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Five candidates, two elections, one forum

WESTMONT—Three Democrats and two Republicans competing for the chance to succeed the late John Murtha shared a stage Wednesday evening, during a lightning-round style forum that divided the candidates along predictable ideological lines but also briefly prefaced the bitter debate to come between Republican Tim Burns and Democrat Mark Critz.

The forum, held in a high school auditorium in this borough on the outskirts of Johnstown, featured not only Burns and Critz—the two candidates set to face off in the May 18 special election—but also three others competing for their respective party’s nominations for a new two-year term. Navy veteran Ryan Bucchianeri and attorney Ron Mackell Jr. are both challenging Critz in the Democratic primary to be held the same day as the special election, while Bill Russell, a favorite of the conservative grassroots, is running a fiery, underdog and outsider campaign against Burns.

With candidates allotted little time to offer up substantive policy prescriptions, the loudest fireworks came during the opening remarks by Burns, who immediately went after Critz. The two are scheduled to directly debate next week.

“Tonight you’re going to here Mark Critz say he’s not a liberal,” Burns said, before noting that Vice President Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have been helping the former Murtha aide raise campaign cash.

“Nancy Pelosi isn’t raising money for mark Critz because he’s a nice guy, and I’m sure he is,” Burns said. “She’s raising money because if he wins, she’ll have one more vote for her liberal agenda.”

The early focus on Critz prompted grumbles and even some booing from the audience—”what are you going to do?” one man shouted—before the moderators called for calm from the audience and reminded the candidates that they were supposed to focus on the coming primary, not the special election.

Critz, for his part, continued to embrace Murtha’s personal legacy while drawing clear policy contrasts with his late boss, reiterating his opposition to the recently-enacted health care law and to cap-and-trade energy legislation. Murtha, he said, is “not only my role model, he’s my hero.”

Later, after saying his positions had been distorted, Critz told Burns he was sorry if he has has misrepresented Burns’ positions on tax policy—which was the bases for an ad by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee that was taken to task by FactCheck.org. Critz had repeated a partly debunked claim about the fair tax earlier in the debate.

Russell continued to play the role of conservative, anti-establishment firebrand, while Bucchianeri was in familiar territory as the earnest liberal in a conservative-leaning district. Mackell, who has drawn relatively little attention and did not seek the party’s nomination for the special election, also sounded a mostly liberal tone.

With the local, state and national party leaders pushing hard for Burns, Russell, who has been fiercely critical of the party’s special-election nomination process, framed a vote for himself in the primary as a pragmatic choice for a GOP eager to capture the seat Murtha held for decades.

“I am truly the safe bet for the primary,” he said. “The worst scenario would be for [Burns] to win the primary and lose the special election. That would mean he’d be running as a loser in the general election against a guy who beat him four and a half months ago.”

With immigration seemingly on its way back to the forefront of the legislative agenda in Washington, Russell and Burns said tighter border control is necessary to keep illegal immigrants out, and both staunchly opposed any form of amnesty. “We need to take away the incentive for these people to break the law,” Burns said.

Bucchianeri, by contrast, took a middle ground, saying he opposes widespread amnesty but also doesn’t think illegal immigrants can be deported en masse. Isolationism in an increasingly global economy, he said, would put the country at a disadvantage. Critz also supported sealing the borders more tightly, while Mackell lamented the “stunt” that Arizona recently pulled—a reference to the strictest-in-the-country anti-immigration law that the state recently passed.

Asked if repealing the health care law is feasible, Bucchianeri contained his staunch defense of the reform legislation, citing the tens of thousands of uninsured in the district. Critz and Mackell also did not support repeal, with Critz saying that the bill he has voiced opposition to is now the law. Russell and Burns said the bill must and could be repealed.

The candidates also found some agreement when asked about their political role models. Critz and Mackell both cited Murtha, while Bucchianeri talked about the “bold leadership and compassion” of John F. Kennedy. Burns identified his role models as George Washington and Ronald Reagan. Russell said he had the same role models, throwing in Abraham Lincoln to boot.

April 28, 2010 at 9:21 pm

--Dan Hirschhorn

Tags: Bill Russell, Mark Critz, PA-12, Ron Mackell Jr., Ryan Bucchianeri, Tim Burns

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