Murtha’s unlikely political bedfellow

They were always an odd couple -- the fashionable San Francisco progressive and the crusty Marine from Johnstown, Pa. She supported abortion rights. He supported gun rights. She was camera-ready for the cable news era. He was more at home in the cigar-filled rooms of an earlier time.

But they were joined by a simple creed as old as politics -- loyalty.

It was really House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s father who brought them together. Baltimore’s first Italian American mayor, Thomas J. D’Alesandro Jr., kept a statue of a miner in his office when he was in Congress, to remind him to always value constituent concerns. Pennsylvania Democrat John Murtha applauded the instinct, and he and Pelosi became friends.

Later they were united by their shared and fierce opposition to the Iraq war -- he as a former Marine with a lot of constituents coming home in body bags, she as a representative of the most anti-war district in the country, San Francisco.

But earlier, when Pelosi defeated Maryland Democrat Steny Hoyer for minority whip in 2001, clearing her route to the speaker’s office, Murtha was a big reason why. He had persuaded some of his conservative Democratic allies to go with her.

When Democrats won control of the House in fall 2006, Murtha announced that he was challenging Hoyer for majority leadership. The power grab was a public relations disaster for Pelosi, a great vote-counter who must have known it was a losing cause. But he had been loyal to her. And she was loyal to him. Hoyer won anyway.

To many, Murtha was a symbol of what’s wrong with Washington. The earmarking empire. The defense contractors pipeline. The ethics violations.

But even if his reputation was tarnished, Murtha left Capitol Hill with a lot of chits still out. President Clinton, only days after having a heart procedure, showed up at his funeral Tuesday. So did much of the Pentagon brass. Murtha, 77, died Feb. 8 from complications of gallbladder surgery.

As for Pelosi, she said that to watch Murtha legislate was to see “a master at work.”

And that is how politics makes strange bedfellows.

Tea Party organizer wins

The Tea Party crowd now has its first elected office holder.

He’s Dean Murray, a 45-year-old Long Island businessman who won a lengthy recount in a special election for a New York State Assembly seat.

Murray, a Tea Party organizer from the protest movement’s very beginning last year, also ran on its anti-tax, anti-big-government platform. He takes the official oath of office Monday.

While Tea Party supporters have played influential roles in other elections, such as Republican Sen. Scott Brown’s upset win in Massachusetts, others are now running in GOP primaries elsewhere. Murray is believed to be the first to take office. He’ll have to run again in this fall’s regular election.

As advised by Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin, Murray picked a political party, the Republicans. He defeated Democrat Lauren Thoden by about 160 votes out of 8,000 in the 3rd Assembly District of eastern Long Island, which has been represented by Democrats for the last 13 years.

“Whether they are active in the Tea Party movement or not,” Murray told Fox News, “we want a smaller government. We want fiscal responsibility. We want accountability from our political leaders, and we want personal responsibility.”

Murray said he wants to take a Ronald Reagan-type common sense attitude to Albany, adding, “What this movement is about is ordinary citizens, taxpayers, hard working people who have just had enough.”

During the winter campaign, Murray’s opponents argued against him because, they said, his election would send a message well beyond the district’s borders. Murray says he hopes so.

Speaking at a Republican Party fundraiser Tuesday in Arkansas, Palin said Tea Party activists must make a choice. “Which party will best fit you?” she asked. “And then because the Tea Party movement is not a party, and we have a two-party system, they’re going to have to pick a party and run one or the other: ‘R’ or ‘D.’ ”

andrew.malcolm

@latimes.com

Neuman writes for The Times.

Top of the Ticket, The Times’ blog on national politics ( www.latimes.com/ticket), is a blend of commentary, analysis and news. These are selections from the last week.