Burns’ tea party anti-establishment credentials are in tatters now, or at least they should be. On Friday, the Washington Post reported that Burns had taken corporate lobbyist donations that were laundered through the office of the ultimate boozing, schmoozing Washington insider, Speaker Wanna-Be John Boehner of Ohio:
One tea-party-backed candidate to get Boehner’s help is Tim Burns, the former pharmaceutical software entrepreneur who is vying for Rep. John Murtha’s (D) former seat in Pennsylvania. Burns has campaigned hard against Washington and has publicly dismissed his opponent, a former congressional district manager for Murtha, as a Washington insider.
His spokesman Jake Parsons said that the financial support from Boehner and other Republican leaders – he got $19,000 from Boehner – “has been critical to helping get Tim’s message of ‘fixing Washington’ out.”
Here’s how the Republican Party-aligned (and right-wing Unification Church cult-owned) Washington Times described the race on Monday:
[Despite] the party’s surging fortunes elsewhere in the Keystone State, Republican Tim Burns is struggling once again in his rematch with Democratic Rep. Mark Critz.
Mr. Critz, a former Murtha aide, holds a 6-point lead in the latest poll for the 12th District seat, a race that political prognosticators are still calling a tossup a little more than two weeks before Election Day.
Mr. Burns, a Western Pennsylvania businessman with substantial “tea party” backing, lost by almost 8 percentage points to Mr. Critz in a May 18 special election to fill Murtha’s unexpired term, a bitter result for the GOP in a race that attracted national attention as a bellwether for the November midterm vote.
The New York Times’ FiveThirtyEight Forecasts lists the Critz-Burns race as “leans Democratic.”
The Washington Post also reported on Friday that Boehner had passed along thousands in corporate lobbyist money to Ohio 16th District tea party candidate James Renacci, “a former mayor, car dealer and nursing home operator who has attacked his Democrat opponent for having ‘lobbyist friends’ and attracting support from ‘special interests.'” Renacci is running against Rep. John Boccieri. Real Clear Politics lists the race as “leans Republican.”
Another donation by Boehner was in the news recently. He gave $5,000 to Rich Iott, the GOP tea bagger candidate in Ohio’s 8th District who likes to dress in Nazi uniforms. Boehner has so far not demanded that Iott return the money.
