Over on the homepage, I take a look at how the election for the congressional seat formerly occupied by John Murtha will proceed. I note that there are some parallels with last year’s New York 23rd district mess, but it appears the Pennsylvania state party is at least trying to get a broad representation of Republicans from the district to weigh in on the candidate selection process:

To vote for one of these two Republicans, or any other, each precinct will get one representative, plus an additional representative for each 1,000 votes it cast for McCain in the 2008 presidential election, explained Michael Barley, the communications director of the Pennsylvania Republican party. Each county Republican party has its own process of selecting its representatives; some will be appointed by the county chair, others may be selected by panels.

Of course, some folks might object that the precinct representatives are a bunch of party insiders. Still, Tim Burns, Bill Russell, and anyone else interested in running will get a chance to make their pitch to the assembled precinct representatives. And the weighting ensures that the most heavily Republican portions of the district get the most say.

Also note that once again, the National Republican Congressional Committee will not have a say in the candidate selection process.

Of course, whoever loses that party selection process can still run for a full two-year term in November; the primary for that election is expected to be the same day:

The winner [of the party selection process] will proceed to face a Democrat in the special election; since the special election and the primary will take place on the same day, it is possible that two different Republicans could win — the special-election winner would serve out the remainder of Murtha’s term, and the primary winner would run in the general election in November. Barley notes that this has happened in lower-ticket races in the past.