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An Interesting PA Political Year
on the Horizon
Posted 1-26-2006
As we start 2006, it appears
this year will be an interesting one in Pennsylvania politics. We have a
governor to hopefully re-elect, and, hopefully, we'll elect a new United
States senator. Those two races will grab most of the headlines, but all 203
seats are up in the Pennsylvania State House and half the seats in the
Pennsylvania Senate.
As the race develops for a
challenger to Governor Ed Rendell, former Steeler Lynn Swann is making a
surprisingly strong showing. His early efforts have already pushed State
Senator Jeff Piccola from the race after his weak showing in a Central
Pennsylvania Republican Caucus vote. Of course, Piccola was also trailing
badly in the polls. But Swann's win in that caucus vote makes it appear to
be a contentious race between he and former Lt. Governor Bill Scranton.
How either will do against
Rendell remains to be seen. If the Governor can duplicate his strategy from
2002, winning big in Philadelphia and the counties surrounding it, and not
get slaughtered in the rest of the state, he should win again. But the
Governor, like any incumbent, has more political scars than he did four
years ago. Even though the Republican-controlled legislature has caused most
of the scars on Rendell by crafting legislation that went over like a lead
balloon (i.e., tax reform and gambling legislation), the Governor gets
saddled with the damage because it is easier conceptually to blame one
person than a group of people.
Scranton appears to have much
more serious credentials than Swann. He served as Lt. Governor under Dick
Thornburgh and that puts him light years ahead of Swann who has been a
sideline reporter for football broadcasts since he retired from professional
football. But in this day and age, where a mediocre actor, Arnold
Schwarzenegger can get elected governor of the largest state in the nation,
anything can happen.
The Unites States Senator's
race between incumbent Slick Rick Santorum and State Treasurer Bob Casey is
shaping up to be an even more interesting race. Surprisingly, Casey has been
ahead in the polls by more than ten percent since polling began last summer.
Why? Are people dissatisfied with Ricky? Hasn't he really been a moderate
all along, fighting to "save" social security by privatizing it, fighting to
raise the minimum wage, and keeping jobs in America? If you are an undecided
voter, study Santorum's voting record, not his campaign advertisements,
because he is employing the same strategy he did the last time, running as a
moderate after voting as one of the most strident conservatives in the US
Senate.
This time I think more
Pennsylvanians are aware of Slick Rick's hypocrisy over where his family
lives and his actions that saddled the Penn Hills School District with a
$100,000 bill for his children's "cyber school" education in Virginia.
Santorum wouldn't be such a hypocrite if he hadn't run his first
congressional race attacking Doug Walgren for doing exactly what Santorum
has done, have his family live in Virginia. But I don't think Walgren ever
shamelessly had a Pennsylvania school district be forced to absorb the cost
of his children's education.
Santorum has also been in the
news after the courts ruled against the Dover Pennsylvania school district
for forcing the teaching of "intelligent design" as a "scientific" theory
explaining how humans came to exist on this planet. How does Ricky figure
into this equation? He apparently was on the Board of Directors of the
Thomas More Society, a conservative Catholic legal group that was behind the
Dover effort to teach intelligent design. When it became clear public
opinion was against the teaching and the courts ruled the same way, Ricky
ran from the group that pushed the concept.
What will happen in the next
eleven months will be interesting. Certainly Santorum will throw huge
amounts of cash into the race to remake himself as a caring, concerned
moderate. He won’t attack Bob Casey directly, but his minions and outside
groups will. But Bob negates Santorum's credentials on two issues that
helped Santorum in the past, guns and abortion. It will be interesting to
see how those single-issue voters deal with candidates that have similar
positions on those two issues. Casey has much greater name recognition
statewide than Ron Klink who gave Santorum a battle in 2000. But the next
eleven months should be very interesting as this race unfolds.
And finally, after the pay
raise fiasco this past summer, what do all the state representatives and the
state senators on the ballot face? Will things go like most other election
years for them where 98% are re-elected? Or will voter anger over the pay
raise carry over to the polls? I don't really have a feel for it yet. But if
multiple candidates try to unseat incumbents, they'll split up the vote and
the incumbents will win. Will voters be discerning enough to recognize which
legislators voted for the pay raise and which ones opposed it? I hope for
the sake of the hard-working legislators that serve their constituents well,
voters really educate themselves before casting votes. Pennsylvania needs
the most capable, talented legislative body it can elect to move this
Commonwealth forward. It does not need a legislative body paralyzed by fear
of voter backlash that will do nothing but maintain the status quo.
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