Some early thoughts on this election …
— That was the easy part. But if Obama runs this country with the same amount of competence that he ran his campaign, we are headed for 1,000 years of peace and prosperity.
— Like everyone else’s, my jaw like near to fell off my face when Pennsylvania was called so early last night. I don’t think ANYBODY could forsee Obama by 11 points here. A juvenile part of me is tempted to copy-and-paste some of the more absurd comments I’ve seen in the blogosphere and elsewhere … comments insisting, for example, that an online poll at the Post-Gazette Web site was somehow more accurate than the polls the “mainstream media” was feeding you. But this is a Historic Moment, and I guess we should rise above that.
Besides, in many ways the outcome wasn’t that surprising. As this space predicted shortly before the election, this race was decided in the east. Philadelphia County alone gave Obama a lead of more than 450,000 votes, and he did well in the surrounding suburbs too. Here in the western part of the state, Obama either equalled John Kerry’s performance in 2004, or slightly trailed his Democratic predecessor. In Allegheny County, for example, Kerry got 57 percent of the vote, and so did Obama. Obama lost in Beaver, where Kerry got 51 percent of the vote.
— In Congress, I’m relieved to see that the odious Lou Barletta has lost his immigrant-bashing bid to emigrate to Washington. Early this year, I worried that immigration could become a successful wedge issue for Republicans. I’ve never been happier to be wrong.
— John Murtha could go on a killing spree — could act like he accused the Marines of Haditha of acting — and still be re-elected.
— The fly in the ointment is Congressional District 18. My coverage of this race suggested strongly that Democratic challenger Steve O’Donnell was going to fail to topple incumbent Tim Murphy. Some insisted I was wrong about that, and I wish I had been. In fact, with all the fervor surrounding Obama, the 2006 Democratic candidate — the distinctly unelectrifying Chad Kluko — outperfomed O’Donnell. Kluko lost to Murphy by a nearly 16-point margin. O’Donnell lost by nearly 30 points.
Some of that is a tribute to Murphy’s ability to triangulate the district, landing union backing and getting some distance from Bush on a few key issues while still hewing to a conservative line. But some of it reflects poorly on the Democratic Party apparatus out here. Last night Dems in the northwest part of the state toppled the grizzled Phil English. But down here, we can’t find a Democrat who seems able to win anything more than the Democratic Primary itself.
— Which brings me to a final thought (for now). There were a lot of hopes in some quarters that Democrats would not just win the White House, but take on a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, swamp the House of Representatives, and so on. While Dems obviously made gains, that doesn’t seem to have happened. And while I expect a (very welcome) drop in the kind of deranged e-mails I’ve been getting for the past few weeks, some kinds of craziness never go away. The other side isn’t going to roll over, and the expectations are as high as the hopes Obama inspired. Like I said, this was the easy part.
But the nice thing is, I think we just elected a president who gets that.
This article appears in Oct 30 – Nov 5, 2008.
First, good call on the 18th race. We’re still puzzled at Murphy’s margin of victory down here in the South Hills. The bottom line is that this race is a case study in the need for publicly financed congressional races. Murphy was able to raise 5 times the amount of O’Donnell, about $1.7 million in this election cycle. While I think O’Donnell had a better ground Murphy didn’t even need one. Murphy’s ability to flood the airwaves and internet with both positive and negative ads were too much for O’Donnell to overcome. I don’t see how anyone would waste their own money like O’Donnell did to run against Murphy in 2010 when he raised $900k alone from PACs and still have $800k in the bank. Unfortunately, it looks like were stuck with Murphy until he decides to retire or step up to run for the Senate against Bob Casey Jr.
“The bottom line is that this race is a case study in the need for publicly financed congressional races.”
>>> Just “Congressional races”? I guess we’re exempting presidential candidates with highly successful internet-based fundraising strategies?
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Anyway, if you’re thinking about 2010, it might be worth looking to Kathy Dahlkemper’s successful race against Phil English up in PA-3. English, like Murphy, touts himself as a moderate Republican with decent labor ties. Like Murphy, he’s faced pretty token opposition in the past. But while I’m not terribly conversant with the Erie race, I gather that Dahlkemper ran a hell of a campaign. She spent about $100k of her own money — less than O’Donnell did — though she managed to bring in more money overall than O’Donnell. She still had less money than English did, of course, and as of mid-October he’d outspent her two-to-one. But she beat him anyway.
Like I say, I’m no expert about what happened with that campaign. Maybe comparing District 3 and District 18 is unfair. Maybe it boils down to Dahlkemper being a woman in a year of change, and being anti-choice in a district that with lots of Catholic values-conservatives. Maybe English just overstayed his welcome, having served longer than Murphy. I don’t know. But there might be some lessons to learn there. Because if the Dems could take District 3, I don’t know why they couldn’t take District 18.
o’donnell was a candidate with a shady past… which he hid for a while… hopefully we’ll never see him again. Picking a candidate such as Steve was something that I am not very proud of… and did not support. I thought the other candidates were much better. They should have a “check” to eliminate those with checkered pasts. The Allegheny Co. democratic committee is going to have to take this one on the nose. Not a very smart pick at all. Im not puzzled at the margin of victory… the truth about O’Donnell was exposed. Huge credibility problem for those drinking the O’Donnell kool-aid, esp. the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
I’m assuming that by “shady past,” you’re referring to O’Donnell’s involvement with Life Service Systems. For what it’s worth, I spent quite a bit of time poring over the court records there, and my take is that there was less there than meets the eye. I don’t want to go through the whole history here — it’s a moot point in any case — but at the end of the day, the people who opposed O’Donnell ended up looking much worse (to my eyes, anyway) than O’Donnell himself.
But putting that aside, the POLITICAL reality is that everyone knew this was going to be an issue. Hafer’s camp used it during the primary season, and O’Donnell himself acknowledged to me that Murphy would probably do the same. And yet when it happened, the O’Donnell camp was totally unable to respond.
I’m sure there were a lot of voters who had never seen O’Donnell’s face until it appeared in Tim Murphy’s attack ad. So the very first thing they would have learned about the Democratic challenger is that there were these allegations in his past. That’s a tough obstacle when you’re already battling for name recognition. Overcoming it would have required a lot of advertising, and cost O’Donnell money he never had.
Most folks I talk to think Hafer would have had a better chance against Murphy. I think O’Donnell had a more solid grasp on the issues than Hafer did, but certainly she had name recognition and some other advantages. In any case, though, it’s generally the party stalwarts who call the tune in the primary … and it seems like there were plenty who resented her party-jumping.
Al sounds like one of those bitter Beth Hafer supporters or campaign staffers. During the primary I got to talk to each of the candidates, Hafer, Wall, and even Dudding, and I felt that O’Donnell was the only one who could discuss the issues in detail. I am not alone on this sentiment, but I could see how the Hafer supporters are upset that some of us out here actually care about things like policy.
In hindsight I think Hafer may have been able to raise more money and she may have done better than O’Donnell but she still wouldn’t have beaten Murphy. I have no idea who will run in 2010 but I will tell you that it doesn’t make sense for someone to spend a lot of money running aginst Murphy in 2010 due to the the likelihood of us losing a Congressional seat which could possibility mean the end of the 18th CD as we know it today.
Hafer would have been ok… I was referring to Erin Vecchio however. True they were both snubbed, but both would have been much more competitive. I’ll let the results be what they are. They are undieniable, but the Alle co party shouldnt have snubbed Vecchio. We’ll never win this seat with people making “dough dough brain” decisions. Now that the election is over… it’s hilarious how foolish this was. The ones who were cheated were the voters.
Way to go Tim! You rock Congressman! This was a landslide election which says 2 things… Tim is doing an awesome job and also that Barack O’Donnell failed to inspire anyone with his preying on federal grants and stealing off the taxpayers. Thanks for the early Christmas present. Haha Tribune review and post-gazette. Glad to see Tim finished this snake O’Donnell off once and for all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb3cSvZzx-I
Erin Vecchio? I can no longer take you serious Al. Kudos to Ms. Vecchio for taking on Santorum but I don’t think that means she should represent us in Congress.
Dear Tim Murphy’s campaign manager,
Could you please tell your boss that he is entering his 4th term in the House of Representatives and we are still waiting for him to do something on energy and health care. Since Tim Murphy is on the House Energy Committee and he claims to be the most knowledgeable congressman on health care matters we except action and solutions instead of “just words” and wasting our tax dollars on Franking.
Additionally, please tell your boss that he represents us, the citizens of the 18th Congressional District, and not the big businesses and special interest groups who financed those attack ads. Your boss had an impressive victory, but that doesn’t mean he has a mandate to do nothing over the next two years.
Thanks and good luck,
Schultz