Could Mike Turzai be vulnerable?

Republican Mike Turzai has had a Democratic opponent in the past few elections, which he has flicked away like an annoying mosquito.  Why would he not only waste his time by challenging the signatures of his next Democratic victim, Dr. Sharon Brown, but enlist one of Mayor Luke Ravenstahl’s buddies to do it? 

This information comes from Timothy McNulty in the Post-Gazette Early Returns  (http://community.post-gazette.com/blogs/earlyreturns/archive/2010/03/19/ravenstahl-supporter-aids-turzai-effort.aspx).  He got it from Infinonymous that Dave Malone, one of Mayor Luke’s biggest fundraisers, is challenging Dr. Sharon Brown’s signatures.  I am not even sure why someone like Dave Malone would bother getting involved in this.  None of the people involved seem to have anything to gain.

The challenge will also give Dr. Brown some much-needed publicity that she would have never gotten otherwise.  Now she can claim that Mike Turzai is so scared of her that he felt the need to get a prominent Democrat to challenge her signatures.

The whole challenge makes little sense unless…

Could Mike Turzai be vulnerable this time around?  Here are a few reasons why I am wondering:

1. There is a huge anti-incumbency feeling out there.
2. He is a career politician that could be a poster-boy for term limits. 
3. He is Pennsylvania’s version of a “Just say No” Republican at a time when a backlash from “Just say No” might be starting.
4. Many disillusioned Jason Altmire supporters will have some time on their hands, and would love to help knock Mike Turzai off with a grassroots effort that knocked off Melissa Hart twice.

I have met his Democratic opponent, Dr. Sharon Brown.  She is everything he is not.  She is very likeable, intelligent, hard working and honest.  She has little interest in a career in politics.

Four years ago, no one heard of Jason Altmire as he set out to defeat a Melissa Hart that thought she was unbeatable and acted like it.  Could it happen to Mike Turzai this year?

Jason Altmire says No

Jason Altmire Press Release

Jason Altmire has been pretty consistent that the changes need to be bigger than just the financing as he says in his third paragraph:

""Simply moving money around within the existing system, rather than enacting real delivery system reform, might change who pays the bill, but it does not improve the quality of care or reduce costs for families, small businesses, or the federal government. It creates a system of winners and losers, rather than reforming the system in a way that lets everyone win."

I think that he didn't make a strong enough push to get his concerns into the bill until late in the game.  Maybe he was working behind the scenes, but it is not apparent to most of us.  The changes go well beyond what most people would have been comfortable with anyway.  This isn't just the public option, but changing the entire fee for service process that this health care bill will not change.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich had a similar decision to make that the bill didn't go far enough.  Unlike Congressman Altmire, he reasoned that something is better than nothing.  On the other hand, people weren't standing outside Kucinich's office with pitchforks either.

Politically, it will do him more harm than good unless he can do some serious damage control with his supporters.  He is going to lose many more supporters than he will gain.  How many of the tea partiers protesting outside his office would vote for him under any circumstances?  Probably not many.

His opponent will likely be Mary Beth Buchanan who seems to me to be eerily similar to Melissa Hart.  It certainly helps that the Republicans seem determined to put up candidates that turn off most of the voters.