Murphy Calls On Iraq Experience in Election

March 3, 2006 (WPVI) -- When Democrat Patrick Murphy gets on the stump, there's one part of his resume he's sure to highlight.

Patrick Murphy/Candidate: "I've walked in those combat boots in Baghdad. I unfortunately lost...we lost nineteen men over there in my unit." Murphy wants US soldiers to come home. He thinks that stance, and his service, will help him turn out Mike Fitzpatrick, the incumbent Republican in the Eighth Congressional District, which stretches over Bucks County and Northeast Philadelphia. "What I saw with my own eyes and walked with my own combat boots in Baghdad, Iraq was what was going on, and the need to change. And it's not just a change of direction in Iraq, but it's here at home as well." The race for the eighth is expected to be a dogfight: The district has more Republicans, but it has gone for Democrats Al Gore, John Kerry and Governor Ed Rendell.

National attention, and money, are expected to pour into the contest, in no small part because of the 11 Iraq war veterans running across the country, Murphy, now a lawyer, is seen as a top contender. G. Terry Madonna/Franklin and Marshall University: "If he wins the primary, and it looks like he's leading the pack at the moment, I think he will be a formidable opponent to the incumbent congressman, Fitzpatrick." Some are calling this political season the year of the veteran, in part because of the large number of Iraqi war veterans running. But the question is the war and winning issue with voters? Political analysts predict discontent with war will be a major issue in the fall. In fact, Fred Viskovich, says his anti-war fervor led him to challenge Murphy in the primary. Fred Viskovich/Candidate: "I didn't feel the Democratic party's tradition of real liberalism and a strong stance against the war was being adequately represented." But Murphy's other opponent, Andy Warren, thinks voters should see his 30 years in public life as the more important service. Murphy will have to be careful not to be pigeonholed as a one-issue candidate. And he may have to assure voters that at just 32, he's got the stuff to be a national lawmaker.

But he's got confidence. He rallies the crowd, never mentioning his primary opponents, instead assumingly jumping ahead to the fall. "I'm going against Rick Santorum's law school classmate, in Mike Fitzpatrick."

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