The NRCC has just filed a $465,000 TV buy against Democratic Rep. John Murtha.
That ain’t chump change. Could we really see an upset here on Tuesday?
UPDATE: SSP is changing our rating of this race from Likely Democratic to Lean Democratic.
LATER UPDATE: The DCCC has responded with a $450K blast of their own.
His opponent had been raising major cash even before this (although it was through the shady BMW direct, which takes absurdly large portions of the money they raise). Murtha’s always been somewhat mucked up, but I think his dedication to soldiers, own service record, and ability to deliver for the district outweighed that.
But now, he basically called his constituents racist. Not smart. McCain’s campaign excluding Northern Virginia from the rest of the state won’t help him there, and I think Murtha does indeed have a real fight on his hands.
…should Murtha and Kanjorski win on Tuesday, that should retire in 2010?
Murtha I don’t know… We’ll see… I think ultimately, he’ll probably be fine… and thats almost 500K that the NRCC couldn’t spend elsewhere.
However, if it does, he’ll get no sympathy from me.
With the Dems in power and all the lobbyists cuddling up to them, I wouldn’t trust Murtha as far as I could throw his 250 pound ass. A scandal waiting to happen. He would probably be indicted by the Feds for something or other by 2012. It could be a positive not having him there.
I appreciate his strong and relatively early stance against the war, but I haven’t heard much else about him that I’ve liked and a fair amount that I’ve disliked (with the admission that that I’m not in his district and have not followed his positions that closely).
When Nancy Pelosi kept pushing Chet Edwards’ name for VP I was thinking that she thinks she needs a new Jack Murtha. He’s a great guy to put out there on military issue but since Murtha was getting old and had some ethics issues she’d need a fresh face that was respected by the DC pundits. I tend to believe that we’ll see much more of Edwards in the future and even sooner should Murtha lose next week.
I live near, but not in, the district. I met their candidate, Russell, briefly. His campaign has employed a lot of merchandising to get his name recognition up. Mugs, sweatshirts. I have seen his name way more than I’ve seen the name of either the Democrat or the Republican running for the open seat in the 5th, where I live. Not on yard signs, but on campaign paraphernalia.
Russell has some radio ads on that spill over into my market, and they’re pretty shrewd. He can be attacked for being a carpetbagger, for instance, so he wisely makes a virtue of it and brings it up in the ads.
They were wise to run a vet, this time, instead of a pretty blonde socialite in high heels. It goes part way to neutralize Murtha’s long suit.
I expect Murtha to survive the challenge, but the margin may give him a scare.
In what will be an awful night, this would be the one shining win for the staff at RNC/NRCC headquarters. I just can’t believe the people in this district would toss out the chair of defense approps.
that Murtha is corrupt and a nepotist etc. have not read it anywhere. Where does all this come from?
JAY-Z – DIRT OFF YOUR SHOULDER
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