John Murtha Dies: Another Open Seat in Congress

Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) died this week, leaving another vacant seat on Capitol Hill and setting the stage for another political race which the Republicans are probably going to win. Why do I say probably? I don't know...just seems they are riding a wave of Obama Backlash right now and have a nice head of steam ever since they stone-walled the Healthcare Bill and won the late Ed Kennedy's senate seat. And with Sarah Palin running wild whipping up support from the Tea Party Movement (whatever that is), there's no telling what could happen.

I don't pretend to know who the candidates will be in the race for Penna.'s 12th district. But I can tell you it's an oddly-shaped peice of territory, encompassing all of the southwest corner of the state (including Waynesburg, where I went to college) and spidering northeast to cover parts of suburban Pittsburgh, and small cities like Johnstown, Washington, Latrobe, and Uniontown. If you're not from PA that won't mean much to you. But, suffice it to say, it's not the most urban part of the state. It's not the most rural either. It's essentially a mixture of suburbs, rusted out steel-towns, coal country, and rugged farmland. All of which means it is pretty bad-off economically. And when things are bad economically, people want a change.

Murtha was likely to get re-elected, but that's mostly because he'd been around for about 35 years and people knew and trusted him. What will happen now that he's gone? We'll have to wait and see...but until I have reason to think otherwise, I'd bet the Party of "No" is going to add another Representative to its ranks very soon...

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