Forget Godot; We're Waiting For Mikey

Will he run in ’08 or won’t he?

That seems to be the question among Bucks County Repugs in the PA-08 congressional district (and I don’t mean to exclude the slivers of Philadelphia and Montco included also) based on this headline story that appeared in the Courier Times yesterday…

“We're hoping Mike is going to run, but right now we're not really sure,” said Harry Fawkes, chairman of the Bucks County Republican Committee.

In a phone interview Monday, Fitzpatrick said he won't decide whether to run until “later this year” and not before the conclusion of the ongoing county commissioners race.

Fawkes said the 2008 congressional race is barely a blip on the party's radar right now and said the committee's focus is on the 2007 election.

“To be honest, I'm not even thinking about [the congressional race],” Fawkes said.

Not even thinking about it? Well, I guess I wouldn’t either, given news like this.

I should grudgingly point out, though, that the Repugs always seem to at least catch up in fundraising if they don’t pass the Dems outright simply because they have more money than we do; this has something to do with why the RNC has substantially outraised the DNC right now, and probably will for the duration (yes, I know it’s pathetic to focus on the money instead of the issues, but this is the game and I didn’t make up the rules).

As for the presumed Repug “savior,” he had this to say…

In a phone interview Monday, Fitzpatrick said he won't decide whether to run until “later this year” and not before the conclusion of the ongoing county commissioners race.

…

Fitzpatrick pointed out that a majority of Murphy's campaign contributions came from people who live outside of the 8th District, which he believed showed that Murphy had little support in his own district.

In a strange way, it’s nice to see that Mikey remains the same petulant brat spewing misinformation now as he was during the prior election. It makes it so easy to do everything in our power to keep him in private life.

That being said, though, I’ll reluctantly point out that Mikey has a point when it comes to the source of his donations versus Patrick Murphy’s, though his conclusion is bogus of course.

This links to a prior post concerning another article by Brian Scheid of the Courier Times that breaks down the source of Patrick’s campaign funds to date. Scheid noted that about 54 percent of the individual donations came from out of state (with the largest contributions outside of this area coming from New York; I wonder if that will continue given Murphy’s recent endorsement of Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination?), and about $420,000 of Patrick’s $1.2 million so far coming from political action committees.

This takes you to 2006 campaign funding information for Mikey, and while this shows that Fitzpatrick had a decidedly higher percentage of in-state contributions than Patrick, it also shows that Mikey received $1,219, 517 in PAC contributions versus $1,030,291 from individuals. Given that (as well as the fact that he lost), it’s laughable for Mikey to try and claim the mantle that he’s a “man of the people” for PA-08 versus Patrick.

However, all of this raises the inevitable question (to me, anyway) of “So what?” In a largely Republican district, Fitzpatrick outraised Murphy among individual Republican donors. The news would have been that he had not been able to do that (it also would have been news if Mikey had received a penny from organized labor, though fortunately he didn’t; I would have truly been “on the warpath” in that case).

And besides, when it comes to Repug fundraising, Dubya (the leading GOP “rainmaker,” believe it or not) doesn’t have the magic he once had (as illustrated here in the “Burn Bush For Burner” campaign in Washington state), though how any life form could consider Dubya as having magic concerning anything expect screwups is something I cannot fathom.

Here’s the deal; I think Mikey actually wants to see how the election for Bucks County Commissioners turns out. If Cawley and Martin return, then he can hop back into campaign mode and claim momentum. However, if Steve Santarsiero and Diane Marseglia win what should be a well-deserved victory, that might keep Mikey on the sidelines for good (either way, the longer Mikey sits out, the more it helps Patrick).

But if he’s going to keep lobbing pot shots at the individual who defeated him last November, Mikey should at least be man enough to pull his thumb out and declare. Or is that asking too much?

Update: By the way, I don't see Patrick's name on this list of 70 U.S. House Reps opposing funding for the Iraq war unless it is tied to safe redeployment of our forces out of there before Dubya leaves office. Any particular reason why not?