tuesday fast approaches, the unions will keep turning up the heat because, for them, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

If you needed any more reason to help Tim Burns beat Mark Critz, here’s one more:  If the unthinkable happens (again) and Republican Tim Burns wins John Murtha’s seat, it will, as UV political scientist Isaac Wood notes “…be interpreted as a sign of impending Democratic doom in November.”

You can help Tim Burns beat union bosses and their agenda here.

__________________

“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.”Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

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  • http://beaglescout.wordpress.com Beaglescout

    Jack Murtha casts a long shadow of back-room deals, bribery, nepotism, and rewards for special interests on PA-12. Unions and Critz want to lengthen that shadow until it covers the entire country. It’s time for real Americans, the people of Pennsylvania, to win their seat back from the statist highwaymen like Jack “Who?” Murtha. It’s time for Murtha’s legacy of shame to be erased from the minds of men, and his name forgotten, sounded only by the dust blowing on the unused runway of the unused airport bearing his name, soon forgotten, but still evocative of distasteful things in the minds of those who read it.

  • nepanyrush

    PA-10, in northeastern PA, is the district where Palin targeted incumbent Democrat Chris Carney. It is a very conservative area, with a heavy population of pro-life Catholics, that is the bell-weather district for how PA goes. Every national election all the big-wigs gather here: Hillary, Biden, Obama, McCain, Palin, etc., because it is a swing district — going for Reagan, then for Clinton, then for Bush, then for Obama — depending on how conservative they think the Democrat opponent is. Congressman Chris Carney is a liberal masquerading as a conservative, now exposed by his health care vote. But he has money and the unions.

    But who will be the Republican opponent? Madeira is the most consistently pro-life, conservative candidate and is well-respected. Marino is a former attorney who unfortunately is connected to DeNaples, who is widely alleged to be part of the Bufalino Crime Family here in northeastern PA and likely would be brought down for such reasons in the general election.

    A very winnable district and very important district that, beyond Palin, does not get the recognition that it needs in this election year.

  • Kyle-MI

    http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections2/election_2010/election_2010_senate_elections/pennsylvania/2010_senate_election/election_2010_pennsylvania_senate

    There is no change in the Toomey/Specter matchup but Toomey/Sestak has moved to 42/40% in a very slight favor to Toomey.

  • qsclues

    Wondering a little bit about those voter registration stats that are cited in PA-12. Cook lists PA-12 as an R+1 district, so I wouldn’t think there would be that big an imbalance between Republican and Democrat registrations, nor should it be that big a shock if the Republican wins.

    • IJB

      …basically only tells you how the district tends to vote for *President*. (IIRC, votes on the Congressional level are not worked into the PVI ratings.)

      So PA-12 does in fact have an over 2-to-1 Dem voter registration edge. But, despite that, PA-12′s voters favor *Republican* Presidential candidates by R+1% over the national average.

      On the Congressional end, in order to pick up this district, the GOP will need a swing of at least about 8% (against the Dems; the swing *for* the GOP will need to be on the order of more like 12%!) from 2008′s Murtha resuls.

      The fact that that swing of R+12% (or more) looks likely now tells you something about how bad things are going to be for Democrats come November…

      (Add on to that the fact that the DCCC has already conceded HI-01, that Djou looks like he may clear 40% of the vote there (and 45% looks doable…), and that Djou may even have a 10-15% margin over his nearest competitor, also tells you everything you need to know about the national political environment currently!!)

  • http://pocketchangeproductions.net/ anotherindyfilmguy

    Cheats well enough to put the corpse into winning the primary.
    Then see if the dem machine can cheat enough to overcome both the dems who feel betrayed and everyone else in the state.
    Come on, the dem machine shoved Baby Casey on the state, the corpse should be a walkover for them…

    If it’s not a walkover and the disgust is so great that the dems can’t overcome it maybe I can feel a little better about living here… maybe…