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INSIDER INFO -- JANUARY 2008
Challenged
Stalled
A Tolling Issue
D.C. Bound?
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Challenged
Freshmen lawmakers sponsoring high-profile legislation means the opposing party considers him an election target
When the state House of Representatives debated tax cuts recently, Montgomery County – a general election battlefield – took center stage with two freshman representatives having starring but opposing roles.
For Democrats, it was Rick Taylor, a freshman Democrat, who was the sponsor of a bill that would reduce the state’s personal income tax.
But Republican Tom Quigley, R-Montgomery, sponsored a bill that would cut the income tax by twice the amount of Taylor’s bill.
In reality, Quigley’s bill likely goes nowhere, because Gov. Ed Rendell will veto it in a heartbeat.
Both men have their backs decorated, politically, with the bull’s-eye painted on it by the opposing party.
In fact, Democrat Taylor has managed to do what no other person or issue has done in years: unify the Bruce Castor and Bob Asher wings of the Montgomery County Republican Party to back Assistant District Attorney, Todd Stephens, formerly on Castor’s staff, in his challenge to Taylor this fall.
They are not alone as both parties try to dress up the records of the members they think could face tough re-elections in the fall.
State Rep. Tim Mahoney, D-Westmoreland, cannot even offer a good explanation on the House floor of the open records reform bill of which he is the prime sponsor. Rep. John Maher, R-Allegheny, ties Mahoney up in knots at will, but Mahoney is trotted out as the sponsor and mastermind of that bill because Democrats fear further Republican gains in Republican-leaning Westmoreland County.
Freshman Rep. Chris King, D-Bucks, a former House staffer who won his own seat in November, 2006, is often featured as if he were the Daniel Webster of the House.
But now, King has been tagged with being a recipient of one of the largest House Democratic bonuses in 2006 despite the fact that he spent most of that year campaigning for his House seat.
At first, early showings were that no candidate of any real skill would run against King. But now, former Congressman and Bucks County Commissioner Mike Fitzpatrick, a popular Republican, announced he will run on the GOP ticket to unseat King.
Another strong candidate, Republican Chester County Controller Val DiGiorgio, is pondering a campaign in the slightly GOP-leaning district against first-term Rep. Barbara McIlvaine-Smith, in a swing-voting seat. After a month-long recount and court battle, McIlvaine-Smith was declared the winner by just 23 votes in 2006.
In fact, some House Democrats say their caucus’ slow pace since last July when the budget passed is due to members not wanting to bring up divisive measures and risk the kind of bloc votes that House Republicans cast recently, against fairly modest and small reform measures: including a budget reform study panel and a panel to study if and how the state constitution should be changed.
“Don’t think we may not use some of those votes against some freshmen Republicans, who ran on the reform ticket in 2006,” said one House Democrat.
Several House Republicans say they will also work to help burnish the reform and tax-cutting credentials of its first-term members including Rep. Mike Vereb, R-Montgomery, who may face a challenge from popular but excitable former Rep. John Lawless.
Lawless, a political maverick, has been both a Republican and a Democrat but most recently he has been a Democrat.
More targets for both parties are expected to emerge later in the year, and some, like Vereb, may escape the bull’s-eye on their back.
Some are being helped in sponsoring high-profile bills because they are running for higher office, as Reps. Daylin Leach, D-Montgomery, and Steve Cappelli, R-Lycoming, each aim to replace a retiring senator, and face strong opposition.
Leach is expected to be the Democratic nominee and face Lower Merion Twp. Commissioner Lance Rogers, a Republican, for the Senate seat now held by Connie Williams. Williams was the first Democrat to hold that state Senate seat in a century.
Cappelli, the former mayor of Williamsport, will face a crowded primary with a field that includes Bradford County Commissioner Doug McLinko, a self-described blue-collar conservative.
So if you see a backbench lawmaker or a freshman front-and-center on some popular measure, understand his or her party may be trying to push that person front and center to get them out of the crosshairs of the other party.
After a lackluster fall legislative session, House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese vowed 2008 would be different.
He told his members and the press to expect more four- and five-day legislative session weeks, and an ambitious agenda, starting out with property tax reform.
But by the end of last week, the House managed to approve a constitutional amendment that would lay the groundwork for lawmakers to replace all or a big part of residential property taxes with some other levy by late 2009 at the earliest.
And it approved legislation creating a state earned income tax credit, but only after larding it up with $2 billion worth of tax cuts that Gov. Ed Rendell doesn’t support and would likely veto.
The reason? Well, floor debate didn’t get under way in earnest until mid-week and most of that day was spent on the earned income tax credit.
Then, with bad weather predicted for Thursday, DeWeese cut the day short, so members could get home to their districts.
Those factors aside, DeWeese may very well have decided to defer the property tax-shifting bills after seeing the results of a vote on a Republican-sponsored amendment to the tax credit bill, which is based on a percentage of the federal earned income tax credit.
House Appropriations Chairman Dwight Evans, D-Philadelphia, crafted the program in such a way that the tax credit would be refundable, meaning that poor workers could receive more in a refund than they actually paid in state income taxes.
In a tied, party-line 97-97 vote, Democrats narrowly defeated an amendment, sponsored by Rep. John Maher, R-Allegheny, that would have limited refunds to what workers actually paid in taxes.
Evans and other Democrats slammed the amendment. Noting that the refundable tax credit would give a working mother making $16,000 a year $200 back in taxes she did not pay, Evans said: “We are trying to give $200 to a poor mother with a child, so maybe she can buy some groceries, that is what we are trying to do.”
Maher, however, said it wasn’t right for one working Pennsylvanian’s tax dollars to go to other workers. He and other Republicans called that aspect of the state credit a “new cash welfare program.”
While the federal earned income tax credit is also refundable, Maher said that credit takes into account all federal payroll taxes, including Medicare and Social Security levies, as well as the federal income tax. The state doesn’t have payroll taxes other than the income tax, so it makes little sense to give workers more money in refunds than they paid in taxes, Maher said.
Five Democrats and four Republicans were missing from that vote. Five Democrats were also missing Thursday when DeWeese decided to call it a week.
DeWeese’s decision to pull the plug on debate for the week may very well have been driven by the missing members, said G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster.
“With the thread bare majority for the Ds, it matters what gets brought to the floor and the head counts – as they take up controversial issues,” Madonna wrote in an e-mail. “I am sure the caucuses are well aware of this.
“The black caucus demonstrated what can happen if a group unites to stop the agenda. But generally the Democrats have managed to at least keep control of the agenda which is essential to control the legislative process.”
Madonna was referring to the walkout staged by member of the Black Legislative Caucus in December, just as the House was taking up a vote on open records legislation. The caucus walked out in protest over inaction on various gun-control measures they favor, derailing floor action for the day.
The narrow vote on the refundable earned income tax credit amendment came after more than a dozen votes on other tax-cutting amendments, mostly sponsored by Republicans. All of the amendments passed, and none of the votes were anywhere near as close as the tied vote on Maher’s amendment.
The tax-cut amendments had House Republicans hailing “momentum” for spending restraint and state tax cuts going into the next state budget process, even as Evans was declaring victory for the working poor.
But had DeWeese allowed the House to wade into the property tax-shifting bills, there were dozens and dozens of amendments waiting to be voted on, some of which might hinge on party-line votes. For example, a plan by Rep. Sam Rohrer, R-Berks, to completely eliminate the property tax by broadening the sales tax base to include professional services and other tax changes, is guaranteed to be controversial.
So DeWeese put the debate off a week. The question is will the Democrats now hold the actual floor majority they so desperately need to get their ambitious agenda passed when session resumes.
The Democrat-favored property tax-shifting bills DeWeese says will be first on the agenda the week of Jan. 28 both propose raising the state sales tax by one-half a percentage point. That would drive the rate from 6 percent to 6.5 percent in most parts of the state, and from 7 percent to 7.5 percent in Philadelphia and Allegheny counties.
House Bill 1489, sponsored by DeWeese, would stop there, but House Bill 1600, sponsored by Rep. David Levdansky, D-Allegheny, goes a step further by also increasing the personal income tax rate from 3.07 percent to 3.29 percent.
Levdansky, who chairs the House Finance Committee, said the sales and personal income tax increases in his proposal would generate about $750 million each. That new revenue, along with the expected $1 billion in slot-machine revenue, would be enough to drive down property taxes on homes and farms by as much as 50 percent, he said.
The current state constitution limits the use of state revenue to drive down property taxes on homes and farms to 50 percent of the median assessed value of homes in a school district. Both DeWeese’s and Levdansky’s bills stay within that requirement.
But the constitutional amendment approved by the House last week would eliminate that constitutional restriction. Levdansky said the constitutional change would allow the Legislature to mete out tax cuts by value of home, or to make residential property taxes progressive. The amendment only limits tax relief by saying that a homeowner's school tax bill can be reduced to zero.
First, the amendment needs the Senate’s approval, and the approval of both chambers next session, before it could be placed on the ballot for a vote.
Rohrer’s plan would also require a constitutional change to go into effect. While he and other Republicans criticized the Democrat-favored constitutional change for not calling for the abolishment of property taxes, it was approved unanimously last week.
A Tolling Issue With federal approval of tolling I-80 still in doubt, state officials take a new look at leasing PA Turnpike
When two Republican members of Congress from Pennsylvania moved to block the tolling of Interstate 80 last summer, Gov. Ed Rendell was ready with a backup plan.
Rendell said his administration would seek bids from private companies interested in leasing the Pennsylvania Turnpike, just in case U.S. Reps. John Peterson and Phil English succeeded in their attempts to block federal approval of tolls on I-80.
But Rendell still believes a turnpike lease will raise at least $300 million more a year than the $946 million in average annual funding state officials say I-80 tolls will generate over the next decade. That breaks down to roughly $532 million for roads, highways and bridges, and $414 million for mass transit, with about 70 percent of that later sum going to the Philadelphia region's mass transit agency, SEPTA.
Peterson and English’s effort to block I-80 tolls in a federal transportation bill has since been undone by congressional Democrats, but the turnpike lease plan lives on.
Rendell says he still needs a backup plan, but more so he touts the potential for such a plan to bring in new money for the state’s beleaguered transportation infrastructure.
“I believe leasing the Pennsylvania Turnpike, as I said at the beginning, with us controlling what happens, gets more money and doesn’t toll a road that is not now tolled,” Rendell told reporters after a recent Capitol event.
Administration officials are now seeking bids from would-be turnpike operators, which the governor plans to share with the Legislature this spring.
The plan is building momentum, fueled by the outrage of Northern Pennsylvania motorists and lawmakers who, like Peterson and English, want to make tolls on I-80 go away.
Scarnati told the Harrisburg-based Capitolwire Internet news service: “I want to lead the effort to find an alternative.”
Scarnati, while light on specifics, said his plan would lease the turnpike to private investors in a way that allows the state to net an upfront lease fee and also share in some of the profits from the privatized turnpike operations.
The conventional wisdom in Harrisburg is that, with the outcry from anti-toll I-80 motorists in Northern Pennsylvania, and the support of heavyweights like Rendell and Scarnati, the turnpike privatization plan has a new lease on life.
But some lawmakers representing the two-thirds of Pennsylvanians who regularly use the 469-mile toll road aren’t quite so sure enough lawmakers will want to embrace a lease plan and throw out the revenue potential of tolls on I-80.
Even with out a profit operator, the Turnpike Commission has proposed increasing tolls by 25 percent in 2009 and 3 percent annually after that.
“I don’t see how [a turnpike lease] can produce any more money than the [I-80 toll] plan gets us now,” Fumo told Capitolwire. “And if you don’t hike the fares even more, it can’t even match what we will get now, and who knows if the replacement bill will even include mass transit, much less give it what it gets now?”
Lawmakers who support a lease plan say that future toll hikes could be kept to the current schedule, since a private outfit would save money through management efficiency and federal tax breaks.
Rendell also said that “one of the constrictions we’re putting on the bidders is the toll increases must track what the turnpike has proposed.”
Such assurances could make a lease plan more politically appealing to lawmakers, says G. Terry Madonna, a pollster and political science professor at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster.
“There is no political fallout from leasing the turnpike as long as the fee increases are regulated and foreign ownership is dealt with,” Madonna told Capitolwire in an e-mail. “In fact it could promote economic development without any economic downside.”
The question of foreign ownership could be more problematic. Rendell said that he didn’t think “we can legally just focus on American companies” because it “probably violates some of our existing trade laws.”
Polls, however, show that the public and voters oppose a foreign firm running the turnpike.
Scarnati said his plan wouldn’t ban foreign firms from bidding on the contract, but another proposal, offered by Sen. John Gordner, R-Columbia, would do just that.
Gordner said last week that his plan would lease the turnpike in three sections: the Ohio border east to Harrisburg; the New Jersey border west to Harrisburg; and the Northeast Extension. By breaking the toll road down into three sections, Gordner believes the turnpike could be leased to smaller U.S.-based investors, rather than large foreign conglomerates.
Scarnati explained his conversion to a turnpike lease plan, after he initially voted for tolls on I-80 and defended the decision for months afterward. He told Capitolwire: “I detest tolling Interstate 80 with every bone in my body.”
But faced last spring and summer with a lease deal as one option to raise new revenue and a state gas tax hike as another, Scarnati said: “As a leader, I swallowed hard and moved something forward,” meaning the I-80 tolling plan. The senator said he couldn’t ignore the need for new revenue for roads and bridges.
However, after hearing from enough constituents, and becoming more convinced that the I-80 toll plan could be rejected by federal officials, Scarnati decided to craft a plan to lease the turnpike.
Writing to Capitolwire in an e-mail, Gordner also mentioned a Dec. 12 letter from the U.S. Department of Transportation, raising several questions about the state’s plan to toll I-80. It made 24 requests for additional information.
That “convinced a great number of us that the request for the pilot project designation will never be approved,” Gordner wrote.
Nathan Benefield, of the Harrisburg-based Commonwealth Foundation, told Capitolwire that there is only one remaining slot in the federal pilot program that would allow Pennsylvania to toll I-80.
“Unless the [Federal Highway Administration] approves I-80 tolling in (what seems to us to be) clear violation of the law, or Congress passes new legislation that would allow a plan like Act 44 to pass muster, I don't see I-80 tolling getting approval,” Benefield wrote in an e-mail.
But Fumo told Capitolwire that, short of the feds killing the I-80 toll plan, he doesn’t see a majority of lawmakers supporting a lease plan.
There are the questions about how a private operator would see a return on its investment, without doubling turnpike tolls or more, Fumo said. Then there is the future of the Mon-Fayette Expressway project, a vote-deciding issue for at least half of the southwest state legislative delegation.
Fumo said a private company wouldn’t see that project through “because it is not going to bring a big enough return on investment. And that is what these private investors want. A big return on investment. They don’t care about infrastructure needs or economic development, but just how many dollars can you get back for what you invested?”
Rendell responded that if more annual revenue was generated for roads and bridges from a turnpike lease – say $1.4 billion or $1.5 billion, rather than the $946 million expected with the I-80 plan – perhaps some of that could go toward the Mon-Fayette project.
“That remains to be seen. Right now at $1 billion we don’t have enough money” for completion of the Mon-Fayette project, Rendell said.
D.C. Bound? Congressional races are heating up with primary contests in April being the first electoral test
With only one of Pennsylvania’s 19 members of Congress retiring this year, you would expect a year of little change in the Commonwealth’s congressional delegation. And you might be largely correct, but both in the primary and general elections, a few surprises may lurk.
First, an overview.
PRIMARIES TO WATCH: A look at the contested primaries which could produce a different member of Congress in the 2008 elections:
5th District: The surprising retirement of I-80 tolling arch-enemy Rep. John Peterson, R-Venango, opened up a flood of candidates, and a particularly scion-rich field.
The son of Clearfield County coal baron and former Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry President C. Alan Walker, Derek Walker, is considered the front-runner.
Lycoming County’s Jeff Stroehmann, the great-grandson of the founder of Stroehmann Bakeries, is also running, as is Matt Shaner, scion of the Shaner Hotels family.
Former Centre County Commissioner Chris Exarchos, Clarion Mayor John Stroup, Centre County Republican Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson and Elk County Coroner Louis Radkowski are also running.
Walker, whose dad is one of the best-connected GOP fund-raisers and donors in the state, has a big leg up from that. Shaner, while almost equally well-heeled in family funds, mishandled questions about DUI incidents when losing the GOP nomination for a state House race in 2006, for the seat Rep. Scott Conklin, D-Centre, ultimately won.
Exarchos, Thompson and Shaner are also all competing for the same voter base in the population center of the district, Centre County, as is Walker.
The big question in this race to represent 17 counties in Congress is what Peterson will do. He has some political clout as he showed in recent years electing an ally to the state House against Sen. Joe Scarnati’s top aide, Todd Nyquist.
Insiders are split on whether Peterson will back Stroup or a businessman yet to enter the race.
As one insider close to the race said, “This is like the Republican presidential primary: who knows? You would have to say Walker is the front-runner, but a lot could happen, and you have to wait to see what John (Peterson) does, because he will want a candidate from the western side of the district, and once he picks, that guy will get some support.”
In the Democratic primary, Lock Haven Mayor Richard Vilello is vying with Iraq war veteran Bill Cahir and Clearfield County Commissioner Mark B. McCracken for the Democratic Party nod, which will be an uphill battle in this conservative, rural district.
10th District: Another casting call with a lot of candidates, but three to watch as the GOP searches to find a candidate for a seat it lost because the previous GOP incumbent, Don Sherwood, was accused of hitting his mistress.
That was enough to give Chris Carney the biggest surprise win of 2006, when Sherwood chose to run for re-election. Now Carney, a former military analyst, is trying to pull a Tim Holden and hold on in a district that by all voting performances should be represented by a fairly conservative Republican, not a moderate Democrat.
Leading the field of potential Carney challengers are: Davis Hare of Tunkhannock, a wily veteran of business and politics, who may surprise, temp agency owner Chris Hackett, and front-runner Dan Meuser.
Meuser faces carpet-bagger charges for only moving into the district recently, but has deep ties in the region, and his move into the district was a short one. Political insiders say Meuser, a manufacturer of wheelchairs and assisted-living equipment, is a strong candidate, but say if he falters, Hackett or Hare may overtake him. Four other candidates may also run, but are expected to be blips in the polls at best.
1st District: After finishing a distant third in the mayoral primary of 2007, Congressman Bob Brady will now face a young, charismatic black opponent, osteopathic doctor Keith Leaphart, 32, who is becoming the darling of liberal donors.
Long-time Democratic power donor Peter Buttenwieser, and one of the Philadelphia regions’ biggest philanthropists, H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest, co-chaired a fund-raiser for Leaphart and they rave about him.
Leaphart, who ran a janitorial service to pay his way through osteopathy school, met Lenfest while cleaning his office and the West Oak Lane doctor has impressed others as well.
He hasn’t been politically active. In fact, he hasn’t voted in six of the last eight elections, as reported in the Philadelphia Daily News.
But he is young, black and makes a good impression on voters, and will run less than a year after Philadelphia voters sent a reform message by electing maverick Mike Nutter mayor, not Brady or the other powerful West Philadelphia congressman, Chaka Fattah, who finished fourth in the mayoral race.
And the district, while loyal to Brady so far, has a majority black population and Brady has never faced a strong black candidate before.
So while Brady is likely going to win, watch this one. If Leaphart can charm middle-class black voters the way he charmed Buttenwieser and Lenfest, it could get interesting.
"This is not an anti-Bob Brady thing," Leaphart told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "This is about whether we can change the conditions in the congressional district for the better."
Few insiders believe Nutter will intervene to help Leaphart, since Brady is close to two Congressional leaders Nutter needs to help him: Rep. Jack Murtha, D-Johnstown, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Brady will also be a major player, as he always is, when Nutter has to soon negotiate city union contracts. Nutter can’t afford to have Brady totally on the unions’ side at that time, rather than in the mediator role he has traditionally played.
18th District: Despite his perceived vulnerability, Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Allegheny, is facing a field of challengers that has many analysts saying he will be safe in 2008.
His Democratic potential challengers are Erin Vecchio, who has served on the Penn Hills School Board; Beth Hafer, a former teacher who is the daughter of Barbara Hafer, former state treasurer and auditor general; Brian Wall, an Upper St. Clair businessman; and Steve O'Donnell, a Monroeville businessman.
“That is not our A team,” one recruiter for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee privately conceded.
While staffers have attacked Murphy as a bad boss, Franklin & Marshall College’s G. Terry Madonna said: “I have seen no evidence—other than press speculation that he’s in trouble. I know he may not be the best boss, but that’s not an issue for voters.” Madonna wrote that Murphy is keeping his “Reagan Democrats” happy.
Republican sources say they most feared Hafer, because of name recognition from her mother, but that she has made repealing a federal teacher and student testing mandate her top priority, and one wrote: “That is not the Number One issue of families with kids in Upper St. Clair, Moon, Mt. Lebanon, Peters, Nevillewood, etc. etc.”
6th District: Another Republican who has barely held onto his seat the last three elections is Rep. Jim Gerlach, R-Chester, but like Murphy, Democratic and Republican insiders think none of his challengers are as good as the last two that almost beat him: Lois Murphy and Dan Wofford.
Those challengers are historical redeveloper Mike Leibowitz, 29, a Democrat from Haverford, who lost to Murphy in the 2006 primary, and Robert Roggio, a retired business executive from Charlestown, and Richie Phillips Jr. son of the famous baseball umpire and umpire union chief. Phillips Jr. is CEO of an international freight company.
“You can move Jim out of the “Fight For Your Life” category, and into the “Monitor if his opponents ever click with voters” category.
In the rest of the races:
IMPREGNABLE: Fattah, Mike Doyle of Pittsburgh, Holden, Murtha, Joe Pitts of Chester, Todd Platts of York and Bill Shuster of Blair.
VERY SAFE, BUT…: 13th District: U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz, D-Philadelphia, faces her toughest challenge at the polls: Marina Katz, a Russian immigrant, who came here when she was 12 years old, put herself through college and law school, became a successful trial lawyer, and now runs her own law firm, Russian-language newspaper, and other Russian language businesses.
“We have Allyson’s worst nightmare,” a Republican insider said. “A rich Russian Jewish trial lawyer whom the community there loves.”
The community referred to is the growing Russian community in Northeast Philadelphia. The massive influx of Russians to this corner of the city is considered a major reason this once loyally Republican bastion in Philadelphia is now safely Democratic again.
Katz’s ties to this neighborhood, Republicans hope, will trump Schwartz’s record of romping to big victories in this part of the city due to Russian Jewish Democratic voters backing Schwartz by big margins.
It is hard to imagine Schwartz losing in what should be a big year for her district voting Democratic, especially the city part of it.
But Katz, if she campaigns as well as her supporters say she runs her businesses and law practice, it could make things interesting.
8th District: In 2006, Patrick Murphy touted his record as a military lawyer and narrowly defeated U.S. Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, R-Bucks, on the strength of almost tying Fitzpatrick in Bucks, and winning in Northeast Philadelphia.
Now Tom Manion, a Marine reserve colonel, whose son died from sniper fire during his second tour in Iraq, is running against Murphy as a Republican. Since Manion tells people he wants US troops to leave Iraq “as soon as the job is done and we leave that country stable,” a lower-key way of saying he supports President Bush’s policy, his family’s sacrifice could neutralize Murphy’s 2006 Iraq issue advantage.
Especially since he may say a few cutting things about the dangers of being a real soldier, compared to being a lawyer soldier.
But Manion has a political Achilles Heel: he is a corporate vice president at the pharmaceutical and products company, Johnson & Johnson, in charge of information systems, and is running hard against expanded government health care and prescription coverage.
One Democrat crowed: “Here’s our ad: Do you want the big pharmaceutical companies to have more clout in Washington, D.C.? If you do, vote for Tom Manion, a pharmaceutical company vice president. If you want people to get the health care they need, vote for Pat Murphy.”
Manion advocates argue that in Bucks County, that will hurt less than in most areas. We will see in the fall.
7th District: U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Delaware, who defeated scandal-plagued Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Delaware, in 2006, could face a tough challenge, or may skate to an easy re-election, insiders say.
That depends on the quality of the campaign waged by former assistant U.S. Attorney Wendell Craig Williams, 43. Williams plans to challenge Sestak, a retired admiral, telling the Philadelphia Inquirer: “Our positions on Iraq are very different," adding that U.S. troops should stay until the job is done. Williams told the newspaper “that on illegal immigration, he is ‘far more stern and aggressive’ than Sestak.”
“The question isn’t how Manion and Williams look on paper,” said one top GOP official in southeastern Pennsylvania. “It is the quality of the campaigns they run. We’ll see if they are as good as their resumes. If they are, we will win one or both of those seats back.
“But running for Congress is hard. Sestak and Murphy proved they will do what it takes, and if, as we think, they’ve gotten a little big for their britches, and our guys are the Murphy and Sestaks of 2008, well, that could be interesting.”
Two other members of Congress, Jason Altmire, D-Allegheny, and Phil English, R-Erie, are both waiting to see who runs against them although candidates are emerging.
Those races, like Altmire’s late-emerging win over U.S. Rep. Melissa Hart, R-Beaver, in 2006, could arrive late on the radar screen in 2008, and be surprises. Hart is the front-runner against Altmire, and former County Councilman Ron Francis is waging a campaign to defeat her in the GOP primary.
The website Keystone Politics noted Hart trying to win back her base recently, writing: “Former U.S. Rep. Melissa Hart, who is hoping to recapture the southwestern Pennsylvania congressional seat she lost in 2006, is apparently hoping the anti-abortion crowd will help her.
“Hart was the lone Pennsylvania official to have a speaking role during today’s “March for Life” on the 35th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe vs Wade decision that made abortion legal.”
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