With the unexpected passing of Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), Republicans are salivating at the thought they might pick up the seat held by the old Democratic warhorse since he captured it in a 1974 special election that foreshadowed GOP bloodletting that November. The contest to replace Murtha sets up a preliminary testing grounds for a key component of the National Republican Campaign Committee’s plan for recapturing the U.S. House. “Republicans mine coal-country anxieties,” Politico reports. To remember that Murtha’s home base was Johnstown, famous for weathering its epic floods, begs the question: “Après Murtha, le déluge?”
Will a GOP special election win here be the first crack the levee, presaging a flood of Coal Country pickups? Considering the region’s enduring demographic dismay that will factor into looming reapportionment and redistricting decisions, in the long term will Murtha matter?
If the GOP does snare Murtha’s seat, count on Republican operatives and conservative commentators to crow loudly, proclaiming trends that point to an inevitable, unstoppable ascendancy. And although the GOP is making inroads here, the the liberal activist number cruncher blog Swing State Project put this special’s playing field starkly: it will be fought among “the numerically shrinking, increasingly Republican towns of western Pennsylvania.”
The Examiner’s senior Political Analyst Michael Barone notes, Pennsylvania’s 12th District (PA12) is “the only district in the nation that voted for John Kerry in 2004 and John McCain in 2008.” This electoral curiosity offers reason for a GOP glimmer of hope, especially considering that even among loyal Democrats, President Obama isn’t revered in PA12. In 2008’s hotly contested presidential primary, Murtha-backed Hillary Rodham Clinton swamped Obama here by nearly 3 to 1. PA12’s primary vote percentages served up HRC her highest and Obama his paltriest of any congressional district statewide. (Shades here of last month’s Massachusetts Senate special election, where the map of towns won by the upstart Republican Scott Brown overlaps remarkably with the map of towns Hillary won in 2008’s Bay State Democratic presidential primary.)
Despite Republican gains at the presidential leval and underwhelming Obama approval ratings, Murtha’s grip remained firm on this district. From his perch as either Chairman or Ranking Minority Member of the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee, he shamelessly showered his economically struggling district with federal largess. The blustery veteran pol solidified his hold by compiling a record that was, according to the Almanac of American Politics, “perfectly suited to steel and coal country:” “hawkish on foreign policy, interventionist on economics and usually tradition-minded on cultural issues” (consistently pro-gun, anti-abortion, for instance).
Over the years, the demographic downturn this district has suffered may have inflicted more of its troubles than its fabled diluvial destruction. “Steel and coal country” has been staggering; its population remains stagnant after a few decades of steep decline. The once-thriving steel and coal industries have been reeling for decades, the few new jobs created in recent years were financed by Murtha’s porkbarrelling, and with Murtha no longer exercising clout on Capitol Hill, those dollars are going to dry up. The Almanac illustrates just how dramatic a decline the PA12’s most renowned town has suffered over decades of shuttering steel mills. Johnstown’s “population fell from 67,000 in 1920 to 22,000 in 2006.”
In 1977, Johnstown surfaced from its third devastating flood in pop culture as a provincial prototype of small city industrial decline. Johnstown’s Jets were the model for the hapless Charlestown Chiefs, the anti-heroes of the cult classic “Slap Shot.” The Chiefs were a minor league hockey franchise based in a hard-bitten Rust Belt city on the verge of folding – or skipping town – mid-season. Fortunes in the real Johnstown haven’t been much brighter since (though another team, dubbed the Johnstown Chiefs, in “Slap Shot’s” honor, has held on for 22 years in the East Coast Hockey League, an eternity in minor league hockey.)
In 2010 the impending round of redistricting and reapportionment can’t be ignored. A run down of potential Pennsylvania redistricting scenarios at the left-leaning Swing State Project notes that when it comes to redistricting, “split partisan power” – found in Pennsylvania’s state legislature – “usually means all-around incumbent protection.” So, the new kid on the block might be the one to get the axe. PA12’s “highly irregular boundaries” the Almanac notes, “were drawn by Republican legislators who wanted to create a new Republican-leaning 18th District in the southern suburbs of Pittsburgh while also accommodating” Murtha, ensuring the steady flow of Defense dollars he could procure wouldn’t dry up.
Considering how curiously the district’s lines were crafted, and that its boundaries must expand to accommodate its population loss, even if Murtha had lived to fight for reelection in 2012, the electorate he would have to face would be markedly different from from PA12’s current constituency. Pennsylvania is on track to lose a House seat by the time Election Day 2012 rolls around. Eveidence of the dubiousness of this strategy in the long term can be found in Politico’s Coal Country story. “Two junior Ohioans are facing threats for the same reason(s)” that put Murtha’s seat in play. In addition to Pennsylvania’s House seat in jeopardy, redistricting prognosticators foresee exactly two seats to be shaved off Ohio’s current delegation.
Apart from strategic questions, gaining seats in coal country offer up ideological concerns. Would small-government types and libertarian-minded Republicans really be comfortable with the type of politicians tagged with the (R-Coal Country) suffix?
In a much-publicized pre-primary gaffe, Murtha averred to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that “Obama’s got a problem with the race issue in western Pennsylvania.” That’s an gross oversimplification, and one that’s routinely and cynically embraced by elite, highly educated liberal commentators to delegitimize any sincere skepticism of Obama’s agenda. Yet, there remains a disturbing kernel of inescapable truth to that blunt assessment in Southwestern Pennsylvania and other downscale bastions of Obama-phobia. Couple that with a breast-fed addiction to Defense dollars and intractable opposition to any new trade agreements and it’s unlikely that PA12 will send a Club for Growth darling to Washington. In fact, the new Member of Congress will probably be “hawkish on foreign policy, interventionist on economics and usually tradition-minded on cultural issues,” not unlike the Almanac’s rendering of Murtha’s record, even if his name has an (R) next to it.
If a GOP tide does wash through here, it’s unlikely it carry with it sediment fertile for a Republican renaissance, and more likely be an indication that Republicans are just figuring out how to flourish – for now – in the wake of demographic demise.
