The special election on Tuesday in Pennsylvania to fill the remaining term of the late John Murtha has been and will continue to be analyzed for weeks if not months as to what it portends for the Democrats in November.

Nancy Pelosi and the liberal media seem to be of the mind that the Democrats victory was a stunning defeat for the GOP and a repudiation of the Republican strategy to tie very election to the policies of Pelosi and Obama.

The Washington Post.com’s  Chris Cillizza has also bought into this general line of thinking in The Fix blog.

House Republicans are trying to quickly pivot away from a devastating loss earlier this week in a Pennsylvania special election, using their fundraising totals announced Thursday and the prospect of a win in a Hawaii special election over the weekend as the leading edge of an argument that they retain real momentum heading into the fall.

In the wake of businessman Tim Burns (R) surprisingly lopsided loss to Rep. Mark Critz (D) in the southwestern Pennsylvania 12th district, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (Texas) addressed the entire GOP House conference on Wednesday — taking full responsibility for the defeat, according to one informed insider.

On Thursday, Public Opinion Strategies pollster Gene Ulm, who handled the survey research for the NRCC in the race, sat down with the leadership team of the committee to explain what had happened and why. (Short explanation: Turnout was driven heavily by the primary races, which were on the same day as the special election.)

Later in the day on Thursday, the NRCC announced that it had raised $7.1 million in the month of April, outdistancing the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee by roughly $2 million in the cash chase over the past month. The NRCC still had less than half the cash on hand as their Democratic counterparts — $11.4 million to $27.3 million — however.

And, Republicans are extremely optimistic that Honolulu City Councilman Charles Djou (R) will win on Saturday in a special election to replace former Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D) who resigned earlier this year to focus on running for governor full time.

While the NRCC won’t get a huge boost of out Hawaii — due to the fact that Democrats have two serious candidate who will split the vote and likely allow Djou to shoot the gap and because the DCCC stopped spending there last week — it will still be a seat pickup for the party and break a six competitive special election winning streak for the DCCC.

House GOP strategists are hoping that series of steps will cut short the prevailing storyline that emerged out of the Pennsylvania special, which is, bluntly: “If they can’t win in a culturally conservative district like that one, how can they take back the majority”?

Putting aside the Pennsylvania loss, historical midterm election trends and the sheer number of tough seats Democrats have to defend virtually ensure double digit pickups for House Republicans this fall.

But, the failed attempt to nationalize the race around President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) has to be of longer- term concern for GOP strategists as they seek a message that can deliver them the majority.

And, for a committee operating at a significant cash disadvantage, a win in Pennsylvania would have created the sort of financial momentum — both among GOP members and donors — that the NRCC badly needs.

Without it, the party is left to look for some other spark on the horizon and, at the moment, there doesn’t seem to be an obvious one.

Why didn’t the GOP win the “culturally conservative”  district?  Maybe it was due to Critz’s decision to run like a Republican by taking pro-life, pro-gun positions and saying that he would have voted against the health care bill and wouldn’t vote for cap and trade legislation.

Yes the result was not what the GOP had hoped for and was a disappointment, but it wasn’t a disaster as Cillizza points out.

Critz was smart to paint himself as a more moderate and reasonable Democrat which made it virtually impossible for Burns to distinguish himself as someone who was the polar opposite and that was enough to keep Democrat voters in the fold.

Maybe next time Cillizza can give readers the full picture rather than Democrat talking points.

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