GOP tide of hope rises in Bucks

Mike Fitzpatrick opened his Republican campaign to retake Democrat Patrick Murphy's U.S. House seat.

Bucks County Republican Mike Fitzpatrick yesterday launched a campaign for his old Eighth District seat in the U.S. House, citing the need to "take back our country" from Democrats in Washington who are piling up debt and expanding the government's power.

"For four years I hoped and prayed that our country would begin to rebuild," Fitzpatrick, 46, told about 400 cheering supporters at a rally in front of Neshaminy Junior High in Middletown Township. "I didn't expect to see our national debt run so high that we can only call it what it is - a national emergency." Rep. Patrick Murphy, in his second term, defeated Fitzpatrick in 2006 by slightly more than 1,500 votes in a Democratic election year that turned on public frustration with the Iraq war, President George W. Bush, and the GOP majority in the House.

Fitzpatrick called Murphy a "rubber stamp for bad national policies," saying Murphy voted with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) and President Obama on most issues, including the $787 billion stimulus. Congressional Quarterly's review of 2009 votes found that Murphy sided with the administration 90 percent of the time.

"Mike Fitzpatrick must be counting on massive voter amnesia," Murphy spokeswoman Kate Hansen said. "The people of the Eighth District already rejected the failed Bush-Cheney-Fitzpatrick economic policies that got us into this mess in the first place."

GOP leaders, sensing a shift in the national mood that favors their party in this year's midterm elections, had been courting Fitzpatrick to run for months. Their enthusiasm only intensified after Tuesday's win by Republican Scott Brown in a special Senate election in heavily Democratic Massachusetts. Polls found voters there frustrated with the economy, worried about government spending, and leery of the health-care overhaul pushed by Obama and the Democrats.

Brown also won independent voters by a 2-1 ratio, according to a Washington Post poll. Independents also deserted the Democrats in New Jersey and Virginia last year, helping elect GOP governors in both states.

A heckler wearing a Colbert Report hat interrupted Fitzpatrick several times, yelling, "What are you going to do to fix health care?" and other things. "Isn't this country great?" Fitzpatrick said as the crowd chanted, "Run, Mike, run," to drown out the protester.

Across the street was St. Mary Medical Center, where Fitzpatrick was treated for colon cancer in 2008. The disease is in remission, he said.

Despite his use of populist themes, Fitzpatrick is no outsider. He was a Bucks County commissioner for 10 years, noted for pushing to preserve open land, before winning election to the House in 2004. He had been nominated by the Republican organization because the incumbent announced his retirement after the primary.

One of the slogans on signs in the crowd yesterday was decidedly old-school Republican - "Now more than ever," an echo of Richard M. Nixon in 1972. The Eighth District includes all of Bucks County and small pieces of Montgomery County and Northeast Philadelphia.

Already, several Republicans had been running for the Eighth District nomination; Bucks County has a spirited contingent of conservative Tea Party activists upset with Obama's policies.

Bucks County Democratic vice chairman Neil Samuels said rebellion-minded Republican voters might not like the leadership's coalescing around Fitzpatrick. "His coronation might not sit too well with the local Tea Party crowd," Samuels said. "If they try to ram him through, they may risk angering their activists, and we might even see a third-party independent candidate."

But Rob Mitchell, who was running in the GOP primary with support from Tea Party groups, attended Fitzpatrick's announcement and endorsed him. He said he thought most activists would support Fitzpatrick, too. "The goal is to replace the congressman we have . . . and Mike provides the best opportunity," said Mitchell, 43, of Doylestown.

Murphy has voted against several spending initiatives pushed by the White House and Democratic leadership, including a $75 billion bill to spend unused bank-bailout money on stimulus projects. He also voted for $15 billion in spending cuts to this year's budget, and on Friday called for a freeze in all discretionary federal spending - spending not designated for defense or entitlements such as Social Security.

"Mike is sincere, honest, cares about people, and listens," said Arline Soffian, 72, of Buckingham, an environmental activist who worked with Fitzpatrick on open-space preservation.

"Government is getting involved in stuff that it doesn't have any business getting involved in," said Police Officer Glen Golembeski, 40, of Hilltown, another attendee at the rally.