Choices for Conservatives in Pennsylvania's Eighth Congressional District Are Limited

PHILADELPHIA - There's debate among conservatives in Pennsylvania's 8^th Congressional District about November's election.

They aren't happy with Mike Fitzpatrick, who won a rather contentious Republican primary for Pennsylvania's Eighth Congressional District seat. Fitzpatrick was the preferred-although not officially endorsed due to voter ire-candidate of the Bucks County Republican Committee.

Fitzpatrick held the seat from 2004-2006, when he was considered one of the most liberal Republican congressmen, having been in favor of card-check legislation, a precursor to Cap and Trade, and received a D from the National Taxpayer Union in 2006. In addition, conservatives aren't pleased with the Bucks County Republican Committee, who clears the field for their preferred candidate so the voters, in essence, had no choice in the primary.

Fitzpatrick will run against Patrick Murphy, the Democratic incumbent who took the seat from Fitzpatrick in the 2006 election.

While some conservatives aren't happy voting for Fitzpatrick, a vote for Murphy, who insists he's a fiscally conservative blue dog Democrat but votes with Nancy Pelosi 97 percent of the time, is unappealing. He's received an F from the National Taxpayer Union in 2007, 2008, and 2009.

There is, potentially, a third candidate-Tom Lingenfelter-running as an Independent, after unsuccessful campaigns for various positions in the past.

While Lingenfelter's appearance on the ballot might seem inconsequential-the last time he ran for office he only gathered about 5000 votes-his participation in the race could be a deciding factor. After all, Murphy beat Fitzpatrick by about 1500 votes in 2006.

If conservatives see Lingenfelter as the principled-albeit a gadfly-candidate in the race, they might want to check out the folks who gathered signatures for him. It turns out that two Murphy interns (supposedly no longer working on his campaign) gathered signatures for Lingenfelter. It appears that Murphy-or at least Democrats-have worked to get Lingenfelter on the ballot in the hopes that he'll receive enough votes to keep Murphy in office.

So, what's a conservative voter in the 8^th District to do?

It depends on what you want to achieve.

If the goal is to elect a Republican-if you think any Republican would be better than Murphy-Fitzpatrick is the obvious choice. After all, if enough Republicans are elected to the House, Nancy Pelosi will no longer be Speaker. This is not insignificant.

Of course, if Fitzpatrick is elected, the 8^th District may well have a liberal Republican representative for years, and that's unappealing to many conservatives. They might rather have Murphy for another two years and hope that the Bucks County Republican Committee gets the message and next time gets behind a true conservative, or at least has a truly open primary. (An open primary is one in which the Republican Committee doesn't back a candidate-either overtly or covertly-but instead lets the voters pick the candidate in the primary.)

Conservatives could vote for Murphy as a protest, but the message would be unclear.

Or, conservatives can vote for Lingenfelter, who seems the more conservative candidate but has no chance of winning, and see that vote as a protest. Or they can just not vote in the 8^th Congressional race.

No matter how you slice it, there isn't a good choice for conservatives in Pennsylvania's 8^th Congressional District this year.