“Today, I broke with my party and called on Congressman Rangel to resign his seat in Congress,” Murphy said in a statement. “Now that we’ve seen the full list of allegations by the House Ethics subcommittee, I believe the time has come for him to step down.”

Murphy’s move, first reported by The Bucks County Courier Times, came as a congressional ethics panel was unveiling charges against Rangel.

Murphy’s office did not say whether or not he will be returning or donating campaign contributions he has received from Rangel’s political action committees.

Eric Wisener told pa2010.com this week that he doesn’t have the grassroots support he needs to run against incumbent Democrat Patrick Murphy and Republican challenger Mike Fitzpatrick. Wisener insisted he has gathered enough signatures to get on the general election ballot, but said he doesn’t have enough of a political organization to mount a legitimate campaign in the fall.

“I don’t have a big enough network to make a lot of noise,” Wisener said.

His decision to withdraw came just as perennial candidate Tom Lingenfelter decided to enter the race as an independent. Wisener said he’s already planning to run in 2012, and will use the time until then to help the Libertarian party in Bucks County grow. For now, it’s possible that Wisener will become Lingenfelter’s campaign manager, both men said.

Wisener said he doesn’t want to just siphon votes away from the major party candidates.

“I don’t want to be a spoiler,” he said.

Lingenfelter, a political activist and former intelligence agent, is hoping to run as an independent in the Bucks County district, where incumbent Democrat Patrick Murphy is facing off against Republican Mike Fitzpatrick. But with the Aug. 2 deadline to file nominating petitions only days away, Lingenfelter acknowledges he may not be able to gather the required number of signatures to gain ballot access.

It’s the third time in as many election cycles that he’s eyed a seat in Congress. He tried to run as an independent in 2006 but failed to get on the ballot. He got on the ballot in 2008 but won less than 6,000 votes. And he was considering a run in the GOP primary this year He’s also previously run for lieutenant governor, and he challenged Arlen Specter for the Republican Senate nomination in 1998. In a recent interview with pa2010.com, Lingenfelter said he wasn’t planning to run this cycle because of a car accident earlier this year. But he decided he had to give it a shot.

“I would be sorry if I didn’t do it,” Lingenfelter said. “I think the country needs me.”

Pennsylvania law makes it difficult for independents to get on the general election ballot, and Lingenfelter needs almost 4,000 signatures at minimum—significantly more so if he hopes to head off a possible ballot challenge.

Lingenfelter said he just couldn’t bring himself back Murphy or Fitzpatrick.

“I would love to support someone else,” he said, “but good candidates are hard to find.”

ABC News pointed out that when he opened the floor for questions and only heard crickets, Murphy threw out some personal information for comic relief.

“I’m a Libra, I like long walks on the beach with my wife,” Murphy said to laughter.

Murphy’s race against Republican Mike Fitzpatrick is currently No. 6 on the pa2010.com Congressional Power Rankings.

See video of the news conference below.

The attacks of recent days have come as Rangel was reportedly in talks with a House ethics committee that has been investigating him for two years. Republican Senate candidate Pat Toomey and at least two House challengers have made Rangel contributions an issue, calling on Democrats to return the money.

“Throughout the campaign, Congressman [Joe] Sestak has spoken about accountability and putting principle over politics, but it is now becoming clear that his pledges and lofty promises are just hollow words from another Washington insider,” Toomey campaign spokeswoman Nachama Soloveichik said about contributions Sestak has received from Rangel’s political action committees.

The issue has also reared its head in the 8th Congressional District, where Republican Mike Fitzpatrick’s campaign is hitting Congressman Patrick Murphy (D-8) to return the cash.

“Murphy ran for office pledging to drain the swamp of Washington,” Fitzpatrick said in a recent statement. “All he’s done is jump in with both feet.”

And 3rd District Republican Mike Kelly’s campaign became the latest to chime in Monday morning.

“At bare minimum the bipartisan House Ethics committee believes that the Congressman from New York is ethically challenged,” Kelly campaign spokesman Brad Moore said in calling for Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper (D-3) to return contributions she’s received. “The right thing to do would be to return Charlie Rangel’s donation.”

But this time Dahlkemper’s campaign was already preparing to address the matter.

“As our office indicated several months ago, the Congresswoman would not act on campaign contributions from Mr. Rangel until the House Committee on Standards and Conduct had issued a decision,” campaign spokesman Bryan Oberle said. “Now that the ethics committee has determined that Mr. Rangel violated House rules, Rep. Dahlkemper has decided not to keep the contributions. They will be donated to local charities.”

Murphy’s campaign lobbed the first immigration bomb of the 8th District race last week, when it criticized Fitzpatrick, for voting against legislation in 2005 that would have broadened local law enforcement’s authority to detain illegal immigrants. Murphy’s latest move came just two days after he got ink for bucking the Obama administration over its plan to sue Arizona for its controversial immigration law. Murphy’s campaign called the 2005 legislation “nearly identical” to Arizona’s law, for which Fitzpatrick has expressed support.

“Patrick Murphy doesn’t just talk tough on illegal immigration,” the campaign said in a statement. “He actually does something about it. Patrick broke with his party to support the Arizona law, which requires police to check the immigration status of individuals stopped for other crimes. He was the lone Democrat to vote in support of an amendment to prevent the Obama administration from using federal funds to sue Arizona over the law.”

The latest spat continues a pattern in which Fitzpatrick—the former one-term congressman who Murphy unseated in 2006—is dogged by issues on which he has changed his position, including labor law and climate change.

“Talk is cheap,” Murphy’s campaign added. “Mike might hope people in Bucks County have amnesia, but it’s impossible to forget a voting record this appalling.”

Fitzpatrick did indeed vote against the 2005 legislation, and also opposed legislation that would have appropriated $20 million for construction of the fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. In an interview, Fitzpatrick campaign manager Kyle Whatley said Murphy was just offering up distractions.

“The fact of the matter is, Mike Fitzpatrick voted for construction of 700 miles of new border fencing … and voted to increase border agents to 14,800,” Whatley said. “Patrick Murphy is attempting to distract voters from his record of reckless and spending and job-killing measures that threaten to double the deficit in five years and triple it in 10.”

Murphy is now enjoying a healthy cash advantage over Republican Mike Fitzpatrick, who finished June with about $664,000 in cash on hand. He has rebuilt his campaign coffers almost to where they were in the fall of 2008, before he went on a late-campaign spending spree to win a second term.

Murphy has raised $2.6 million since winning that second term.

Fitzpatrick has now raised about $925,000 for his bid against Congressman Patrick Murphy (D-8), according to newly filed campaign finance data. He finished June with about $664,000 in cash on hand.

Murphy’s second-quarter campaign finance report had not yet been published online early Thursday afternoon.

The race is currently No. 10 on the pa2010.com Congressional Power Rankings.

The morning started with an e-mail from Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz (D-13) on behalf of Manan Trivedi, the Democratic candidate in the 6th District. Schwartz had backed Trivedi’s opponent Doug Pike in the May primary, but now she was going to bat for Trivedi. “This district has been a challenge over these past several election cycles,” Schwartz wrote in an e-mail to Trivedi’s supporters. “So many times we have come so close to taking this seat and turning it blue. I know that we can do it this year with Manan, but we can’t do it without your help.”

Later we heard from newly-elected Delaware County Democratic chief David Landau, who was writing to pull in some last minute dough for Bryan Lentz in the 7th District. “We are just a few thousand dollars shy of our goal,” Landau said. “Any contribution, no matter how small, helps.” Just a few minutes later we got an e-mail from the campaign of Lentz’s Republican opponent, Pat Meehan. “Nancy Pelosi made it clear this week this is one of her top targets for November so we can expect her to throw everything our way,” Meehan wrote to supporters.

We at pa2010.com Central were looking forward to the e-mail asks continuing all the way until the midnight deadline.

Meanwhile, the National Republican Congressional Committee has moved Mike Fitzpatrick up its list of House challengers. Fitzpatrick trying to win back the 8th District seat he lost to Democrat Patrick Murphy in 2006. Already part of the NRCC’s so-called Young Guns program—and we only say “so-called” because not everyone in the program meets our definition of “young”—Fitzpatrick was bumped from “Contender” status to being a full-fledged Young Gun. The program serves as the NRCC’s hub for tracking and helping top-tier House challengers. “Mike Fitzpatrick has proven that he is ready to put this seat back in the Republican column,” Congressman Pete Sessions (R-TX), the NRCC chairman, said in a statement. “Mike’s campaign is a symbol of the growing momentum behind Republican candidacies both in Pennsylvania and across the country.”

And we were treated to some more details about the big Joe Biden-Nancy Pelosi-Bryan Lentz fundraiser, thanks to an invitation that showed up in our inbox Wednesday. The invitation bills the event as “Lunch with the Vice President and Speaker of the House.” Hosted by Schwartz and Democratic fundraiser Dan Berger, it’s going down July 19 at the Sheraton in downtown Philadelphia. The invitation doesn’t list any minimum donation amounts, but the proceeds are going to Pennsylvania Victory Fund 2010—the joint fundraising committee through which Lentz and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee are splitting the afternoon’s haul.

Always excited at the chance to tie anyone to Nancy Pelosi, Republicans were already getting into the action on this one, with the state GOP branding Lentz a “Biden-Pelosi Democrat,” and GOP chairman Rob Gleason saying in a statement: “Bryan Lentz’s decision to align himself with two of the architects of the most wasteful liberal agenda in American history tells you all you need to know about what type of Congressman Bryan Lentz will be.”

That’s money he might be wishing was still in the bank today.

Murphy beat Manion by 15 points, a margin big enough to scare off formidable challengers for months. But now he faces Mike Fitzpatrick, the same man he bounced out of office in 2006 and a candidate far more potent than Manion. And the more than $2 million he dropped in the last four weeks of the race is $2 million he doesn’t have to hold off Fitzpatrick.

“I’m sure that the Murphy campaign would love to have carried over some of that money spent during the ‘08 campaign for the battle that they will be in this fall,” said Muhlenberg College pollster and political scientist Chris Borick.

By all accounts, Murphy, who enjoys a national fundraising base, friends in high places and the adoration of Democratic fundraisers, will have all the money he needs this fall. As of late April, a war chest that had been depleted to less than a quarter-million dollars was back up to $1.3 million, and party insiders expect Murphy to post solid numbers when quarterly reports are filed in July (Fitzpatrick had about $409,000 on hand as of late April, but it remains to be seen how much he spent in the closing days before the May primary).

Nevertheless, his late-campaign spending in 2008 underscores the double-edged sword candidates face when trying to run up the margins against opponents—the risk of spent money weighed against the reward of giving future challengers pause.

While campaigns rarely think “one election ahead,” Franklin & Marshall College pollster G. Terry Madonna said, Murphy may have “wanted to win big to ensure his standing nationally, and perhaps to prevent any strong opposition in 2010.”

And, of course, there’s always the possibility that Murphy felt he was still vulnerable that November.

“Congressional campaigns are often risk averse,” Borick said, “and would rather put up some ‘insurance’ money to make sure that nothing is left to chance on Election Day.

Either way, in this case the political climate shifted significantly in the 14 months following Murphy’s reelection win, creating an opening for a candidate like Fitzpatrick, who has a formidable fundraising base of his own.

In a a recent statement to pa2010.com, Murphy said “we ran a strong campaign and got incredible support from Independents and moderate Republicans. By focusing on bringing good jobs to our community and keeping them here, I think I can earn their support again.”

Bucks County Democratic Party chairman John Cordisco called Murphy’s late spending spree a “non-issue.”

“It’s very clear that he takes nothing for granted,” Cordisco said.

Support the journalism we do by clicking the button below.