Posted on 05/19/2010 7:12:16 AM PDT by neverdem
In Pennsylvania’s 12th District, Republican Tim Burns has conceded to Democrat Mark Critz.
One reader’s on the ledge:
Pa12 is more than a disappointment. It is a disaster. You know politics as well as I do (even though I’m probably your senior by at least thirty years). When there is a political wave the following happens: parties win special elections in normally difficult districts; they win with weak candidates; they win all the close elections. They just win, win, and win. Burns’s defeat shows, as of now, the Rs will unlikely take the House. Perhaps they’ll do well; as today’s generic Gallup indicates around a gain in the low thirties. But not what we need. I didn’t read much about what Burns’ campaign was like, perhaps you can offer some meaningful analysis. My guess is that the Republican label is still a liability in many areas; areas that they have to win in order to take the House.
A point: Tim Burns’ task was complicated by the fact that he was running against a pro-life, pro-gun Democrat who ran against the health care bill and the cap-and-trade legislation. The Burns campaign did everything they could to tie Critz to Democratic figures and laws that polled badly in the district – Pelosi, the health care bill — and it appears that in the end, voters in the district weren’t buying it.
But I am wondering about the Burns campaign’s get-out-the-vote operation at this hour. Also, another conservative blogger mentioned to me a few days ago that some supporters of Bill Russell, the Republican who ran against John Murtha in 2008, wouldn’t be supporting Burns in the special election. (Russell is competing against Burns in the primary election for the November ballot; at this moment, Burns leads Russell, 56 percent to 43 percent.) I was skeptical that enough Russell supporters would do this to effect the race, but now I’m wondering. Did the Russell folks keep their ballots blank?
UPDATE: Jay Cost: “I count about 95,000 votes in special election and 111,000 in primaries.” (UPDATE: Nevermind, it’s a glitch on the Pennsylvania site.)
“and the conservative candidate will get my vote.”
Not if they are a democrat. First, they chose to run under the banner of the homo-socialist-Green-America hating party, also,,, no matter how they campaign, they all vote party line when it really matters.
No “conservative democrat” gets my vote. Maybe 30 years ago,,but not today. Things have changed
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
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.
Yep, fast Eddy knew the Specter primary race would drive up Dem voters statewide so he moved the Murtha election to same date knowing the GOP had not tightly contested state wide races which would drive up the base.
How is it a disaster when the race was even close in a district gerrymandered to give a 3 to 1 registration advantage to the democRat?
Exactly. The Sestak-Specter race gave Critz a huge edge in turnout. Specifically: indies didn’t turn out for one race (both RAT and GOP primaries were closed) and there was no significant GOP primary race to galvanize conservatives.
Another key aspect: Critz ran against Obamacare. Incumbent House RATS will have no such luxury this fall.
But this loss will hurt with GOP fundraising across the board — both candidates and national apparatus. A GOP win would have hastened an exodus of House RATS into retirement.
Pete Sessions got sucker-punched on this race by Pelosi and Van Hollen. Regrettably, the SEIU goons got their vote out.
Corrine Brown in Florida is another. Her district runs from Jacksonville to Orlando.
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.
No he isn't. "Independence" in the dem party only lasts until a visit from the Whip's staff. Unless Critz is granted a cosmetic "no" vote to save his a$$ at election time, he'll be like the other "conservative" dems.. just holding out for a juicy, earmark-packed deal.
I have another entirely personal view with absolutely zero intel to confirm, but Burns is apparently divorced, because there is no wife mentioned on his bio and all his TV commercials featured only his sons — no spouse whatsoever. This may have hurt with RAT social conservatives — he was just too GOP country club.
This is a classic socially conservative, economically liberal district. Perfect territory for a Blue Dog. The people there are church going and God fearing and strongly pro-Second Amendment. Yes that it is all true.
But...they are also Democrat by a 2:1 margin and strongly addicted to all the pork Murtha and now Critz bring into the district.
The only chance for a Republican to take the district in November is to forcefully argue that a vote for Critz is a vote for Pelousy. But even that is problematic as most voters select candidates on their own individual merits.
But at the end of the day he'll vote to keep her as speaker. And when all is said and done he'll vote for Obama's agenda more often than not.
I would call the win by Critz disappointing rather than bad. It is a strong Democratic seat and it would have been nice to pick it up but it was never a sure thing. The bigger disappointment by my way of thinking would be the margin of victory. An 8 point win is a lot bigger than I'd hoped it would be.
I don’t see how it’s bad for the GOP.
Critz ran as a total conservative, obviously afraid to let the liberal ID get out there.
It was 2 to 1 Dems so any other result would have been a statistical miracle.
And finally, we can’t win them all. It would have been different if we’d had anything in this race going for us but we didn’t.
Exactly.
They are forgetting about Scott Brown in Massachusetts. That was a lot more significant.
Disappointed in the results, but it is not surprising. It is a Dem district, there was a hot Senate primary on the Dem side, and there was the weirdity of Burns being in two elections on the same day...the primary against Russell and the Murtha open seat. Would love to see a win, but this has little to do with November nationally.
With rare exceptions, Pelosi is determined to shield her members from precarious votes for the remainder of the year — health care was the last tough vote. That is why there will be no budget this year: RATS are terrified of drafting and enacting a budget resolution with a $1.6 trillion deficit (or worse).
Bottom line: other than pork, there may be very little of a Critz record to pick apart in November, and my sense is that the NRCC will target its resources elsewhere. Burns could still get elected in a GOP tide, but he’ll need help from the top of the ticket - Toomey and Corbett - and I doubt they’ll have long coattails in this district, although we may be pleasantly surprised.
Pennsylvania is just bad news, time after time. Disproportionate number of seniors who still revere FDR and JFK; and who don’t understand that a vote for a local RAT is a vote for Pelosi. Many decent and well-meaning but very unsophisticated people in the rural areas, such as PA-12.
I agree with many who say that the Democrat primary greatly improved Democrat turnout.
And the Democrat should not have been allowed to out flank the Republican on the right. In almost every Congress, the most important vote by far cast by any member is who they support for leadership. If a member votes for Pelosi as House leader, that sets the whole agenda.
It sounds very noble to say one “votes for the candidate, not the party.” But it’s foolhardy in the extreme to ignore the fact that a Democrat votes to keep Democrat leadership in power.
Just my two cents.
Show me some evidence. NRO was pro Palin in 2008 and likes the Tea Party Movement from what I've read. I've detected no enthusiasm for RINOs at NRO.
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