Murphy's Draw

Murphy's Draw

A Northeast Philly congressional race has national implications.

by Jared Goyette

When Donald Rumsfeld compared critics of the Iraq war to those who appeased fascists, Patrick Murphy was incensed. An Iraq war veteran who earned a bronze star — he was in the Army — Murphy is currently running for Congress on a platform that, among other things, calls for the withdrawal of most U.S. soldiers and the immediate dismissal of the secretary of defense.

"I think Donald Rumsfeld needs to know that everyone in the U.S. military takes an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States of America," Murphy said during a recent interview. "That constitution includes the First Amendment right to freedom of speech, which this secretary doesn't seem to respect. I just wish the defense secretary would [compare war critics to appeasers of fascism] to my face so I could tell him what I think."

BATTLE LINES: Army vet Patrick Murphy has turned the Iraq War into a focal issue in his bid to unseat Northeast Philadelphia U.S. Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick.
BATTLE LINES: Army vet Patrick Murphy has turned the Iraq War into a focal issue in his bid to unseat Northeast Philadelphia U.S. Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick.

Murphy's opponent, incumbent U.S. Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick, doesn't like to talk about Rumsfeld or anyone else in an unpopular president's inner circle. He prefers to focus on "local issues," like how Murphy didn't grow up in the Northeast Philadelphia/Bucks County district both men want to represent next year. And he's right: Murphy grew up on Nanton Terrace, a whopping 300 feet from the 8th district border.

But November's midterm election isn't about who's from which block. As in many races across the country, including Thomas Kean Jr.'s challenge of U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez in New Jersey, the campaign has become a mandate on U.S. strategy in Iraq. And the supporters who packed the opening of Murphy's Levittown campaign headquarters earlier this month were well aware of those stakes.

Despite heavy rains, one man valiantly barbecued burgers beneath a canopy while twentysomethings in Penn T-shirts leaned against a wall chatting. Murphy strolled in with his school-aged niece, who was conveniently perched on his shoulders. A pin bearing the insignia of his division — the 82nd Airborne — was fixed to his lapel.

A former associate professor at West Point, Murphy is a military lawyer who has been deployed twice since 9/11 — first in Bosnia and then Iraq. A captain, Murphy helped advise military operations and assisted in the prosecution of Sheik Moyad, an aide to firebrand fundamentalist Muqtada al-Sadr, who led a rebellion against U.S. troops in 2004, but is currently part of the Iraqi government.

In a plan similar to Rep. John Murtha's, Murphy calls for a phased pullout, the deployment of a rapid-response strike force and for all U.S. National Guard and reserves to come home. When he talks about the war, he combines pointed criticism of the Bush administration with heartfelt concern for the fate of the Iraqi people."To understand how I feel about this, you have to look at my record," Murphy says. "I've seen the fields of Srebrenica, where Muslim boys were slaughtered because of their religion. I wear on my heart the Iraqis that I left behind there. Some of them have been assassinated, their relatives have been kidnapped, they've been kidnapped. These are people that I was in cars with in convoys, people who translated for me. We saw them through evil and made the situation as best as we could. When I call for a timeline, I weigh the consequences. It's a personal thing with me. There's nothing careless about calling for a timeline. It's the only way the Iraqis will step up and take control of their own security."

But whether the Iraqis will "step up" or just start killing each other quicker is an open question. Some warn that things could turn even uglier should the U.S. follow Murphy's plan.

For his part, Fitzpatrick, a former county commissioner serving his first term in Congress, has attempted to distance himself from President Bush and his war. In August, Fitzpatrick sent a letter to supporters titled "America Needs a Better, Smarter Plan in Iraq." What that plan might entail, though, was left unspecified. (Despite repeated requests, Fitzpatrick did not grant an interview for this article.)

The letter went on to label Murphy a "cut-and-run" Democrat and call Bush's "stay-the-course strategy" extreme; both soundbites earned a mention on FoxNews.com.

Still, Fizpatrick's Web site does more to distinguish himself from his fellow Republicans than it does his Democratic opponent. A section devoted exclusively to his "independent record" highlights votes against Republican efforts to weaken the Endangered Species Act and drill for oil in the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve.

While this race has national significance — The National Journal, a political news magazine, ranks it among the nation's "top 30" — up close it can look like a classic contest between a skilled incumbent and a young and inexperienced, yet passionate, challenger.Murphy is sincere if not eloquent. At a recent press conference, a reporter from the Bucks County Courier Times pressed the Democratic candidate to respond "yes or no" to whether he would have voted for a transportation bill that sandwiched together funds for Bucks County, and millions of dollars in wasteful "pork barrel" spending that Murphy has denounced.

"Sometimes," he responded, "you have to make tough decisions."

Fitzpatrick's greatest asset is his name. He has been a local politician for more than 16 years, and has something to show for it.

"Some people were voting for Fitzpatrick because they had known him in the past," writes Murphy campaign volunteer Asuka Nakamura on the left-leaning blog MyDD.com. "Whether [Fitzpatrick] be a family friend or someone they had known in high school, he's a local boy they believe has done good, and they're going to vote for him not on the issues, but out of personal loyalty."

Despite that, a poll conducted late last month by Constituency Dynamics showed Fitzpatrick with a 8-point lead over Murphy, but progressive bloggers quickly contended that the poll overshot the number of registered Republicans in the district. Regardless, television commercials have just started hitting the air.

Even if Fitzpatrick has the edge, the campaign is only now entering its crucial phase. So, after his City Paper interview, Murphy gave the reporter a vigorous handshake and surveyed the cafe around him. With deliberate precision, he went from table to table to introduce himself. His campaign press secretary, who, like most of Murphy's staff, is a smart twentysomething who runs on idealism and caffeine, waited off to the side.

They had an MSNBC interview downtown, but Murphy had a mission to accomplish."I've heard of him," said one patron, and before long so had everyone else in the place, which, as even Fitzpatrick would have to admit, was right smack in the middle of the 8th district.

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