Democratic voters in the 12th District are watching one of the nation's premier battles for Congress unfold right in their front yards. Because of some clever redistricting by Republicans, two Democratic incumbents, John Murtha and Frank Mascara, are pitted against each other for the same House seat.
Rep. Murtha, of course, is the well-known 28-year veteran from Cambria County. Rep. Mascara has spent eight years in the House after 14 years as a Washington County commissioner. Both men have extensive records of service and issues to raise before their future constituents in Allegheny, Washington, Westmoreland, Armstrong, Fayette, Greene, Indiana, Somerset and Cambria counties. And Democratic voters, who will forcibly retire one of them, deserve a side-by-side comparison.
Rep. Murtha is not interested in that. As a member of the powerful Appropriations Committee, he has campaigned in the redesigned district with federal checkbook in hand. In February, on the day that Rep. Mascara announced his decision to stand for re-election, a Murtha aide said: "If there's a campaign, it will be a campaign about who can deliver. We'll be in Washington County [tomorrow] making another delivery."
Rep. Mascara is no stranger himself to "delivering," but in this campaign he is interested in more than pork-barrel politics. He believes in political debates and public access to the candidates and has offered to appear jointly with his opponent numerous times so that voters can size them up together.
But Rep. Murtha has resisted such public scrutiny. In a report Saturday by The Observer-Reporter in Washington, Pa., presidents of two chapters of the League of Women Voters said candidate forums in Westmoreland and Washington counties had to be canceled because Rep. Murtha would not commit to debate.
Throughout the campaign, five debates were proposed to the two congressmen, according to the Mascara camp. But they were either nixed or never came together. A Murtha spokesman said his boss was not able to commit to evening debates because of his duties in Washington, D.C. Yet Rep. Mascara, a member of the same Congress, has shown plenty of flexibility to schedule a debate, which remains sadly elusive.
We know the feeling. The Johnstown-area representative has not shown any interest in participating in an endorsement interview alongside Rep. Mascara with the Post-Gazette editorial board. All that the Murtha campaign can say is that it has a busy schedule. Well, so does Rep. Mascara.
While Frank Mascara is running hard, John Murtha is running scared. Now what does this tell the voters of the new 12th District?
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