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INSIDER INFO -- OCTOBER 2008
A crusader gone
Purple Pennsylvania
Suddenly a horse race
Most watched congressional races
Attorney General’s race
Prognosticator Award 2008
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A crusader gone
The unexpected auto crash death of Jim Rhoades leaves voters in his state Senate district in a quandary and the prospect that to pay tribute they must elect a dead man
State Sen. James Rhoades, R-Schuylkill, before his tragic death on Saturday morning, of injuries sustained in a Friday night car crash will remain on the ballot, officials said.
So voters will have a chance to elect his Democratic opponent, Schuylkill County Prothonotary P.J. Symons or perennial independent candidate Dennis Baylor, or to vote for a dead man – which, in effect, will be a call for a special election with a new Republican candidate.
Symons, a popular county row officer who switched parties to challenge Rhoades, has a delicate path to tread, but now, after trailing by more than 20 percentage points to Rhoades, has a chance to win. After having criticized Rhoades and trying to link him in recent weeks to unpopular President Bush and national officials who under-regulated financial institutions, Symons will now make the case he is the kind of moderate who should succeed Rhoades.
Republicans will counter by saying both parties deserve to be represented in this election, and that voting for Rhoades is a way to make sure both parties are represented in a special election.
Baylor says this will give him a chance to break through to voters, since he will step up his race.
But most attention is focused on Rhoades, whose funeral is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 25.
Rhodes died in surgery the morning after a nighttime accident when a pick-up truck crashed head-on into Rhoades’ car on Route 209 in Monroe County. Rhodes suffered internal bleeding in the crash and was scheduled for rushed surgery as a result but the former heat patient died on the operating table.
Rhoades was known as the long-time Senate Education Committee chairman. He who fought hard with Republican governors on education, and often worked with Democratic governors on that issue against his own party.
First elected in 1980, Rhoades was one of a class of four Republicans who upset Democrats so that the GOP spent 27 of the last 28 years in the majority, remembered Senate President Pro Tem Robert C. Jubelirer, R-Blair.
A popular teacher and football coach who became a junior high school principal after only seven years as a faculty member, Rhoades won an upset victory over first-term Sen. Joe Gurzenda, a popular Schuylkill County Democrat.
“He remained a great football coach and sports-loving great guy!” recalled Jubelirer. Senate Minority Leader Robert J. Mellow, D-Lackawanna, also recalled him in similar terms.
Rhoades talked for years of becoming a superintendent of schools and applied to more than one district for that job, but he never finished his PhD dissertation and that may have handicapped that ambition of his. He was a longtime crusader for increased education funding and measures to lower property taxes used for education funding in exchange for other increased levies.
His district now includes all of Schuylkill County and parts of Berks, Carbon, Lehigh, Monroe and Northampton counties.
His legislative accomplishments include shaping the general fund education subsidy for many years, as well as helping to midwife the Pennsylvania Safe Schools Act, the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletics Accountability Act, and the Head Start Supplemental Assistance Program. In recent years, he also pushed hard and successfully to get the Senate GOP to approve more state funding for prescription drug programs for the elderly poor, known as PACE and PACENET.
P.J. Symons, the Democratic candidate for state Senate in Rhoades' district, told Capitolwire Saturday he was working to pull all advertisements from the airwaves and to remove canvassers from the streets until after his rival’s funeral.
"I’m set back and shook up over the whole thing," Symons said.
Jubelirer said he was “just devastated. I knew on Friday night that he and Mary Edith were in the hospital, but all I can say is that the state and the region have lost a great human.
“He has been my friend and colleague. I admired him and respected him. He has been legendary in his work in the Senate, on education. A legendary family man, hard worker. Even though Jim and I disagreed at times, the respect and affection he and I had is something I will always treasure.
“His commitment to the district and his constituents was legendary. Jim Rhoades was the poster child for hard-working, honest, decent legislators. He will be missed by his constituents, his colleagues and his many, many friends.
“I talked to Jim before he made up his mind to run for the Senate for a new term. I knew he was considering retiring. I told him, 'I hope you run again, because you contribute so much.' He said the environment was getting so tough. I told him he should run again, because he is someone who gets up in the morning and makes a difference.
“The void he leaves is very significant. There is no one who has made more of an impact on education policy and fought with more governors on education policy than Jim Rhoades.”
Sen. Vince Fumo, D-Philadelphia, a colleague for Rhoades' entire Senate career, wrote in an e-mail: “He was a great guy and a good friend. He was always a champion of education and even broke with his caucus when he felt it was necessary to do more for education.”
Even former U.S. Education Department Deputy Secretary Gene Hickok, the Gov. Tom Ridge-appointed state Education Secretary, who debated education policy frequently with Rhoades for years, lauded Rhoades. Hickok and Ridge were major proponents of school vouchers and reducing state aid to public schools, compared to previous funding levels. Rhoades, a strong backer of public education, largely took the opposite view.
Hickok within hours of the news becoming public said in a statement: “Words cannot express the shock and sadness I feel at the tragic death of one of Pennsylvania¹s true champions of education. Senator Rhoades was a friend to every Pennsylvanian who cares about education.
“I was so very privileged to have worked with him and admired his commitment to making Pennsylvania a better place. I was fortunate to work with him on a number of significant pieces of education legislation, and I will forever remember how devoted he was to doing what is right for the kids of the Keystone State. My thoughts and prayers are with Mrs. Rhoades and the Senator¹s family. He will be greatly missed.”
So the big question is WHY?
Why is McCain spending resources and the time of himself, his running mate and surrogates in the Keystone State, including three stops Tuesday by McCain, covering three television markets – Philadelphia, Harrisburg and Pittsburgh.
In the words of one state political insider and campaign watcher: “Why is McCain still coming here? Why is he still sending his wife and Sarah Palin here? Why not take the millions he is spending on the campaign here each week and put them into Ohio and Florida, states he has a chance to win, states he has to win?”
McCain campaign state chairman Bob Asher, the Pennsylvania Republican National committeeman and a popular political figure in his own right, responded: “We are still competitive in Pennsylvania, we have absolutely no reason to pull out because I believe we’re going to win Pennsylvania. The proof is that we are going to have the top guns of the McCain campaign just about living here.”
Philadelphia Daily News columnist John Baer had a more crude opinion of why Pennsylvania is still in play in theory he offered in Tuesday’s paperBaer described it as the “cracker factor.”
“I think the campaign believes the Democratic view – expressed by Ed Rendell last winter and [U.S. Rep.] Jack Murtha last week (and [political strategist] James Carville 22 years ago) – that there are racist tendencies among Pennsylvania voters.”
Baer concluded: “I believe there is a cracker factor – we’ve never elected a black non-judicial statewide candidate – and I believe that’s why McCain is here.” But, he added, it could be offset by the new, first-time registered voters and could be “relegated to the state’s political past.”
Skeptics point out McCain could put more players onto other football fields, like Ohio, Florida, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina and other states that President Bush won, while the GOP lost Pennsylvania in 2000 and 2004 and is likely to lose it in 2008. Recent polls show McCain trailing or tied in all of those other states.
“If he was in that rough a shape in those states, I wouldn’t be getting McCain here as much as we are going to get them,” replied Asher.
While Asher declined to discuss the results of campaign polls, other sources said McCain has taken back leads in Ohio West Virginia and Florida in their surveys, and expect to do so shortly in Virginia, given their polling trend lines.
North Carolina remains a problem, McCain sources reported, and Obama sources confirmed, which makes it especially important for McCain to fight there and in Pennsylvania “in case we lose one of them, we need to win the other,” said one McCain insider.
And experts in both parties say that while it is true that Bush won the presidency twice without winning Pennsylvania, but he is the first Republican president to do so in decades.
And, they add, no Republican has won the presidency without a full and expensive fight for Pennsylvania.
And the McCain insiders say their internal polls shows them down only 4 percentage points, and the most recent Republican State Committee polling shows them down only 6 points.
Those polls show McCain far exceeding the percentage of votes won by Bush in western Pennsylvania, north-central Pennsylvania and northeastern Pennsylvania.
On the down side, they show McCain running behind Bush’s performance and polling in Philadelphia and its suburbs.
Why are those polls so different? First, the GOP correctly notes that public polls overstated Gov. Ed Rendell’s margin over Republican Mike Fisher in 2002, Gore over Bush in 2000 and Kerry over Bush in 2004. All three won by only about half the margin they were expected to, according to the polls.
Plus, analysts in both parties note, Obama is black, and that is expected, as it has in other states when prominent black politicians ran for governor or U.S. Senate, to result in some drop-off from his polling numbers.
One Republican said: “maybe that drop-off is two or three points, maybe it is 6 to eight. No one really knows.”
Even if you don’t believe Asher and the other Republican activists who are working hard enough that they must believe in it, there are other reasons for McCain to fight here.
First, remember, Bush lost first by 4 percentage points, then last time by 1.5 percentage points in Pennsylvania, so he got close and might have won.
Second, most of the places where TV advertising is most expensive – California, Chicago, New York City, Washington, D.C. – are so safely Democratic that Obama doesn’t have to spend money there.
“Philadelphia is one of the most expensive TV markets we can make Obama buy, and get him to spend down his money,” said one GOP operative experienced in campaigns.
But, so what? Obama has money than enough to spend. He raised an amazing $150 million in September and now has more than 3 million total contributors.
For one example, he has spent $267,000 to reserve time on KYW News Radio, the dominant news radio station in the city. Republicans so far have reserved $7,000. Long-time ad-buyers said $100,000 would be the traditional “immersion buy” of KYW at this point, and Obama has nearly tripled that.
Also, remember that western Pennsylvania TV spills over into Ohio and West Virginia, so on some stations there, the GOP operative says: “You get three swing states for your buck of advertising.”
And finally, a different McCain insider said: “You have to fight in a bunch of places to win enough electoral votes. And right now, at least, money is not the issue. We have the money to fight for enough votes to win.
“And right now, sure, the public polls look bad, but those polls, especially Quinnipiac and some others, showed the double the lead Ed Rendell had over [2002 GOP gubernatorial nominee] Mike Fisher but when when the votes were counted it was a single-digit win.”
A top McCain Pennsylvania advisor said: “We believe this is a 5-6 point race. We are behind, but if we get the kind of vote we expect to get out of Northeast Philadelphia, Northeast Pennsylvania, Central Pennsylvania and western Pennsylvania, we have as good a chance to win here as McCain does in Ohio, almost as good a chance as Florida.”
Part of that feeling derives from the assumption of many political insiders that Obama will lose half of that lead or more to white voters who will ultimately not vote for a black candidate. And as many Democratic insiders speculate about that as Republicans.
“You don’t see Obama easing up here the way he has in New York or California, his safe states, do you?” asked one GOP strategist. “Neither are we.”
Suddenly a horse race Long-time Republican incumbent Jeff Piccola finds himself in an unexpected fight for his political life against feisty challenger Judy Hirsh
Democrats smell blood in the water -- and this time it’s on the Dauphin County side of the Susquehanna River.
In an unexpected turn of events for the GOP, a once-considered pesky Democratic challenge to a long-time Republican legislator has turned into a genuine contest, with both sides now in full-scale war.
The target of the assault is state Sen. Jeff Piccola, who has been in the Legislature from Susquehanna Township since 1977 and is seeking his fourth term in the state Senate.
Back in the summer, Piccola enjoyed a 60 percent re-elect factor in the district but that was before retiring state Sen. Connie Williams, took fellow Democrat Judy Hirsh under her wing and convinced other Democrats to join the fight.
Williams, an heiress to Hess oil, is reportedly credited with donating more than $100,000 of her own money and enticing others to invest, including Gov. Ed Rendell with $50,000 from his campaign kitty, another Democrat who is no fan of Piccola who unsuccessfully sought to run against him as the GOP candidate in 2006.
In addition to losses for the governorship and presidency of the Senate, Piccola also lost a bid for a nomination to the state Supreme Court in 2007. He will not take a pledge to serve out a full four-year term if re-elected, a position for which Hirsh criticizes him.
Local TV newsman Dennis Owens, tried to pin Piccola down on whether he would actually run for county judge next year immediately after re-election, but Piccola refused to commit to serving out a four-year term or say he would not run for county judge if elected, which seems like an odd career choice.
Now, both campaigns have nasty attack flyers in the mail boxes of the 237,000-plus residents of the district which encompasses all of Dauphin County, including the city of Harrisburg.
Both candidates had commercials that aired on the local Fox affiliate during Game 1 of the World Series which may draw more viewers than usual because the Philadelphia Phillies are playing. In fact, Hirsh, an attorney, began running her television commercials in September before Piccola could get on the air.
Unlike its suburban neighbor to the west, Cumberland County which features the “West Shore” (of the Susquehanna River) neighborhoods and suburbs for Harrisburg, Dauphin County, also once solidly Republican, has seen a “bluing” of its voters registrations.
Thanks to the excitement of the Barrack Obama-Hillary Clinton presidential primary in April, Democratic ranks in the state soared as well as in Dauphin County. For the first time, Democratic registration in the county is greater than Republican, albeit not by much – 81,660 Democrats to 81,244 Republicans as of June 30.
The now well-funded Hirsh is hoping to ride that Democratic registration surge and possible coattails of presidential nominee Obama to an upset victory over Piccola.
One political analyst who loves in the district and has seen the campaign first-hand said spending could easily exceed more than $1 million for the two camps.
At a recent debate in Hershey, the two candidates duked it out over their mailings and who is responsible for the negative tone of the campaign.
She also supports Gov. Rendell’s health insurance proposal which would have added 150,000 of the state’s estimated 750,000 uninsured Pennsylvanians into the state’s adultBasic health insurance plan.
Rendell and the Democrats hope to use a surplus in the Health Care Providers Retention Account to pay for the first five years of the program but Piccola and other Republicans say it will eventually become a $2 billion entitlement program the state can not afford.
Hirsh says that she hoped the federal government would have a national plan in place by then or the federal government will begin paying for the state plan.
In his long political career, Piccola, who is a partner in a Harrisburg-based law firm, has evolved from a full-bearded moderate Republican who supported a woman’s right to abortion to a clean-shaven hard-core conservative who says he now opposes abortion.
He is now part of the Sam Rohrer crowd in the Legislature that supports ending local property taxes for public education by “broadening” the state sales tax, lowering its rate and applying it to every purchase or service, almost without exception, including food and clothing which are now exempt.
Hirsh supports the state’s entry into slot machine gambling as the way to further reduce property taxes used for education.
She is against abolishing the property tax for education funding, maintaining that the annual levy on properties is more secure than other forms of taxation such as income or sales which fluctuate with the economic times. She also argues that property taxes used to fund good public schools increase the value of homes and properties located in any school district rated as good or excellent.
Piccola opposed Gov. Rendell’s push to enact slot machine gambling and says the casinos that resulted will ultimately not benefit Pennsylvania.
Social and policy issues aside, Piccola does have a list of accomplishments he touts as proof why he should be re-elected.
He worked with Harrisburg Mayor Steve Reed, a Democrat, to pass a new state law that wrested control of the dysfunctional Harrisburg public school district from an elected board and placed it in the hands of the mayor. Since then, test scores and graduation rates have improved measurably but the district is still lagging.
He also claims credit for creating or retaining 10,000 jobs in central Pennsylvania --- including development of the TecPort, an industrial and high-tech district outside Harrisburg; expanding Hersheypark Drive to entice the Hershey Co. not to relocate and helping to create and fund the Hershey Center for Applied Research.
Most watched congressional races Observers in northwestern and northeastern Pa. see incumbents English and Kanjorski in jeopardy
Two years after the Democrats turned their 7-12 deficit in the Pennsylvania Congressional delegation into an 11-8 lead, you would think one or more of the new Democrats would be vulnerable at re-election.
And you would especially think that since two of the four knocked out scandal-plagued Republicans who probably would have otherwise held onto their seat.
Quick recent history lesson: It was corruption probes against relatives and close political allies that scorched Congressman Curt Weldon, R-Delaware, sending him to defeat at the hands of former Admiral Joe Sestak, D-Delaware. The allegations of a former mistress sunk U.S. Rep. Don Sherwood, R-Wyoming, giving a normally-loyally-GOP district to former military man, Democrat Chris Carney.
The other two Democrats who won – Patrick Murphy defeating Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick in Bucks County, Jason Altmire ousting Melissa Hart in Beaver County and parts north – essentially rode an anti-Bush wave into the U.S. House.
So this year, with Bush’s positive ratings, which were under 30 then, and are under 20 in some swing districts now, you would think there would be more such districts for Democrats to pick up, but only one looms in that category and it’s in northwestern Pennsylvania.
Kathy Dahlkemper, a Democrat, leads seven-term Republican incumbent Phil English in the polls.
But Republicans are bidding to stem any net losses by having their new darling of the party faithful, Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta, take the lead in the polls against long-time incumbent U.S. Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa.
Barletta got throttled a few years back when he ran against Kanjorski as Rick Santorum Jr., but now he is back as the poster child for CNN’s Lou Dobbs’ campaign against illegal immigration, because of the anti-illegal immigrant ordinance he crafted as mayor.
Kanjorski is still trying to morph Barletta into Santorum, with whom the popular and personable mayor shares most opinions on the issues, but Barletta’s personality and strong identification with anti-immigration issues have so far resisted such identification.
Why is Kanjorski vulnerable? First the local newspapers have spent years exposing various sweetheart deals the federal government has given various Kanjorski relatives, often with Kanjorski’s direct intervention, so incumbent fatigue is a problem.
Second, Kanjorski, while doing a fair job of bringing home the bacon is not beloved in the district and his personality has not worn well in the district. One Democrat says: “Chris Carney is going to win in a stone-cold Republican district because the voters there like him. Kanjorski is going to lose a stone-cold Democratic district because they don’t like him.”
A similar but less sharp public divorce is underway in the Erie region with English, where incumbent fatigue, more than actual dislike, appears to be the problem.
Erie and the rest of the congressional district – which stretches south to northern Butler County, along the I-79 corridor -- has always been a moderate region, that swings based on who makes the best case as a friend of blue collar workers. Both Tom Ridge and Mike Fisher won this area in their campaigns for governor, Al Gore and John Kerry ran ahead of Ed Rendell’s 2002 numbers here.
Kathy Dahlkemper, a small businesswoman and director of a non-profit in Erie, beat Democratic Party and national Democratic favorite Kyle Foust in the primary, and now leads English in the polls.
So far she is succeeding by painting English, who long managed to vote with Congressional GOP conservatives without being tagged as one of them, as someone in lockstep with former GOP leadership bogeymen – at least in Erie – Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay.
Dahlkemper has done a great job of raising funds and even most GOP insiders assume she will win as Erie does for her what Beaver County did for Altmire in 2006: come back home to the D column.
In mid-October, a poll by Research 2000, a business research group, showed Dahlkemper leading, 48 percent to 41 percent over English among 400 likely voters in the district, which includes Erie County, most of Crawford County and parts of Armstrong, Butler, Mercer, Warren and Venango counties.
An early October poll, done by computerized calling, by SurveyUSA, said Dahlkemper was leading 49 percent to 45. A third poll showed the two tied in the mid-40s, another bad sign for English after seven terms in Congress that began when he replaced Ridge as the congressman.
English officials said their polls showed them ahead and dismissed the surveys, but several of their donors are already conceding English will lose.
Dahlkemper said: “Everywhere I go, people tell me that they want a change, that they are ready for a fresh voice in Washington.”
She has blamed English for voting against alternative energy bills and called on him to return more than $200,000 in donations from big oil companies.
English replied he has worked to make an alternative energy economy emerge, but voted against bills because of major flaws in them. And he said that he passed a bill to penalize China for unfair trade practices – unions are still big in Erie, emotionally, even if their numbers are a shell of their old strength – through the House in the last Congress but the Democrats wouldn’t do it again this term, when they held the majority.
Those are the only two races most expect an incumbent or favorite to lose.
In the other races that election-watchers are still keeping tabs on:
Carney, despite representing a district that Santorum and Bush won handily, is rated a clear winner over the GOP’s Chris Hackett, still hurting after a bruising, bitter Republican primary election where intense Republican rivalries have not healed.
Altmire is only 5-7 points ahead of Hart in most polls, which is usually a sign of a problem. But Hart was the incumbent for six years before losing to Altmire in 2006 because she was considered too close to the unpopular Santorum and Bush, and Santorum lost that district worse than she did.
So in that race they are both incumbents and it took her all summer to cut the lead below double digits as the Republican base came home to her.
“It’s unlikely she won’t add any votes the last two weeks,” said a top Republican congressional race expert.
Patrick Murphy and Sestak and Tim Murphy, D-Allegheny, are also heavy favorites for re-election, as is Rep. Jim Gerlach, although for Gerlach, winning by 54 percent would be a landslide after three elections in which he won I nail-biters.
Attorney General’s race Recent poll shows incumbent Corbett has clear advantage for re-election Nov 4.
It is often lost in the shadow of the heavily-contested presidential election in a battleground state such as Pennsylvania but this year there is a contest for state attorney general – the Commonwealth’s top cop.
With incumbent Tom Corbett finishing out his first term, the election is really a referendum on the Republican’s performance.
The most noticeable aspect of that, of course, is the Bonusgate investigation of state money being used for campaign purposes in which, so far, 12 Democrats have been charged, including the former House Minority Leader Mike Veon.
Challenging Corbett is five-term district attorney John Morganelli of Northampton County. Morganelli is banking his hopes on the recent surge in Democratic voter registration statewide and the fact that he is the first sitting Democratic district attorney to run for the statewide row office. Past Democratic nominees have either had no criminal prosecution experience while, one, Jim Eisenhower, was a former federal prosecutor.
In the campaign, he has urged Corbett to turn over the Bonusgate investigation to a special prosecutor and has said that is what he would do if elected.
Morganelli is challenging a long-standing political history of this state. Ever since the office became elective rather than appointed in 1980, the GOP has won every four years largely because they keep perpetrating to the public that a Republican will be tougher on crime than a Democrat.
While there is a huge criminal law component to the attorney general’s duties, he also oversees the state’s consumer protection, anti-trust and charitable oversight functions as well as an even larger civil law suit division that handles lawsuits filed against the Commonwealth and its various agencies.
There have been few public polls on the race but one was recently completed by Harrisburg-based Susquehanna Polling and Research. It found Corbett ahead by a comfy margin but a still large undecided factor in the race.
In a statewide survey, 43 percent of respondents said they plan to vote for Corbett versus 31 percent for Morganelli. Libertarian Party candidate drew 3 percent of the vote while 20 percent were undecided. The poll of 700 likely general election voters was conducted Oct. 16-18.
Corbett improved his performance from a 39-33 percent lead in the September poll. The
Susquehanna survey found Corbett doing better in the suburban counties around Philadelphia, possibly enough to offset a 60-to-12 percent margin that Morganelli will enjoy from straight-ticket voting by Democrats in the city of Philadelphia.
Jim Lee, the president of Susquehanna Polling and Research, said another factor in the race is the financial advantage Corbett has over Morganelli. He said Morganelli would either have to benefit from a hugely unusual Democratic surge or win over all of the undecided voters to defeat Corbett. “Our prediction is that Corbett wins by single digits, probably in the range of 6 to 8 points,” Lee concluded.
Prognosticator Award 2008 Put your political wits to work and win a handsome wall plaque by correctly guessing the outcome of the Nov. 4 election here
Make your prediction on who will win the President’s race in Pennsylvania, how many counties each candidate will win and what will be the composition of the state House of Representatives and the state Senate after the Nov. 4 elections for 2009-2010.
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Fill out the form below and fax it to editor Al Neri at 717-774-1593. Or better yet copy it into your browser and paste it into an e-mail. Then fill out your entry and e-mail it to alneripa@aol.com:
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