Category: 2012 Election

SayUncle in Tennessee seems to share some of my anxiety about GOP prospects in 2012. He speaks of the national race, but any national race starts in the states, and Pennsylvania, as the nation’s 6th largest state, is a good example of that problem.

Bitter and I were speaking yesterday afternoon about the dire situation represented by the GOP bench headed into the 2012 elections. Ignoring the fact this article is mostly about how Tom Corbett is getting into trouble with our commonwealth’s schizophrenic voters (who want pet programs, a balanced budget and reasonable taxes), it shows something important about Bob Casey:

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr., D-Scranton, enters his campaign next year for a second term with what Lee called a limited base of support. Thirty-two percent of voters said he deserves re-election, compared with 43 percent who told pollsters it’s time for someone new.

Pennsylvania is generally accepted as a purple-hued blue state. After 2010, we have one conservative Republican Senator in the form of Pat Toomey, who I’d like to think is all of Rick Santorum’s fiscal conservatism, without the paranoia about what the queers are doing to the soil. Could we have two? Traditionally, there’s been Arlen Spector for those who wanted to vote GOP without really doing so. But we don’t have Arlen Specter to kick around anymore.

Who is the GOP going to put up against Bob Casey? Tom Ridge is about the only candidate who comes to mind. Only because he’s is well known and a well liked former governor. His name was floated his name in 2010 to run against Specter. Ridge carries the stench of having carried Bush’s homeland security agenda for longer than is healthy for average mortals. That’s not even mentioning Ridge isn’t really a conservative on important issues, much like his spendy former boss. Besides, rumor has it that Ridge is now a Marylander, and couldn’t run even if he was interested the Pennsylvania Senate race.

Who else? Curt Weldon was driven out of Congress on questionable accusations of corruption in 2006. Maybe he’d like to make a comeback. But let’s face it, we are sending him to Libya right now because every hostage taker worth his salt will only abduct someone that someone else wants back. That probably isn’t Curt. I think Weldon is well done at this point. He’s not coming back for a statewide race.

Jim Gerlach certainly wants a state-wide seat, but after dropping out of the primary for the 2010 Governor race, I think he needs to stay right where he is. Otherwise I’m not confident his 6th district seat will stay in GOP hands without some gerrymandering magic. Gerlach is a poster boy for the fact that there are few GOP Congressional seats safe enough in Pennsylvania that can surely be held in an open race.

Who else does the GOP have with solid statewide name recognition? I really can’t think of anyone. But then, why did Bob Casey Jr. win the 2006 election? Maybe because Santorum was getting gay sex acts named after him, and Bob Casey Jr. happened to be the son of this Bob Casey. This problem also cuts both ways. To make the point, do Democrats want to run Onorato, “Dan Onorato,” again for anything? That was your bench against Corbett.

Pennsylvania is legitimately up for grabs, for either party. But don’t anyone get too excited. Neither party is much in a position to exploit it. Perhaps that is good for our Commonwealth in the long run, because I’ve never been convinced of the benefits of single party rule, no matter what that party is.

It looks like the GOP might not get greedy in the redistricting process for Pennsylvania. That’s a good thing. When they tried it 10 years ago, the Democrat who was supposed to lose his seat in a “safe” GOP district with an incumbent managed to hang on. And he’s still there. That’s a lesson the party folks needed to learn since the GOP has control of the House, Senate, and Governor’s office.

Politico reports that they believe the redistricting process will rework PA-4 & PA-12 – Jason Altmire & Mark Critz (used to be John Murtha’s district). On the gun issue, it’s a not really a loss. Both are good on the gun votes. On one hand, we lose one pro-gun Democrat in the process, but we would likely lose one anyway if they tried to merge any of the seats with the anti-gun Rep. Mike Doyle in PA-14. It also makes the most sense since that is the corner of the state that is actually losing population – not “not gaining as rapidly” as is the case in most lose-a-seat scenarios, but actually losing.

They are also talking about creating a very long district for PA-17 to include Scranton. It would tighten up the Democratic seat, but give a chance to make Lou Barletta in PA-11 a little more safe. The downside for gun owners is that it sets up a potential primary challenge to pro-gun Democrat Tim Holden by an extremely anti-gun Scranton mayor.

Here in our little corner of the world, they don’t seem to want to pit two Philly Dems against each other. It makes sense given the population numbers. It does appear, according to Politico, that they will dump the heavily Democratic neighborhoods from our district, as well as PA-7 and PA-6 – Pat Meehan & Jim Gerlach. That would be very handy, indeed.

And for any Iowans, get ready for your big day tomorrow!

It’s never fun to admit you’re wrong. It’s really not fun when the outcome of admitting you’re wrong means another tough political battle to fight. My Election Day prediction:

We need to send [Patrick Murphy] home. (Actually, he probably won’t return to the district. He’s been a very good fundraiser for bringing in money outside of the district, so I assume he’ll relocate to DC if he loses & become part of the professional political class.)

At the beginning of the year, we learned that anti-gun former Rep. Patrick Murphy was, in fact, going to stick around the district.

My displaced Congress Critter, Patrick Murphy, has taken a job with an area law firm with ties to DC. Probably helps that the Murphy Campaign finance chairman is a partner at that firm. This hints to me that Murphy may be Fitzpatrick’s next challenger in 2012.

Now, he’s speaking to Democratic groups around the state:

Former U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, a prominent Bucks County Democrat, will speak April 1 in Centre County at a county Democratic Committee gathering, the committee announced.

Venturing about 200 miles outside of your home turf after you just lost an election isn’t usually something done out of the goodness of your heart. It usually means you’re trying to find new donors and raise your profile around the state.

It’s redistricting season here in Pennsylvania. Might I suggest that we cut out a little circle around Patrick Murphy’s house & instead of assigning it to another Pennsylvania district, we just give the property to New Jersey? He’d fit in far better on that side of the river.

We have another US Senate race in Pennsylvania. With the incumbent Bob Casey being a fairly mild fellow, it could go either way. However, he should probably rethink his political brand just a bit with these numbers coming out today:

Sen. Bob Casey Jr. has a 44 – 24 percent approval rating, but even after four years in office, 31 percent of the state’s voters are undecided about him.

I guess the fact that nearly 1/3 of the electorate has no opinion on him after 4 years is not a completely bad thing. At the 7 month mark, not even his own staff knew if he was alive.