Mike Fitzpatrick is stepping down but younger brother Brian will try to fill his shoes. Scott Petri has been a popular State Representative in a small section of Bucks. Can his popularity overcome the Fitzpatrick domination of Bucks County Politics by Mike?
Mike destroyed his Democrat rivals in the last two Congressional races but Bucks County is not a Republican stronghold. Bucks went for Obama and even for Gore despite a Republican edge in the number of registered Republicans. That’s changed in the county as there are more Democrats than ever even though some registered Republican so they could upset the Republican candidates. Voting for Obama proves that to be the case.
The Democrats are running Steve Santarsiero who is a typical Democrat. Santarsiero is being challenged by the much smarter Saughnessy Norton who has amassed a small fortune to get the nod from the Democrats. She’s a typical Democrat on the issues: increase taxes to give many Bucks teachers well over $100,000 a year, higher taxes to pay for more welfare programs, more control over doctors and nurses and yada yada yada. Santarsiero is a little guy who want’s your guns but he want’s his bodyguards to keep theirs. He has loads of unions support even though Bucks is not a hot spot for union workers except in the government.
Democrat Pat Murphy showed how to get elected in Bucks. He took care of Fitzpatrick but Fitzpatrick came back by bigger and bigger victories. So the race for Congress in Bucks County is as much up in the air as ever.
The good news is both Petri and Fitzpatrick are able vote-getters but there are two more Republicans running in the Primary election in late April. The very popular and personable ex-Commissioner Andy Warren and an ex-assistant District Attorney, Dean Malik both announced their candidacies. The betting is Brian Fitzpatrick will face Santarsiero in the November election but we’ll know more after the April Primary.
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