Posted on 05/19/2010 5:24:00 AM PDT by Scanian
WASHINGTON, Pa. -- Bill Steiner had a simple explanation for Tuesday night's result in Pennsylvania's 12th District.
"It's Murtha's ghost," said Steiner, about a half-hour after Republican Tim Burns had conceded to Democrat Mark Critz, former aide to the late Rep. John Murtha. "People were afraid to change."
Murtha died in February, three weeks after Republican Scott Brown had won the Massachusetts Senate seat held for more than four decades by Ted Kennedy, and the GOP clearly hoped to carry that momentum into the special election to fill the House seat that Murtha had held since the mid-1970s.
What happened and why? The answer supplied by Steiner, a conservative activist from Westmoreland County, was elegant in its simplicity, if not entirely sufficient to explain Critz's 12,000-vote margin of victory in an election that the Burns campaign had expected to win.
Clearly, Democrats did damage to Burns with a blizzard of TV and radio ads accusing the Republican of wanting to impose a 23-percent sales tax "on just about everything we buy" -- a blatant distortion of Burns' qualified support of the Fair Tax, a proposal that would eliminate the income tax and abolish the Internal Revenue Service.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
The voters there have been trained in Moochonomics and can not be housebroken.
This article is probably the best and most accurate analysis of this race I’ve read so far.
Interesting how they twisted the anti-tax FairTax into a NEGATIVE for the republican candidate.....
Shows that RAISING TAXES is the key to destroying a candidate’s chances.
Did Critz vow to oppose the coming attempt to impose a VAT, or was he “anti-tax” only to get his snout into the trough?
Right. They were afraid to change from having lots of pork to having less than lots of pork. Some people just simply prefer enslaved subsistence to freedom.
Critz was a Democrat running as a Republican , question is can he do it again?
I heard on the radio this morning that sine PA has a closed primary a lot of independents didn’t come out and vote. It makes sense that Burns polled so well yet lost so badly. A big chunk of his voters thought they couldn’t vote.
I have to disagree with the article and the comments above. I live close to that district, and have been watching it closely. Last two elections, Murtha was challenged by a conservative Repubican, Bill Russell. With little money but a lot of gumption, Bill put up a good fight, and did darn well against Murtha the 2nd time. When the special election opportunity came, instead of picking Russell to run the republican party picked Tim Burns, a guy with enough personal wealth to help him run. Tim seems like a nice enough guy, but Bill had built a loyal organization. This split the energy of the party, as Burns and Russell were competing in the primary. The republican party spent $1 million on Burns, and he did win the primary, but lost the special election. The ad about the fair tax could have been turned against the democrats very easily, with just a little thought. First, it was the SEIU that ran the ad, whose claims went unopposed. Toward the end it was the national democratic party that ran it, warning of “Tim’s Tax”, which ALSO went unopposed. THAT is why the special election went the way it did.
This bodes very ill for the country in November.
12,000 votes is a whooooole buncho folks.
There is a lot for the dumbles to take to heart in yesterdays vote.
And you can’t run on the fair tax: you cannot get enough people to wrap their heads around the concept. It just won’t happen.
At the very least, PA-12 won’t be at the top of the list for pork barrel spending anymore. That alone will work in Burns’ favor in November.
Interesting how they twisted the anti-tax FairTax into a NEGATIVE for the republican candidate.....
No need to twist anything...
The misnamed "FairTax" is fraudulent tax legislation intended to hijack and derail any effort at true tax reform.
Pennslvanian voters were right to use this as a litmus test to reject any candidate that considers it.
Thanks for the insight.
Agree. The “FAir TAx” is a bad idea whose time, hopefully, will never come.
Sounds like the RNC trying to control who gets the nomination. Another reason I don’t donate to the RNC.
Once he gets to DC and the clutches of Peolsi and Hoyer, it is questionable whether he can play the “conservative Democrat” game for long. If they need his vote for something, he’ll provide it.
All true enough but the ‘Rats will be trying stuff like that over and over again this fall and I’m sure they’ll succeed fairly often.
Conservatives need to learn to fight fire with fire or they will always get out-slicked.
On THAT, my friend, we agree!!!!
Look at what happened to Burns in PA12: he offered limited support for the fair tax and was immediately hammered for wanting to increase sales taxes by 23%. He was predicted to win. He LOST big, in my opinion, by 12,000 votes.
And one of the reasons he lost is not because people like you and me and yes a growing number understand the fair tax...he lost because the average voter in Johnstown and surrounding areas doesn’t understand the fair tax but they DO understand 23% sales tax. The fair tax just can’t be reduced to an effective sound byte...but raise your taxes 23% definitely CAN be reduced to a sound byte.
Hence my comment.
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