Bill Russell Slams State Chairman Robert Gleason. Says Gleason Has A 'Conflict Of Interest'

12 Congressional District Candidate, Bill Russell, is now confirming a lot of the things that concerned many GOP supporters when Robert Gleason was first chosen to head up the Republican State Committee. He is accusing Gleason of collusion in regards to Gleason's insurance business dealings with Murtha.

I remember reading that Gleason openly admitting that supported and voted for Murtha in the past. According to Russell Gleason never supported his campaign in 2006 when he ran against Murtha the first time.

Russell, appearing on Family-Life TV’s Talk of the Town, criticized state Republican Chairman Rob Gleason.

“Unfortunately we’ve got a state Republican chairman who has a direct conflict of interest and really had no interest in, one, either defeating Jack Murtha when he was in Congress or, two, in taking that seat,” Russell said, referring to Gleason’s ownership of an insurance agency. “His direct personal interest is in keeping that the status quo. The direct financial interest is the fact that his insurance company writes the insurance policies for many of the companies Mr. Murtha used to bring in, and he has a vested interest in keeping the status quo for that. It is really unfortunate because, one, he has a vested financial interest in going against the Republican party, two, in a recent news interview, he attacked me for doing too well in the 2008 election because that caused Jack to bring out the Democratic forces including Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton for six calls, Barak Obama. With the turnout of the Democratic electorate to save Mr. Murtha’s seat, he says that actually led him to lose a state legislature seat. So he was angry with me for doing too well against Mr. Murtha.” (Kittanning Paper)

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I think Russell has some great points. Why would Gleason push for Tim Burns who is relatively unknown outside the political establishment over Russell? Especially, in a political environment that is trending ever more hostile towards establishment candidates and is being heavily influenced by the Tea Party movement. Supporting Burns just doesn't make any sense to me considering he has less than 10% name recognition in a special election that will end in in May. Does Gleason want former Murtha Chief Of Staff and Democrat Mark Critz to win the special election? Maybe Gleason wants to keep the "status quo". It wouldn't surprise me.