NRCC ad in 12th District talks health care

The new health care reform law is officially an issue in the 12th Congressional District.

A new TV ad being aired by the National Republican Congressional Committee seeks to hang the health care law on Democrat Mark Critz, a longtime staffer for the late John Murtha, saying “he’ll put the liberal agenda before Pennsylvania.”

Politico …

April 12, 2010 at 1:48 pm | Comments (6)

Report: GOP buys airtime in 12th District

The first independent expenditure in the 12th District special election has hit the airwaves.

The Hill …

April 8, 2010 at 5:20 pm | Comments (6)

NRCC thinks big but takes big risks

I recently received my “top secret” mailing from the National Republican Congressional Committee, indicating the 100 (!) seats the committee was targeting for the fall election, with a plan to  pour more than $1 million of national funds into the races. Operating on the assumption that anything I know about can’t be very secret, I feel free to divulge its  contents to my readers. Not that there are many surprises.

The most striking thing was …

March 10, 2010 at 2:00 pm | Comments (3)

Lentz uses Hannity to raise cash, NRCC hits comments on health care (Updated)

Democrat Bryan Lentz’s 7th District congressional campaign was talking about Fox News host Sean Hannity in an effort to pump up the fundraising on Tuesday. Noting that Hannity will be headlining a major National Republican Congressional Committee fundraiser next month, campaign manager Vincent Rongione wrote to supporters that “our likely Republican opponent was hand-picked by these Washington insiders and will no doubt benefit greatly from this fundraising event.”

He went on to highlight comments by …

February 9, 2010 at 3:18 pm | Comments (18)

GOP says internal poll shows Dent with big lead

Republicans say an internal poll of the 15th Congressional District race shows incumbent Republican Charlie Dent with a wide lead over his Democratic challenger, Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan.

The poll, conducted by the Alexandria-based Tarrance Group, found Dent garnering 53 percent of the vote, compared to 27 percent for Callahan, according to a poll memo released by the National Republican Congressional Committee. Like other internal polling data released, the NRCC disclosed only the poll memo, …

January 26, 2010 at 6:55 pm | Comments (7)

NRCC welcomes back Gerlach

The National Republican Congressional Committee was quick to embrace its incumbent in the 6th District Friday after …

January 8, 2010 at 2:53 pm | Comments (2)

GOP in good position for House, Senate races

The pThe House list is significant for including not only such obvious targets as Kathy Dahlkemper, Chris Carney, Paul Kanjorski, and Jason Altmire but also the always-in-trouble John Murtha and whoever runs for Sestak’s seat in the 7th District. If the GOP picks up even two of these seats—and holds on to the 6th District seat being vacated by Jim Gerlach—it would be on track, proportionately speaking, to regain control of the House in 2010./p
pI’ll admit that’s a little misleading, since the Keystone State tends to have more swing seats than other comparably sized jurisdictions—but not by very much./p
pThe Sestak-Specter race, in addition to providing a great show—Specter was all over his opponent even before he entered the race—will also burn a tremendous amount of Democratic money and energy that would otherwise go into the congressional races. Pat Toomey, who has (rather improbably) stated that he a href="http://www.pa2010.com/2009/08/toomey-says-he-would-vote-for-sotomayor/" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.pa2010.com']);return TrackClick("http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pa2010.com%2F2009%2F08%2Ftoomey-says-he-would-vote-for-sotomayor%2F','would+vote+to+confirm+Sonia+Sotomayor')" target="_blank">would vote to confirm Sonia Sotomayor, is plainly enjoying the spectacle and positioning himself toward the middle. None of this means the Republicans will win anything—it depends on the economy, health care, and just how much lower President Obama’s ratings will go.

But for a party that was “dead” a few months ago, the GOP looks increasingly on the offensive, and the Democrats are doing their level best to help them.

August 5, 2009 at 1:18 pm | Comments (7)

Gerlach not on NRCC’s new protect-list

Congressman Jim Gerlach (R-6), who is seen as increasingly likely to vacate his seat and run for statewide office, is not included in a new National Republican Congressional Committee program to protect vulnerable House incumbents, Politico pTen incumbents so far are part of the NRCC’s Patriot Program, through which the Washington campaign committee will help fund Republicans trying to hold increasingly Democratic districts. Gerlach, whose 6th District seat has been hard to defend ever since he first won it in 2002. His absence from the list could reflect the likelihood that he will jump into either the race for Senate or Governor./p
pDemocrat Doug Pike has already declared his candidacy in the race and other Democrats have been a href="http://www.pa2010.com/2009/04/democrats-once-again-eyeing-pa-6/" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.pa2010.com']);return TrackClick("http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pa2010.com%2F2009%2F04%2Fdemocrats-once-again-eyeing-pa-6%2F','eyeing+the+race')" target="_blank"eyeing the race/a. State Representative Curt Schroder (R-Chester) has said he a href="http://www.politicker.com/pennsylvania/21578/if-gerlach-runs-governor-schroder-interested-his-congressional-seat" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.politicker.com']);return TrackClick("http%3A%2F%2Fwww.politicker.com%2Fpennsylvania%2F21578%2Fif-gerlach-runs-governor-schroder-interested-his-congressional-seat','will+likely+run')" target="_blank">will likely run for the GOP nomination if Gerlach runs statewide. But if Gerlach doesn’t seek reelection, analysts widely agree that Democrats will capture the seat.

May 19, 2009 at 10:01 am | Comments (0)