A former Naval officer is seeking the Democratic nomination to to run for Congress to represent Pennsylvania’s 12th District, a seat long-held by fellow Democrat John Murtha, who has become a bit of a controversial figure in the last few years.
Seeking the seat is Ryan Bucchianeri, 34, who was graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1997 and who has a master’s degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where he focused on international security, political economy, and human rights.
Most recently he has worked as a manager at Lockheed Martin.
Murtha has represented the district since 1974. Among the acts that has garnered him national attention were his involvement with Abscam in 1980 in which he was videotaped telling FBI agents posing as Arabs “I’m not interested… at this point. [If] we do business for a while, maybe I’ll be interested, maybe I won’t” before which he had provided the names of banks and businesses in which the money could be invested; his claim that Marines were guilty of war crimes in Haditha, Iraq before their trial ; and his observation during the 2008 presidential race that in his district “There’s still folks that have a problem voting for someone because they are black. This whole area, years ago, was really redneck,” which gave us this rather enjoyable Saturday Night Live skit.