Hoyer Versus Murtha: A Quantitative Perspective

Ed Kilgore says Steny Hoyer should no more be purged from the congressional leadership than Howard Dean should be dumped as DNC Chair. I must confess that my instinctive sympathies lie with Hoyer's opponent, John Murtha. Ed also comments that, Murtha's recent strong anti-war stance aside, he's "been a bit to the right of Jimmy Dean Sausage on a host of issues over the years." Worth looking into, I would say. One interesting perspective on such questions is Keith Poole's DW Nominate dataset which eliminates the subjectivity inherent in interest-group rankings in favor of a "best fit" quantitative analysis of all congressional votes. Here's what I found.

In the 109th House of Representatives, Steny Hoyer was in a five-way tie (along with Reps. Harman, Israel, Kind, and McCarthy) for position 143 on the 1-438 scale, where higher numbers are further to the right. Murtha, by contrast, took position 185 -- only eighteen House Democrats were to Murtha's right. In the 108th House Murtha was in a three-way tie for position 135 (with Reps. Tauscher and Cardin) while Murtha was tied with Rep. Ortiz for position 176.5 -- this time 32 Democrats were to Murtha's right. In the 107th House, Hoyer took position 140 while Murtha was in position 197; 16 Democrats were to Murtha's right but to the left of all the Republicans, then there was Jim Traficant who was to the right of 28 of the Republicans.

After that, the formatting of the data gets more complicated so I stopped doing the analysis. The general pattern, however, seems reasonably clear. In terms of the DW Nominate dataset, Murtha is consistently to Hoyer's right. Hoyer is pretty consistently to the right of the median Democrat, in with a bloc of people you might characterize as northern moderates. Murtha is further to the right than this bloc, in with a group composed mostly of southerners.

Obviously, this isn't the only perspective one might want to adopt and, certainly, this kind of quantitative metric fails (by design) to note that some votes are more important than others and also that voting records don't capture everything relevant about ideology. It does seem to be the case, however, that there's no clear reason to regard Murtha as more progressive than Hoyer. A lot of intra-caucus politics, at the end of the day, have more to do with hard-to-disentangle personal ties rather than ideology -- Murtha and Pelosi have been close for a long time while Hoyer and Pelosi have been rivals. For example, the candidate for Whip associated with Hoyer and Rahm Emanuel, Diana DeGette is, as best I can tell, a raging liberal by pretty much any standard .

11/12/06 11:09PM del.icio.us this incoming links

Comments

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Posted by: mehdi on November 13, 2006 12:07 AM

I prefer Murtha because a) I think on one particular issue, Iraq, he would more effective than Hoyer, and 2) anything that weakens Rahm gladdens my heart.

Posted by: bob mcmanus on November 13, 2006 12:16 AM

Martha had some earmark swap mett going too. Before Pelosi endorsed him there wasn't necessarily any reason to strongly prefer Murtha, but now there is. A big gamble by her.

Posted by: David Weman on November 13, 2006 12:19 AM

But really ,even before this, Murtha was Pelosi's ally, and I'm guessing he wasn't someone who'd eventually become speaker, Hoyer might.

Posted by: David Weman on November 13, 2006 12:20 AM

Aside from ideology and personal ties, too, there's something like procedural style, degree of corruption (if any) and so on. Neither looks super-attractive to me in that regard, but I will say that a pal of mine who worked on the Hill for a while said they referred to Hoyer as a snake-oil salesman. And that wasn't personal. Plus Hoyer plagiarized, stole, resubmitted under a different number and claimed credit for the bill that my pal had had a hand in writing.

Posted by: Jeff on November 13, 2006 12:32 AM

According to Progressive Punch, which tracks all votes from multiple sessions for Senators and Congresscritters.

Steny Hoyer has a Progressive rating of 82.97 (out of 100) making him the 125th most liberal congressperson and more liberal than 77 other House Dems. He is strongest on Family Planning & Health Care issues (96.3 & 95) and weakest on Housing(bank forclosure) and War & Peace issues (62.5 & 67.2).

John Murtha has a Progressive rating of 66.61 (out of 100) making him the 187th most liberal congresperson and more liberal than 15 other House Dems. He is strongest on Labor & Taxation issues (82.6 & 76.1) and weakest on Family Planning and, oddly, enough, War & Peace issues (Pro Military+Defense Pork) (15.3 & 44.7 respectively)

It should also be noted that on the issues that Murtha is strongest on, he is still less progressive than Hoyer (82.6 to 85.1 on Labor) (76.1 to 91.4 on Taxes) and on the issues Hoyer is weakest on, he is still more progressive than Murtha (62.5 to 50 on Housing) (67.2 to to 44.7 on War & Defense)

------------------------------------------------------

For anyone interested, the notorious Rahm Emanuel has a Progressive rating of 87.73 (out of 100) making him the 72nd most liberal Congressperson and more liberal than 130 other House Dems. And "raging liberal by pretty much any standard" has a Progressive rating of 89.85, making her the 50th most liberal Congressperson and more liberal than 152 other House Dems.

Posted by: DRR on November 13, 2006 12:40 AM

"For anyone interested, the notorious Rahm Emanuel has a Progressive rating of 87.73 (out of 100) making him the 72nd most liberal Congressperson and more liberal than 130 other House Dems."

Shhhh....

Rahm fought with Howard during the campaign, and thus is a very, very, very bad man. We all know ideology doesn't matter in politics, don't we?

Posted by: Petey on November 13, 2006 12:56 AM

Hoyer is certainly more of the smooth, well-spoken, back-slapping pol one imagines as a majority leader. However, on the crucial issue of Iraq, electing Hoyer sends entirely the wrong message.

Hoyer represents the "stay in Iraq with a reworked Democratic plan and win" approach while Murtha represents the "time to start getting out" position. It strikes me that Murtha's position is now closest to the position of the majority of Americans, and is certainly closer to the position of the majority of Democrats. Hoyer is in step with Washington lobbyists, but out of step with ordianry Americans.

My guess is that most of the Democrats who displaced Republicans ran on something resembling Mutha's position. Getting us out of Iraq is what the public sent Democrats to Washington to do. If they choose Hoyer as their leader, Americans will respond with a collective "Wha? We replace the Republican Congress with a Democratic one, based mainly on our feelings about the war issue, and then the Democrats pick a guy from the hawkish wing of the party whose position on Iraq is barely discernable from that of the Republicans they replaced?"

I wish some alternative candidate would emerge: one with Murtha's position on the war, but otherwise more on line politically with the Democratic mainstream, and a better speaker. But if it comes down to Murtha vs. Hoyer, I go with Murtha.

Posted by: Dan Kervick on November 13, 2006 01:03 AM

Rahm fought with Howard during the campaign, and thus is a very, very, very bad man. We all know ideology doesn't matter in politics, don't we?

I think people are tossing around the term "ideology" carelessly, as if the term were synonymous with "dogma." Rahm's ideology has many liberal components, but also includes a bad-man's corporatist streak. The corporatism/pragmatism is NOT non-ideological, just because it's the part of his ideology that concerns winning elections.

Posted by: dj moonbat on November 13, 2006 01:04 AM

"For example, the candidate for Whip associated with Hoyer and Rahm Emanuel..."

I previously called you a moron on this, Matthew, but now I wonder if you're not a moron, but simply writing in bad faith.

Rahm is clearly aligned with Pelosi, not Hoyer. Pelosi clearly sees Rahm as aligned with her, not Hoyer. Pick up your telephone and do some reporting, if you don't believe me.

There are lots of folks in the blogosphere writing on this topic in intentionally bad faith, and I've been assuming you aren't one of them, since I assume you're almost never writing in intentionally bad faith.

But I am pretty confused as to your motivations in continually repeating something so clearly false.

Posted by: Petey on November 13, 2006 01:10 AM

Well Rahm deserves some criticism on certain issues, he was clearly right about certain things and instrumental in the big victory. But was clearly wrong about many things as well, and a lot of internet activists, who deserve a huge share of the credit for our win, are justified in balking at the prospect that Rahm is a genius who deserves all of the credit (rather than a strong tactician who deserves some of the credit)

But I agree with you that Rahm is not a very very bad man, simply because he disagrees with Howard Dean sometimes. I'm really beginning to get chafed at this distrubing cult of personality surrounding Dean, where in anyone who dares criticize the great Chairman is deemed an enemy of the people and to be crushed.

Posted by: DRR on November 13, 2006 01:11 AM

How can you be certain of someone's ideology based only the way they voted?

For example:
If a politician supports universal health care for children, but votes against a universal health care bill because it is poorly written, not well funded, not far reaching enough, or otherwise flawed, would that politician thus become more conservative?

Posted by: Darragh on November 13, 2006 01:14 AM

Because Hacker's claims about "backlash insurance" notwithstanding, there's no way that a Member's votes reflect anything but his fondest heart's policy desires in the most naive sense.

Posted by: SomeCallMeTim on November 13, 2006 01:15 AM

But I agree with you that Rahm is not a very very bad man, simply because he disagrees with Howard Dean sometimes.

No, he's a bad man because he's your standard machine politician, and he happens to be allied with the particularly pernicious DLC machine. Some people liked Tammany Hall, I guess.

Posted by: SomeCallMeTim on November 13, 2006 01:17 AM

SCMT, Machine Politician? Tammany Hall? DLC Machine? give me a fricken break. Get back when youre serious and on planet Earth.

Posted by: DRR on November 13, 2006 01:33 AM

"I previously call you a moron on this, Matthew, but now I wonder if you not moron, but simply write in bad faith."

Go to your room Cha-Ka.

Posted by: Linus on November 13, 2006 01:45 AM

Dan Kervick nails it. Iraq is the issue right now. One's willingness to take a clear stand on Iraq also indicates a lot about future stands on U.S. imperialism. The political tectonic plates are in the course of shifting a bit, and past definitions of liberal and conservative may become less relevant.

But I worry about Murtha's willingness to stand up to the military on spending issues. Defense spending has probably doubled since 2000, it's out of control.

Posted by: MQ on November 13, 2006 03:05 AM

The case against Emanuel (at least as far as I'm concerned) isn't that he's corrupt. I'll also grant that he's one heck of a fundraiser, and that his general persistence helps him get a lot done. The big problem, as I see it, is that he's a mediocre race picker. I'd like to reference something I wrote 10 days before the election:

"I really don't know about any strikingly clever moves he's pulled as DCCC chair. If he heavily funds a handful of third-tier races and they turn out to be winners, or if he doesn't and we lose them by a mile while winning the House off of top-tier races, my opinion will change."

What ended up happening? Well, unless recounts shake things up, we lost 14 out of 23 races that were decided by 2 points or less. The losses included cheap races (Kissell, Trauner, Wulsin), bunches of which could be won for the money that Rahm spent on a single one of his losers. I suppose John Lapp, who runs independent expenditures for the DCCC, is the real guy to blame here, but I blame Rahm too for hiring the moron.

Given the choice between Dean's long-term party-building and John Lapp's dumping bundles of money on a few battleground races while ignoring others, I'll take Dean's way.

Posted by: Neil the Ethical Werewolf on November 13, 2006 03:37 AM

I think you are drawing a false distinction here. The "50 state strategy" is about "long term party building" at the state & county level, centralizing the party & reinvigorating it rather than blowing DNC money on congressional races. The primary feud between Dean & Rahm was over Rahm's wanting that money for the election cycle while Dean wanted it to build up state parties. "dumping bundles of money on a few battleground races while ignoring others" isn't even related to that, as the DNC wasn't putting up money for the election cycle, other than for GOTV to begin with, much less targeting their funds to specific battleground races.

Posted by: DRR on November 13, 2006 05:15 AM

Dustin, the DCCC's way of expending funds in an election cycle is by dumping bundles of money on a few battleground races while ignoring others. That's why that issue is relevant to comparisons between what Rahm does with money and what Dean does with money.

Personally, I'd rather have Dean spend some of his money on helping underfunded but competitive candidates like Trauner and Kissell and Wulsin. (Though he did a lot to help Trauner by funding the Wyoming state party, so that was pretty good. And by funding the Nebraska party, he may have bled the NRCC when they had to throw money at Kleeb.) But I'd rather do local party building, like Dean did, than saturate the airwaves in a small number of battleground districts, which is what Rahm and Lapp do. Hence my disdain for Rahm, and my relative regard for Dean.

Posted by: Neil the Ethical Werewolf on November 13, 2006 07:29 AM

Hoyer will back rahm and the rest of the establishment. There's no point in pretending this is a choice. Mo matter how liberal hoyer is, he's part of the problem and not part of the solution.
I don't take Rahm that seriously. He lacks the personal skills needed to manage large groups of people effectively. All of this chatter is just good feelings over the elections. Rahm will be back to insulting everyone an inch to his right or left, and pissing in everyones cornflakes in no time. I doubt we'll be talking about this guy in 6 months, not on a national level.
It should be noted that while I don't know if Rahm is personally corrupt, he's the sort of person who corrupts very easily. He's petty, vindictive, cruel and has a massive sense of entitlement. In my experience, those are the people who can't be relied upon for sterling ethics. If he ever gets a leadership position, I'm leaving the party. Guys like that don't win leadership by convincing others of their ability, they do so by stabbing others in the back.

Posted by: Soullite on November 13, 2006 08:30 AM

and I'm guessing he wasn't someone who'd eventually become speaker

Exactly. Everyone who's so busy pointing out how conservative Murtha is doesn't realize how irrelevant that is. We seem to have forgotten that the Speaker is supposed to be the agenda-setter in the House, after years of Delay using Hastert as his sock puppet. Ms. Pelosi wants someone in the second-highest slot who is loyal to her, rather than someone looking to undercut her and usurp her position. As noted above, it is extremely unlikely that Mr. Murtha will ever become Speaker; Ms. Pelosi presumably wants to keep the job as long as possible, and if circumstances render that impossible, it's an open field. In the meantime, Ms. Pelosi indicates her respect for the wishes of the electorate by picking an Iraq redeployment advocate, has a conservative Marine as her right-hand man to blunt the "San Francisco liberal" attacks, and gets to introduce a progressive agenda anyway, since she is the boss.

Posted by: mds on November 13, 2006 08:51 AM

Except that putting someone whom CREW views as one of the most corrupt Congressmen up as Majority Leader sends a bad message about the seriousness with which the Democrats will reform Congress. I suppose I could be fine with Murtha's 0% from NARAL, but seriously, while he's right on Iraq, he's a horrific abuser of earmarks. This is payback from Pelosi for a longtime supporter of hers, but it's just a terrible move because it blunts the distinction between Republican corruption and our new Pelosi-led sugar miners.

Posted by: Steve on November 13, 2006 09:01 AM

"Dustin, the DCCC's way of expending funds in an election cycle is by dumping bundles of money on a few battleground races while ignoring others. That's why that issue is relevant to comparisons between what Rahm does with money and what Dean does with money."

Except that Dean isn't doing anything in the races with his money, ergo no distinction to be made. He's not contributing directly to the candidates races. No doubt putting money in the State parties has indirect benefits for the candidates, but they rely on direct support. That's why we have a DCCC and a DSCC.

As for The DCCC's success or failure. I'm not sure what you want them to do. If some races that weren't paid much attention to by the DCCC ended up close. That's just a case for smarter and targeting, not an argument against targeting in itself. Are you saying the DCCC should have given the same money, attention & resources to every congresscritter running? So John Morris, who got 31% of the vote against Kay Granger, gets the same support as Patrick Murphy? Until you propose an alternative model, I can only count your indictment by half.

"Personally, I'd rather have Dean spend some of his money on helping underfunded but competitive candidates like Trauner and Kissell and Wulsin. (Though he did a lot to help Trauner by funding the Wyoming state party, so that was pretty good. And by funding the Nebraska party, he may have bled the NRCC when they had to throw money at Kleeb.)"

Fine, I'll agree with you. Except Dean didn't fund any candidates, underfunded or otherwise. He gave the DCCC, DSCC & state parties a bunch of millions for GOTV in the last month (which helped) but he didn't fund any candidate himself. It doesen't really make sense to pooh-pooh one stragey as opposed to another that, in fact, never even existed.

Posted by: DRR on November 13, 2006 09:39 AM

A British soldier in Iraq pretty much said it all: "They just want to pull us out so they can send us off to some other f--king war."

I'm inclined to be against anything Ed Kilgore is for, but when I thought of writing to my congressman, it occurred to me that they do a lot of stuff back there I don't know about. They're like children or pets, you can't watch them all the time, you just have to hope that the occasional swat with a rolled up newspaper will keep them generally on course.

That said, the DLC took control of the nominating process for the presidency in 76 and the results haven't been pretty. Time for a change in that department.

Posted by: serial catowner on November 13, 2006 09:59 AM

SCMT, Machine Politician? Tammany Hall? DLC Machine?

I'm not actually sure to what you're objecting. The wikipedia entry comports with my lay-understanding of a political machine:

A political machine is an unofficial system of political organization based on patronage, the spoils system, "behind-the-scenes" control, and longstanding political ties within the structure of a representative democracy.

Most political organizations engage in this sort of behavior, and attempt to place their people in positions of responsibility throughout the government and government-related policy and political organizations. Most such groups try to "control" the government; that's rather the point. The DLC is of note because--as I think was discussed in a conversation between Yglesias and Chait--the DLC has essentially no Democratic voter constituency and yet has an outsized DC influence.

Maybe it's the reference to Tammany Hall, with the implicit implication of specific corrupt acts? Fine, retracted. We've only just regained the majority; let's wait and see what happens with K Street.

Posted by: SomeCallMeTim on November 13, 2006 10:04 AM

Except that putting someone whom CREW views as one of the most corrupt Congressmen up as Majority Leader sends a bad message about the seriousness with which the Democrats will reform Congress.

Well, we're currently still stuck with Joe "Illegal $387,000 Slush Fund" Lieberman, and it never seemed to matter to anyone how many suitcases full of pharmaceutical lobbyist money ended up on his desk. And as far as Murtha's perceived corruption, remember that the other alternative is Hoyer. Do you think Hoyer voted for the bankruptcy bill because he was completely swept away by its merits? He was swept away by bags with dollar signs painted on them. And Emanuel was bragging before the election about how much of the old K Street lucre was flowing back to the Democrats. So any likely majority leader is going to have issues; the system itself is part of the problem, and is what needs to be fixed.

I suppose I could be fine with Murtha's 0% from NARAL

Good, because Speaker Pelosi will be setting the agenda. What's her NARAL rating? And if it's just about the message that such a pick would send to NARAL, well, fuck them and their endorsement for Joe "Rape Victims Can Just Go to Another Hospital, and I Voted for Cloture on Alito" Lieberman. (Yes, Joe does have a lot of different long, awkward middle names, doesn't he?)

Posted by: mds on November 13, 2006 10:23 AM

And as far as Murtha's perceived corruption, remember that the other alternative is Hoyer. Do you think Hoyer voted for the bankruptcy bill because he was completely swept away by its merits?

The bankruptcy bill which Murtha also voted for. And yes, as I said, I could be fine with Murtha's 0% rating with NARAL -- as you noted, Pelosi will the agenda. But picking someone with some pretty boundary-pushing earmarking issues hanging over is a bad idea. Do you want to argue that CREW is somehow a tool of the Washington punditocracy here?

If Pelosi wanted to reward someone who was right on Iraq, there are people who are solid progressives whom she could have chosen, and Murtha certainly is not one. This is Pelosi paying back a long-time supporter, and I think it's a shit move because it can so easily be spun as the Democrats not being serious about reforming the abuses of the Republican congress if Murtha wins, and poisons her relationship with Hoyer if Murtha loses.

(I don't see how Lieberman comes into things at all, nor do I see how CREW was supposed to magically predict that he would hand out hundreds of thousands of dollars in street cash.)

Posted by: Steve on November 13, 2006 10:47 AM

That said, the DLC took control of the nominating process for the presidency in 76 and the results haven't been pretty. Time for a change in that department.

Wha? The DLC didn't even exist in 76. Let's try to be at least a little bit reasonable about what we blame folks for, eh?

Posted by: flippantangel on November 13, 2006 11:02 AM

That said, the DLC took control of the nominating process for the presidency in 76 and the results haven't been pretty. Time for a change in that department.

Flippantangel's point aside -- exactly how we blame the DLC for Michael Dukakis and John Kerry is beyond me. DLC-connected candidates seem to be 3 for 3 in the popular vote.

Posted by: right on November 13, 2006 11:20 AM

I don't see how Lieberman comes into things at all

It illustrates that corruption is endemic in Congress, and comes in more forms than just earmarks. Yes, it would be good to "pick" someone more progressive who is also free of taint. So, which senior members of Congress with an interest in the position fit the bill? Nothing's preventing them from throwing their hats into the ring, and I'd cheerfully support them.

The bankruptcy bill which Murtha also voted for.

Yeah? So, wrong on Iraq + wrong on bankruptcy bill is an improvement? We aren't looking at Murtha vs. Waxman at this point, we're looking at Murtha vs. Hoyer.

nor do I see how CREW was supposed to magically predict that he would hand out hundreds of thousands of dollars in street cash.

True, and at least they beat the drum loudly about it and rushed to file a state board of elections complaint when it came out before the general election. Or at least I'm sure they intended to, but then they remembered that Maxine Waters supported Lamont, and she's really corrupt, way beyond merely buying votes with an illegal slush fund.

Posted by: mds on November 13, 2006 11:20 AM

I think that someone should look at the races in which Emanuel was involved and compare them to the races in which he was not involved. Duckworth and Wetterling were flops, and he threw a ton of money at Duckworth. And races in which he came in late with money and no advoce should be compared to races where he controlled strategy and tactics. He's been criticized for being too hands-on, I think rightly.

And then look at the original Emanuel strategy vs. the Dean strategy, which was followed to what extent, and how things turned out. If Emanuel actually was advocating "put all your energy into a few carefully-chosen key districts", as he's being accused, he really is a loser.

I am actually more openminded than usual in this particular case. Maybe Emanuel's performance was actually good, and we should split the difference. However, the messages out of the Emanuel camp so far are not conciliatory so far (unlike Kos's messages).

I think that Rahm performs the ATM function nicely and probably should be specialized to that purpose.

Posted by: John Emerson on November 13, 2006 11:24 AM

Okay, mds, you win -- CREW is in the pocket of David Broder and Tim Russert, as part of their plan to neuter the Democratic party.

Other can take a look at this piece on Murtha's fun and games with earmarks and decide if this is the guy you want as the second ranking Dem member of the House. Please note the examples in paragraphs four and five of him screwing fellow Democrats, including helping corner Democrats to block investigations into fraud on the part of military contractors in Iraq.

Posted by: Steve on November 13, 2006 11:28 AM

None of this, btw, detracts from my respect for Murtha for coming out so vocally about the need to get our troops out of harm's way in Iraq and eventually home. Having a conservative Democrat (and one perceived as firmly in the Pentagon's corner) make that case is the right thing to do.

Posted by: Steve on November 13, 2006 11:31 AM

I would prefer a liberal, non-corrupt majority leader, but who's ever cared what I thought? Between Murtha and Hoyer I prefer Murtha, mostly because he spoke out on the war, and secondarily because he seems less slimy than Hoyer. If Emanuel is supporting Murtha as someone above has suggested, that confuses the issue a bit. I guess reptiles aren't herd animals.

Posted by: John Emerson on November 13, 2006 12:20 PM

Doesn't Hoyer have this contest locked up anyways?

Posted by: Chris on November 13, 2006 01:39 PM

Doesn't Hoyer have this contest locked up anyways?

One hopes.

Posted by: SomeCallMeTim on November 13, 2006 02:01 PM

Wow, I knew Murtha had his own politiciany problems, but he seems even oilier than Hoyer. Hoyer's ties to business lobbyists are a problem but he's not implicated in any inpropriety that I've seen. Jack Murtha on the other hand, if Crowley's article at TNR is anything to go by, may be EVEN OILIER.

How is it that Hoyer has this "locked up" anyway. Nancy has endorsed Murtha, that has to count for something. Nancy is in the House Progressive Caucus, the largest faction of the House Democrats. That has to count for something right? Certainly they would heed her words & would support her over a business-friendly Democrat?

Posted by: DRR on November 13, 2006 02:15 PM

The TPM Cafe stuff changed my mind somewhat. Murthan is worse than I thought, and Hoyer has some pretty good endorsers.

Posted by: John Emerson on November 13, 2006 03:10 PM

Is anyone here concerned about Murtha's role in ABSCAM? He was caught on tape considering a $50,000 bribe. He didn't say yes, but he didn't exactly say no either. I was hoping the good guys could come up with some actual good guys for key positions.

Posted by: liberalgoodman on November 13, 2006 03:17 PM

Petey is such a fucking ass

Posted by: go away you douche bag on November 13, 2006 03:43 PM

Actually Murtha declined the 50K bribe and suggested the man invest in Johnstown PA. You Hoyer boys should get your talking points in order.

Murtha game out publically against the war and offered a plan while Hoyer was plotting his takeover of K Street.
One man is a leader the other is a dealer.

To paraphrase Skynyrd 'Pork for Johnstown does not bother me, does your conscience bother you?'

Posted by: Johnstown Chiefs on November 13, 2006 04:07 PM

If Hoyer is elected, then we get an ambitious politico with an overly cautious view of "what works" in the political arena. His ambitions basically mean that he'll interpret things in terms of his long term agenda, which means that even if he had a decent history with Pelosi, which he does not, there would be friction between the two.

If Murtha is chosen, then we get a party and Pelosi loyalist who nevertheless takes principled stands on major issues of the day. Even if he were to fall on the other side of Pelosi on an issue, it's difficult to see him taking political potshots at her. It's clear that Murtha would be the best choice for the party.

Why is this even a debate?

Posted by: workingclass on November 13, 2006 09:30 PM

Murtha's record reminds me of saying "keep friends close, and enemies closer". Pelosi would do well to keep him flattered and under tight control -- and give some earmarks for Johnstown too (and sorry, zip for Altoona!).

Murtha is also a strategically chosen champion for anti-war cause. Exactly because he is so rightwing, so old, so military, so crusty. If only at some fateful day in Fall 2002 Senate Democtats lined behing another old king of earmarks (or emperor), Sen. Byrd. (More details in my upcomming book "101 Uses of an old Buzzard".)

Posted by: piotr on November 13, 2006 09:44 PM

In response to the above poster about why this is a debate, I have to say that it's a debate because there's a real difference between the two candidates.. I don't know what sense criticizing politicians for "ambition" makes-- both Hoyer and Murtha (and Pelosi!) are ambitious: they wouldn't have gotten where they are if they didn't work darn hard to get there.

In terms of Hoyer's history with Pelosi, he's been working with her for four years as Whip, and the Democrats are as united as they've been in 50 years. Do I give Pelosi credit? Absolutely! And I give Hoyer credit, too. Despite the fact that they don't always seem to get along, they work well together. And that's more important to me.

The reason I like Hoyer is that he's better on core Democratic values. He sponsored legislation to increase the minimum wage, is solidly pro-choice, believes in developing alternative energy, protecting the environment, supporting common-sense gun legislation (Brady Bill).

Murtha is none of the above (anti-choice, wants to drill in ANWR), and opposed the Brady bill. He's got an "A" lifetime rating from the NRA.. Do you want him to lead the House Democrats... or the Republicans?

Posted by: PragmaticProgressive on November 14, 2006 08:49 PM

Murtha is a right-winger. Ethics? THIS was just in Roll Call today:
Murtha Calls Ethics Bill ‘Total Crap’
Wednesday, Nov. 15; 1:14 pm
By John Bresnahan,
Roll Call Staff

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) told a group of Democratic moderates on Tuesday that an ethics and lobbying reform bill being pushed by party leaders was “total crap,” but said that he would work to enact the legislation because Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) supports it.

Murtha and Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) are locked in a battle for the House Majority Leader post, and both men made presentations for to the Blue Dog Coalition on Tuesday in a bid for their votes.

“Even though I think it’s total crap, I’ll vote for it and pass it because that’s what Nancy wants,” Murtha told the Blue Dogs, according to three sources who were at the meeting.

Pelosi has made enactment of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act the cornerstone of her legislative agenda for the 110th Congress, and she is preparing to make it the first bill introduced under her reign. Murtha voted against the legislation earlier this year on the House floor.

Congressional corruption was a major issue for voters in the recent midterm elections, and Pelosi has pledged to clean-up the Congress as part of her efforts to reform the House.

A Democratic lawmaker, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said he was “surprised” by the tone of Murtha’s comments, especially Murtha’s repeated claim that he would back any proposal that Pelosi favored. This lawmaker has already declared for Hoyer.

“‘My agenda will be Nancy’s agenda’ — he kept saying that,” the lawmaker said. “The performance was stunningly awful.”

Another Democrat who was in the room said Murtha’s remarks, especially on the ethics and lobbying reform bill, “were not the right thing to say in front of a roomful of Blue Dogs.”

Murtha office’s did not comment for for this article.

Posted by: CallMe on November 15, 2006 03:11 PM

According to Progressive Punch, which tracks all votes from multiple sessions for Senators and Congresscritters.

Posted by: youtube.oku.gen.tr on September 22, 2007 05:34 AM

Posted by: youtube on September 22, 2007 05:35 AM

Posted by: fal on September 22, 2007 05:35 AM

Posted by: fal.oku.gen.tr on September 22, 2007 05:36 AM

thanks

Posted by: chat on October 8, 2007 02:26 AM

neolacak

Posted by: sohbet on October 9, 2007 06:04 PM

yav