Greatest hits

Last night was a blur here at Early Returns and it may have been for you too. Here's a handy greatest hits package:

Johnstown native Dennis Roddy had nonpariel insight into the 12th District race, with dispatches about John Murtha's grave and the Banker's Club and Smuggler behind the bar at the then-quiet Mark Critz party, to talks with the BBC and Bowzer of Sha-Na-Na. As votes surpisingly piled up for Critz, here was a key point from Dennis on the Democrats' strategy of turning out old-time Murtha votes in Cambria County:

Mark Critz has counted on the Murtha legacy, the endorsement of widow Murtha, to his longstanding acquaintanceship with pensioners in need of a Medicaid fix and township commissioners aching for a new sewer line. This sort of retail, fused to Murtha’s legacy, is what he hopes will do something important: drive out the vote in Cambria in disproportionate levels to other parts of the district.

Enter Art Gaunt, age 71, of Summerhill Borough. It is a small town along Route 53 in the county’s worn out bituminous region. He is the local committeeman. He has 800 voters on the rolls – 500 of them Democrats. By day’s end, he was hoping he’d driven out 40 percent of his electors.

“We needed 320 to break 40 percent. We had 300 when I left and we still had two hours of voting,” he said.

“And this is a rural area,” said his son, Donald, hanging on to the long neck of a brown beer bottle.

An editor from Cook Political Report was the first one we saw to call the Senate election for Joe Sestak, around 9:30 p.m. Here's our snapshot of Sestak up at the 1/3 turn.

Here's when we saw Keith Rothfus zooming toward his impressive win over Mary Beth Buchanan, and Bill DeWeese's primary win despite his indictment.

Early on, the WashPost saw Pittsburgh as an X-Factor in the Senate race. Snarlen was fighting to the end, joking about "smoking Dutch cleanser" -- whatever that is -- in this beltway-friendly interview by Andrea Mitchell.

Here was our early look at the always-bad turnout in midterms (with chart!), and this preview from Dan Malloy of the upcoming Dem attacks on Pat Toomey.

The collection of links to election sites and voting maps is here.

Photo: Dennis Roddy