Melissa Hart: What does she know that she's not telling us?

This morning, there were two things I found at the P-G website that, when taken together, made me go, "huh?" First there's this.

U.S. Rep. Melissa Hart called yesterday for an end to "negative ads" by both her re-election campaign opponent, Democrat Jason Altmire, and by outside groups trying to help both candidates.

However, even she can't stop the attack dogs of the RNCC.

But a request her campaign manager said he made in the morning to the National Republican Congressional Committee to stop running ads criticizing Mr. Altmire was dismissed by day's end by that committee's spokesman.

"We will not allow Jason Altmire to go through the next week hiding his push for higher taxes and government bureaucracy-controlled health care from the voters," said Ed Patru, spokesman for the NRCC, which is barred by law from coordinating strategy with congressional candidates.

Now there's this from the November 1 edition of the P-G's "Early Returns" column:

... Rep. Melissa Hart, R-Bradford Woods, is capitalizing on the Kerry flap by demanding that her Democratic opponent, Jason Altmire, return the money Mr. Kerry helped raise for him.

Good luck on that.

Well, yea. Has Missy returned the $15,ooo she received from Tom Delay's PAC? He's actually under indictment for corruption, you know. Or the $21,000 from Bob Ney? He's on his way to jail. Or the $1,000 she received from Duke Cunningham? He's already in jail.

Hmm, but John Kerry's blown joke about Bush is spun into something that it's not and now Missy's "demanding" that Altmire return any money Kerry raised for him.

Now that's balls.

But all this raises an interesting set of questions for me. Why would Missy ask "everyone" (meaning, of course, "Jason Altmire and his supporters") to stop negative campaigning?

First off it's nothing but a feint. "Negative campaigning" to Missy Hart may indeed be something very different to anyone else. Is focussing on her close connection to her President's failures (to date unacknowledged by him) in Iraq a "negative campaign" tactic? She probably thinks so.

No one else would, of course.

This part probably shows the feint for what it is:

With her own party higher-ups not going along with Ms. Hart's request, chances of Mr. Altmire urging his supporters to withdraw from the battle were nil, though it certainly would have been unlikely to begin with. If they were competing one-on-one for attention of television viewers, Ms. Hart would appear to have a decided advantage in exposure, as she reported having more than $500,000 in the bank as of Oct. 18, and Mr. Altmire had less than $55,000.

So if Missy "succeeded" in ending all outside ads, she'd have a 10-1 money advantage. Ah, that Missy. So altruistic! She wants a "fair" campaign - one where she'll have all the monetary advantages.

How Republican of her.

But anyway the idea of someone from party of Karl Rove and Rick Santorum asking everyone to "play nice" is absurdity purified. And one would think that if she actually believes the 12-point advantage her recently released poll seemed to indicate, it wouldn't matter to her what Altmire was doing. Right?

So she must've been, well, maybe a wee-bit deceitful by releasing that poll. Doncha think?

But beyond that. Missy must be running scared if she's now asking her opponent to campaign the way she wants him to campaign. The (non-Hart released) polls show Jason Altmire still slightly behind. Why all the trouble from someone in the lead - someone who's got way more money than her opponent?

What does Missy Hart know that she's not saying?