House GOP Eyes Surprise Upset in Pennsylvania

Susan Davis reports on House races. Veteran Democratic lawmaker John Murtha recently realized that he could have a competitive election on his hands in his southwestern Pennsylvania congressional district. “I got blindsided,” Murtha told his local paper, The Johnstown Tribune-Democrat , “I should never have waited as long [to campaign] as I did,” he said. “I just thought nobody would vote for a guy who has never lived in this district.” Murtha is facing Republican William Russell , an Army veteran and political newcomer, who until recently was seen as having almost no chance of defeating Murtha, who was first elected in 1974 and one of the Democratic Party’s most prominent members and vocal critics of the war in Iraq. Murtha’s electoral woes are largely of his own-doing. Last month he received national attention—and a parody on Saturday Night Live—for telling the Pittsburg Post-Gazette’s editorial board that the region he represents is “a racist area” and shortly after telling a ... (link)