Tom Corbett and Dan Onorato

I have mixed emotions about the Governor's race. I really liked Tom Corbett, and voted for him in the past. I met his wife at previous elections and she is a wonderful lady. I was excited when I thought he was going to run for Governor. However, it seems like in recent years he was attracted to the dark side of politics. Over the last several months:

• His office ignored the intern that blew the whistle on Jane Orie. I guess if she were a Democrat, he would have handled the case himself.
• Filed a politically motivated law suit against the health care bill.
• Subpoenaed the twitter accounts of two people that criticized he and his office. He was eventually forced to withdraw the subpoena.

I consider these issues to be an abuse of his power as Attorney General for his personal benefit. What will he do as governor?

I have never been a huge fan of Dan Onorato as well:

• His handling of property assessments have been awful. They need to be fair, and they are anything but. He has done all he could to stand in the way of correcting the issue.
• I don't have a problem with the drink tax. However, when it was clear that the tax was generating significantly more revenue than was needed, he refused to cut it. Instead, he wanted to keep the excess for other purposes.
• He often seems very abrasive, and his attitude is often "It's my way or else." County Council rarely got in his way. However, that attitude will not work with a State House and Senate that would tell him to get lost.

While Toomey was betting against the US dollar, Sestak was defending the country.

The above quote was from a Huffington Post article and sums up the race in my mind. The entire article describes the race a lot better than I ever could, so I highly suggest you read it.

Pat Toomey represents all the greed there is on Wall Street. He actually helped write the legislation that contributed to the collapse of the financial markets in 2008. I can not imagine how he will have any interest in representing the needs of the people of Pennsylvania after spending most of his career selling his soul (along with some derivatives) to Wall Street.

Primary Thoughts

I worked at my local poll after work Tuesday. There were two people that I noticed voters were genuinely excited about. On the Republican side was Keith Rothfus who easily dispatched Mary Beth Buchanan. I was really hoping Buchanan would win, because it would be fun watching her blow her top on a regular basis. Too bad we will miss out on that.

"Experts" are already dismissing him and practically giving Altmire his seat back. The rationale is that he isn't the fundraiser Buchanan was. I think it will be a hard fought campaign with Rothfus running a low budget campaign working mostly on the ground and Altmire mostly on the air, because that is where their strengths currently lie. No one should forget that Altmire won a similar low budget ground campaign 4 years ago against a well financed Melissa Hart.

The person on the Democratic side that people seemed to be excited about was Dan DeMarco. Maybe they were just excited about another write-in opportunity on the voting machines. There were 4578 write-in votes for the Democratic nomination to the State Senate. We won't know the results for some time, but I have a hard time believing that a majority of those write-ins voted for Jane Orie.

DeMarco will also have to run a strong ground game, but will have the benefit of Jane Orie's indictment and her overall disposition which lately has not been very positive. Just looking at their campaign fliers, he looked warm and friendly, and she looked like she was going to bite my head off. I think DeMarco will be well served to maintain the positive vibes against Orie's negative vibes.

Later, I'll post on the Governor's race where John Corbett seems to be losing it (I hope I don't get subpoenaed for saying this.), and the Senate race where I think the more you find out about the real Pat Toomey the less you will like him.

The last very local race is for State House which will pit career politician Mike Turzai against Dr. Sharon Brown. She got 4166 votes in the Democratic primary which is significantly higher than any other nominee for Turzai's seat in the last 10 years. If you add in the votes Turzai received, she got 37% of the overall vote. That is a pretty good starting point considering that in the general election, the closest a Democrat got was 28%.

She will also need a strong ground game as well and might be well served to work with Dan DeMarco. The two of them working together against the pair of Mike Turzai and Jane Orie might be a good tactic.

They could tie Turzai in with Orie's troubles and also benefit from the anti-incumbency mood. No one that we will vote for in the fall has been in office longer than Turzai and Orie. Both are career politicians just like the kind that people hate. The only other incumbent that we will vote for is Jason Altmire, and he has only held an office of any kind for 4 years. That is hardly a career.

Tired of Jane Orie Junk Mail; Supporting Dan DeMarco!

I just received yet another post card from Jane Orie trying to fool me into writing her name in as a Democrat. I actually lost count, but this may be the fifth one I received.

I am so annoyed at receiving her junk mail day after day after day that I will be working the polls in support of Dan DeMarco. If she is so scared of this man then he must be a great candidate!

Indicted Jane Orie running for the Democratic nomination?

She is mounting a write in campaign for the Democratic nomination so she won't have to worry about having an opponent in November. I got two post cards from her already. Missing from both cards is the fact that she is a Republican. Mike Turzai never admits to being a Republican either. I have always wondered if they are both embarrassed to be Republicans.

Anyway, the real Democrat running for the nomination is Dan DeMarco of Ross. His credentials are impressive and he deserves you support.

Could Mike Turzai be vulnerable?

Republican Mike Turzai has had a Democratic opponent in the past few elections, which he has flicked away like an annoying mosquito.  Why would he not only waste his time by challenging the signatures of his next Democratic victim, Dr. Sharon Brown, but enlist one of Mayor Luke Ravenstahl’s buddies to do it? 

This information comes from Timothy McNulty in the Post-Gazette Early Returns  (http://community.post-gazette.com/blogs/earlyreturns/archive/2010/03/19/ravenstahl-supporter-aids-turzai-effort.aspx).  He got it from Infinonymous that Dave Malone, one of Mayor Luke’s biggest fundraisers, is challenging Dr. Sharon Brown’s signatures.  I am not even sure why someone like Dave Malone would bother getting involved in this.  None of the people involved seem to have anything to gain.

The challenge will also give Dr. Brown some much-needed publicity that she would have never gotten otherwise.  Now she can claim that Mike Turzai is so scared of her that he felt the need to get a prominent Democrat to challenge her signatures.

The whole challenge makes little sense unless…

Could Mike Turzai be vulnerable this time around?  Here are a few reasons why I am wondering:

1. There is a huge anti-incumbency feeling out there.
2. He is a career politician that could be a poster-boy for term limits. 
3. He is Pennsylvania’s version of a “Just say No” Republican at a time when a backlash from “Just say No” might be starting.
4. Many disillusioned Jason Altmire supporters will have some time on their hands, and would love to help knock Mike Turzai off with a grassroots effort that knocked off Melissa Hart twice.

I have met his Democratic opponent, Dr. Sharon Brown.  She is everything he is not.  She is very likeable, intelligent, hard working and honest.  She has little interest in a career in politics.

Four years ago, no one heard of Jason Altmire as he set out to defeat a Melissa Hart that thought she was unbeatable and acted like it.  Could it happen to Mike Turzai this year?

Jason Altmire says No

Jason Altmire Press Release

Jason Altmire has been pretty consistent that the changes need to be bigger than just the financing as he says in his third paragraph:

""Simply moving money around within the existing system, rather than enacting real delivery system reform, might change who pays the bill, but it does not improve the quality of care or reduce costs for families, small businesses, or the federal government. It creates a system of winners and losers, rather than reforming the system in a way that lets everyone win."

I think that he didn't make a strong enough push to get his concerns into the bill until late in the game.  Maybe he was working behind the scenes, but it is not apparent to most of us.  The changes go well beyond what most people would have been comfortable with anyway.  This isn't just the public option, but changing the entire fee for service process that this health care bill will not change.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich had a similar decision to make that the bill didn't go far enough.  Unlike Congressman Altmire, he reasoned that something is better than nothing.  On the other hand, people weren't standing outside Kucinich's office with pitchforks either.

Politically, it will do him more harm than good unless he can do some serious damage control with his supporters.  He is going to lose many more supporters than he will gain.  How many of the tea partiers protesting outside his office would vote for him under any circumstances?  Probably not many.

His opponent will likely be Mary Beth Buchanan who seems to me to be eerily similar to Melissa Hart.  It certainly helps that the Republicans seem determined to put up candidates that turn off most of the voters.