PrintOctober 17, 2008
Murtha cancels debate with opponent
Fresh from calling his western Pennsylvania constituents racists and issuing a stuttering non-apology, Representative John Murtha (D-PA) cancelled a debate with his Republican opponent, retired Army Lt. Col. Bill Russell.
As Russell's campaign manager stated
Apparently, Mr. Murtha does not want to face his constituents, but is okay with calling them racists.
Describing the citizens he wants to represent, the ones Murtha smeared as racist:
Russell said Murtha's latest comments reveal a "strange, arrogant disconnect from the people who live and work in Western Pennsylvania. He forgets that this is a melting pot of hard-scrapping immigrants. My wife Kasia is a Polish immigrant, my neighbors in Johnstown trace their ancestry to all corners of the earth.
Yeah, and many of them cling to their religion and guns also. Obama and Murtha seem to have a prejudice against people like that.
Thomas Lifson adds:
Thomas Lifson adds:
All the political experts assure us that Murtha is invulnearble, owing to his many years of bringing home pork for a depressed area which has few jobs being created other than government projects. But I have to wonder if the long-suffering constituents aren't more than a little angry at the erratic behavior of their congressman, now a laughingstock.
I haven't seen any polling for the district. But I will wathcing the results come in carefully, with my fingers crossed. Murtha deserves being retired by his district's voters.
Update -- Brett McCrae provides data on Murtha's previous polling status, which makes it look like Murtha would have to lose a lot of support:
On average Murtha defeats Republicans by an average of 32.5% of the vote (over 50,000 in gross numbers). Furthermore, Republicans have not EVER garnered more than 42% of the popular vote against Murtha during his reign
