Beating Jack Murtha
By AaronVB Posted in User Blogs — Comments (19) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Jack Murtha has been in the headlines for awhile. First, he called for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq and labeled the American army as "broken." Now, he's decided to put out the word that he has already tried, convicted, and sentenced several of our young Marines in a case where the facts are still in dispute, and is using the tragedy to make political hay and lend support to his claims about the poor state of our armed forces under President Bush. As AcademicElephant has pointed out, he is dangerously close to the heretofore unknown territory of the "ex-Marine," a Marine who has renounced the values and honor of the Corps.
In 2004, Murtha ran unopposed in Pennsylvania's 12th District. This is no surprise: at the time little attention had been paid to Murtha, and as a 32-year incumbent in the house, Republican strategists would not have given his district a second look in their election plans. Now, however, things are different. Murtha has decided to tie himself to the anti-war wing of the party. His comments are probably just as damaging to the image of our armed forces in the eyes of the civilian population as are those of Dick "NazisPolPotStalinGitmo" Durbin. That puts him in the national spotlight, and now he has attracted a very able challenger in the person of Diana Irey, a commissioner for Washington county. Below the fold is some analysis of her chances for beating Murtha.
Unseating an incumbent in the House is always difficult. Unseating a 32-year incumbent is harder still. However, Murtha may be up for a "Daschle moment" - a high-profile defeat earned by running far to the left of one's constituents. To start with, we should take a look at the voting results for the counties within the 12th district for the 2004 Presidential election:
2004 Presidential voting results, counties within Pennsylvania 12th:
Greene County:
Bush 7,786 (50%)
Kerry 7,764 (50%)
Fayette County:
Kerry 29,129 (53%)
Bush 25,045 (47%)
Washington County:
Kerry 48,225 (50%)
Bush 47,763 (50%)
Westmoreland County:
Bush 100,087 (56%)
Kerry 77,774 (44%)
Cambria County:
Bush 34,048 (51%)
Kerry 32,591 (49%)
Indiana County:
Bush 20,254 (56%)
Kerry 15,831 (44%)
Armstrong County:
Bush 18,925 (61%)
Kerry 12,025 (39%)
Overall:
Bush 253,908 (53%)
Kerry 223,339 (47%)
The counties in the district have a clear Republican lean. Of course, the district does not contain the entirety of these counties because of the 2000 gerrymandering, but that gerrymandering was carried about by a Republican controlled legislature, and the results are generally agreed to have favored Republicans. For this reason, without having a more detailed set of data for the voting by precincts within the 12th, I'll stick to the assumption that Murtha's district has a Republican lean in national elections.
Normally, presidential election results would not be terribly helpful in the analysis of a House election, but here I think they are appropriate, given the national attention that has been put on Murtha. In House elections, voters tend to vote for the name they know absent any other considerations - there is typically not much knowledge of what the representative actually does in Congress. For Murtha, there is quite a bit of such knowledge now. That fact provides some suggestions of how Diana Irey might improve her chances of unseating Murtha in November.
These data do not suggest that Irey should tie herself to Bush. On the contrary, the less she mentions Bush, with his dangerously low approval ratings, the better off she'll be. What the results do show is that in an election that was centered on the War on Terror and respect for the troops, 12th district voters leaned toward the Republican position. Irey should mercilessly dog Murtha for the comments he's made that reflect the position of the radical, anti-war left. However, this may not even be her strongest strategy.
This Pennsylvania district is rural, and if it has been following national trends at all, is solidly for strong enforcement of the borders against illegal immigration. Unfortunately, I do not have polls available to show this, but if rural voters in Virginia were willing to vote out incumbent town councilmen over the issue, rural voters in Pennsylvania may be inclined to do the same thing. And as luck would have it, Murtha voted "nay" on HR4437, the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act sponsored by Sensenbrenner. If Irey can succeed in making this an issue in the campaign, it may prove a major weakness for Murtha, especially since it seems to contradict his stated concern for national security and ties him to the very poorly received national illegal immigration demonstrations.
In sum, Murtha is beatable, despite the advantages of 32 years of incumbency. On the two major issues of the day, the war and immigration, he appears to be running far to the left of his constituents, and now because of his national media presence, they know about it. I have not seen any early polls taken on the Irey-Murtha matchup so my arguments are based on inference from other data, but I believe my assumptions can stand up to scrutiny. This is a campaign RedState can get behind and have a reasonable chance of success at. When the benefits are as great as unseating a Democrat hack like Murtha, the price of tapping a few keys to blog for Irey seems quite small!
The district went
Kerry 51
Bush 49
Gore 55
Bush 44
And has a Cook Partisan Voting Index of D +5. Since 1974 he has received over 60% of the vote in every election. He won 73%, 71%, and 68% in 2002, 2000, and 1998. He hasn't made waves in the past that I am aware of, so there is a chance he could be beat. And the district is trending toward the big R.
to cut in front of me. :>)
Like, "Studied At The Feet Of Michael Barone" amazing. It's good to have you around.
"study at the feet of Michael Barone," my life would be complete.
What's the source for those numbers, Adam? I looked around for some previous results of that specificity but had an unreasonably difficult time, so I just went county by county. Then again, my Google skills are probably not as good as they should be. If you could let me in on your data sources, I'd be appreciative.
Your numbers are a little bit discouraging, but I think with Murtha we may have a circumstance where we can overcome the Democratic lean. The fact that Bush improved on his 2000 numbers there is a hopeful sign that I'm right. This is one race I'd really like to pull out, given Murtha's utter disregard for the effect his bleating is having on the war and the troops.
also known as The Almanac of American Politics, 2006 by Michael Barone.
For the 2004 Presidential data by district, you can find it online by clicking on the district in this map. Online, I think that map (which is new this week) is the best source of district level data. If you're a real data nerd like myself then the Almanac is a must.
You know, a good old-fashioned Party tent show to raise support for Diana, with:
- Jack Murther lookalike contest
- A dunk tank
- A purely symbolic Moonbat shooting gallery
- Group sings of The Battle Hymn of the Republic and The Marine Corps Hymn
- Kangaroo court
- Tar and feathers
- A Rail, as for Riding Out of Town On
- A new feature, the Head and Shoulders Beating Auction
Yes, friends, it will be a day of fun and excitement, and all for a good and Patriotic Cause.
I thought I read awhile back he didn't plan to run for another term ... but, it's true that he does lie.
Boy am I glad that you and I inhabit the polar opposite 5% of the political spectrum that everyone else writes off as radicals, otherwise i'd think that the world had gone nuts with people who advocate beating the elderly for stupid opinions
you give the man too much credit, heck, you've already lifted his particualr brand of stupidity over all others, or is it on the same plane as things like the ports debacle or the "I don't think about him [Osamo] much"?
Murtha isn't stupid. He's vicious.
he said something that in retrospect he probably regrets, but you know the game as well as anyone, to turn tail on the comment shows weakness, and the sharks can smell the blood, this situation is more about a black eye for america than the fact that the guys over in Iraq are skewered without rhetorical recourse, I would argue you folks do a pretty good job in standing up for them, but thats hyperbole, so excuse me...the point is that while he was silly for making such comments, your can't judge a man by one comment, he served his country, with valor, don't stoop to his level until we ALL hear the evidence and the determination of the military, if he was wrong then let loose the dogs of war (excuse the pun), but if he is vindicated in his jumping of the gun, it just makes ya'll look vicious, partisan and nieve to the idea that kids in warzones, pushed to extremes of mind and body fatigue aren't capable of making regretable decisions...
who, unfortunately, has lived so long he's forgotten the meaning of honor.
This was not a rhetorical slip. Murtha is the very definition of self-absorbed pinhead. Go back over his comments for the last 25 years. This fits right in.
Murtha may have served honorably in Vietnam, I'm not familiar with his service record. The Murtha of today is not even a shadow of an honorable vet. If he was an honorable man, those days are long past.
There is absolutely no excuse for a sitting Member of Congress to make the comments he made.
I totally agree, when you have a bully-pulpit as he so obviously has, you should be more cosiderate about the timing of your words, I would argue you nor I are in his shoes, and neither of us know his intentions, I would also argue the completely crass baffoon show he put on regarding his playful searching for WMDs under couches rubbed me just as raw as this stupid comment, but my opinion means very little, just as a vast majority of other people's opinions...be a bigger person and let history decide where his legacy lays, maybe some day we can look back and remove the bad taste of both these men from our mouths
Unfortunately I'm in the same half of the spectrum apparently...
The problem is that he is possibly facing an ethics investigation due to the antics of his brother the lobbyist and his company KSA consulting. The LA Times wrote a story on the issue July 13, 2005. Murtha has since become an extremely vocal opponent of the administration in order to make any ethics probe look like payback for his outspoken behavior.
Murtha's sudden appearance outside the political woodwork has less to do with his political beliefs than it does his fear of an ethics investigation.
him, severely about the head and shoulders.