Ferrick's PoliBlog 2006

Farewell & Best Wishes

2006-11-15T05:48:00.000-05:00

Someone cue up "Happy Trails."
This is my last post.
With the election over, I am headed off to a new assignment. I will be working with Chris Satullo, editor of the Inquirer Editorial Board, on a year-long project dealing with the Philadelphia mayor's race.
When I started this blog in April, it was drawing about 140-odd visitors a day, some of them quite odd. In October, it was up to about 900 unique visitors a day. I offer thanks to all of you who took the time to stop by.
Things I liked about blogging: the chance to report and comment in real time and the ability to link to the good work of others.
Let's be honest, blogging is a parasitic exercise. We stand on the shoulders of the folks -- in my case, mostly political reporters -- who do the hard work of harvesting facts and offering analysis.
One thing I disliked about the blog: Most of the comments are anonymous. I'd prefer a system where everyone takes public ownership of their views, instead of hiding behind a curtain. That said, I rejected only a handful of comments, mostly because they contained falsehoods or were obscene. The rest I let flow.
Now, with a final bow of thanks, I depart.

2006-11-12T08:45:00.000-05:00

Thanks to all who participated in my "Be A Pundit" contest. I got more than two-dozen entries and lots of good guesstimating on the final results.
The killer for many entrants was the Casey-Santorum race. It ended up being an 18-point blow out by Casey, but all my pundits guessed it low. The guy who came closest gave it to Casey by 14% .

Rendell-Swann was easier. The final result looks like it will be Rendell by 21-point spread. Seven participants got that 60-40 spread about right.

Turnout was the wild card. In 2002, it was about 3.581. I expected higher turnout this year, but never guessed it would be that high -- it was 3,997,000 votes, with 99% of the vote counted. I suspect it will equal 3.999 or 4 million by the time the official vote is counted. I had three entrants who came close to nailing it.

How did my pundits do collectively? Well, on average we thought that Rendell would beat Swann 59.4 to 40.6, so we were real close. On average, we thought Casey would be Santorum 54.5 to 45.5, so were off by 7 points. As to turnout, we had it pegged at 3.810 – a good guess, but not cigar. It was 100,000+ higher.

Now, onto the winners.
Since no one nailed it exactly, I went for the three would-be pundits who came closest collectively to being right. Sound the trumpets. Here are my winners:

Jim Shomper Jr.
He had Rendell-Swann nailed at 61-39
He has Casey Santorum at 55-45
He had turnout almost nailed at 3.935

Jim McGoldrick
Jim had Rendell-Casey at 61-39.
He had Casey-Santorum at 54-46
He came closest to turnout at 3.940

Neil Oxman
Neil was low on Rendell-Swann 58-42
He came closest of all the finalists with Casey-Santorum 57-43
His turnout guess was low 3.820.

As an aside, Oxman was the media consultant who did the Rendell campaign, which is proof that the worst place to get a perspective on a campaign is close up.

Congratulations, gentlemen, you each are winners of a $25 gift card to Borders (which I will expenses as "lunch with source') and a signed, suitable-for-framing certificate from the National Pundits Association.

I have several laurels to hand out to other entrants who were on mark with their guesstimates.
Marie Whitehead came closest to nailing total votes cast at 3.999. Congratulations, Marie.
Jon Bart came closest to Casey-Santorum with a 58-42 guess. Good work, Jon.
Adam Bonin & Sam Mee were right in there with their Rendell-Swann guesses. Adam was one of the overall winners in my May pundits contest. My compliments, gentlemen.

Thanks to all participants.

Come And Get "Em

2006-11-12T07:30:00.000-05:00

Post-mortem's aplenty post-election.
We enter the what it all means portion of the proceedings.
Here are the highlights:

Lynn Swann: He never had a chance.
Rick Santorum: His own worst enemy.
Bob Casey Jr.: A nice Catholic boy.
Ed Rendell: Master of all he surveys (by the immortal Roderick Random)
The Republicans: Ruling party smackdown (by Dick Polman)
Pa. State House: GOP control hanging by a thread.
Sage-like Analysis: A post-election podcast featuring moi and Tom Fitzgerald ponders what it all means. My day-after column on Rick Santorum, which provoked lots of pro-Santorum emails accusing me of being intolerent of intolerence.

Back at Work

2006-11-12T07:03:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted since late election night because my mother, Dolores Ferrick, died suddenly on Monday, Nov. 6th. I worked Election night and the next day, but took off the rest of the week to tend to her personal affairs and to the funeral.
Thanks to all those who offered their condolences.

Final Post of the Morning

2006-11-08T00:34:00.000-05:00

Rendell-Casey murderlize their opponents.
Casey has a 19-point lead, Rendell a 20 point lead.
Voter turnout will be about 3.9 million votes - 300,000 more than in 2002.
Republican Congressmen who go down:

PA4 Melissa Hart
PA7 Curt Weldon
PA10 Don Sherwood

PA6 TCTC -- trending Gerlach
PA 8. I predict Murphy unseats Fitzpatrick in a squeaker.

Back in the morning.

An Astonishing Thing

2006-11-08T00:10:00.000-05:00

About last night's election is this...
But, first the latest AP results:

7,879 of 9,372 precincts - 84 percent

x-Bob Casey, Dem 1,922,962 - 59 percent
Rick Santorum, GOP (i) 1,338,963 - 41 percent

Governor
7,879 of 9,372 precincts - 84 percent
x-Ed Rendell, Dem (i) 1,970,457 - 60 percentLynn Swann, GOP 1,304,792 - 40 percent

As I was saying, the astonishing thing is that Rick Santorum spent $20+ million and he is getting only 1 point more than Lynn Swann.
Santorum never broke 40 percent in the public polls. He finally broke it last night, but by one point.
It looks like the final Casey margin will be 600,000+
The final Rendell margin could be 700,000.

On the congressional front, there is a surprise:
U.S. Rep. Melissa Hart, the Republican incumbent, has lost PA4. This was not a race she was supposed to lose.

Here is CNN's total, with 98% of the vote recorded.
Updated: 12:02 a.m. ET

Altmire 124,302 52%
Hart 114,707 48%

Tectonic Plate Update

2006-11-07T22:39:00.000-05:00

With Rendell and Casey leading the way, with turnout higher than expected, the question remains what trickle down effect will it have for other Democratic candidates?
Well, it's early, but I do feel some trickle.

Let's look at the congressional races.
In PA7 in Delco, Joe Sestak has handily defeated Incumbent Rep. Curt Weldon:
Latest AP results:
TP PR Sestak Weldon
Chester 44 0 0 0
Delaware 355 197 53,976 42,934
Montgmry 48 25 10,420 6,379

Totals 447 222 64,396 49,313

In PA6, there is a surprise in early returns: Lois Murphy is ahead of Jim Gerlach in Berks County, the most conservative part of the district. No returns, though, for Chester County, which is Gerlach's base.
The latest AP results:
TP PR Murphy Gerlach
Berks 106 25 8,963 8,418
Chester 126 0 0 0
Lehigh 1 0 0 0
Montgmry 101 17 5,778 4,152
Totals 334 42 14,741 12,570

In PA7, another surprise. Pat Murphy holds a narrow lead over incumbent Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick in early returns. This was the seat most pundits (including me) gave to Fitzpatrick.

Patrick Murphy, Dem 42,586 - 51 percent
Michael Fitzpatrick, GOP (i) 40,380 - 49 percent

In PA10, Don Sherwood is going down, down, down:
The latest AP results:
355 of 530 precincts - 67 percent
Christopher Carney, Dem 65,154 - 55 percent
Don Sherwood, GOP (i) 54,091 - 45 percent

Cool Graphic Alert

2006-11-07T21:37:00.000-05:00

The folks at Philly.com have developed a great graphic that summarizes the status of the national races, plus local ones. Take a look for an update on the local Congressional races.
This page is updated every five minutes.

Turnout UpDate

2006-11-07T21:25:00.000-05:00

That wasn't your imagination today.
The polls were more crowded than usual.
Let me take Philadelphia as a bellweather. The city has already reported nearly 13% of the vote. If the trends hold, a total of 500,000+ votes will be cast in the city this election.
This would equal 52% turnout, which is about a nine points above what it was in the last gubernatorial election in 2002.
More to come on this as other counties report real totals.

Here is the 9:22 p.m. AP summary of major Pa. races:

U.S. Senate
663 of 9,372 precincts - 7 percent
x-Bob Casey, Dem 130,997 - 65 percent
Rick Santorum, GOP (i) 69,617 - 35 percent

Governor
644 of 9,372 precincts - 7 percent
x-Ed Rendell, Dem (i) 141,939 - 70 percent
Lynn Swann, GOP 60,281 - 30 percent

These are statewide numbers, but they are heavily tilted towards Philly because of the speed with which they produce election results.

The Rendell Landslide

2006-11-07T20:57:00.000-05:00

Network exit polls indicated Gov. Ed Rendell will murderlize Republican Lynn Swann.
If the early projections carry through, Rendell could end up with a 700,000-vote margin over his GOP challenger.
The CBS poll carries no head-to-head numbers as of yet, but a look at the interior numbers hint at the dimensions of the Rendell victory.
The key -- as always -- is in the Philadelphia region, where Rendell is projected to win Philadelphia by a margin of 86%-12% and in the Philly suburbs, where is is projected to win by 69%-30%.
The strong Rendell-Casey showing in this area could spell very bad news for Republican incumbents lower on the ticket. But it is too early to say that for sure.

For the record, according to the exit poll:
Rendell has a comfortable lead in every area of the state, except for the Republican "T" that runs up central Pa. and across the state's northern tier. Swann is winning this area 54%-45%.

But Rendell is way ahead among women voters, who favor him 63%-32% for Swann. He leads among all income groups, among labor union members. He appears to be getting 21% of the Republican vote and 68% of the Independent vote.
The only sub-group carried by Swann in these early exit polls are evangelicals, who favor the Republican 60?-40%

Again, no actual returns, but the exit polls show Rendell a big winner.

A Casey Blowout in Pennsylvania

2006-11-07T20:28:00.000-05:00

Up live and blogging...

CBS News exit polls give Bob Casey Jr. the win in Pennsylvania.
The networks are cautious about calling these races, so this means the spread is well above their margin of error.

The CBS poll indicates a Casey blowout. Though the exit poll, as currently published on the network's website, does not give the head-to-head numbers, you can look at the interior runups and see the following:

Casey is defeating Santorum in every area of the state - except for the Republican "T"
The exit poll indicates he will win Philadelphia 85%-14%, win the Philly suburbs 59-40 and win the Pittsburgh media market by 60-40.

Other highlights:
Casey has a huge lead among women voters: 59%-40%, among all income groups, among labor households. He is currently getting 71% of voters who identify themselves as independents.
The only sub-group Santorum can call his own is evangelicals, who favor the Republican in the CBS poll by a margin of 61%-39%.

Translated into votes, this poll indicated a Casey margin of over 500,000 votes.

However, keep in mind that no actual vote totals have been posted as of 8:43 p.m.

Collective Wisdom

2006-11-07T08:16:00.000-05:00

I've been reading a wonderful new book by New Yorker writer James Surowiecki called "The Wisdom of Crowds." It is Sorowecki's paean to that much-maligned commodity called collective wisdom.
In it, he posits that the mass of people are usually right and that they are wonderful predictors of outcomes. In fact, better predictors that public opinion polls, that emit writ-large results from small samples.
Collective wisdom is the idea that drives such projects as the Iowa Electronic Markets, where people place bet on outcomes of (to give one example) political races.
I have my own version of the Iowa market -- albeit with a much smaller crowd. It's my Be A Pundit Contest, where I offer prizes to the person who can come closest to predicting the outcome of today's U.S. Senate and gubernatorial race.
To put it another way, I've got my own crowd and I've taken their bets, added them up and divided them by the number of entries to come up with their collective wisdom on the races.
Here are the results of that mathematical exercise.
We can check it against actual results tomorrow.

U.S. Senate
Bob Casey Jr. 54.5%
Rick Santorum 45.5%

Governor
Ed Rendell 59.4%
Lynn Swann 40.6%

Total votes: 3,810,000

Rise and Shine

2006-11-07T06:55:00.000-05:00

It's Election Day in Pennsylvania.

As we saw in Philly, vote early and vote often.

It looks like Republican weather. There is rain predicted for the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh areas, but it's expected to be mostly dry in the rest of the state.

I wonder if this storm front was ordered up by Karl Rove, that clever devil.
Just a thought.

I will be blogging frequently today and will be blogging live tonight as the election returns come in. So, stay tuned.

Take Off That Party Hat

2006-11-06T08:33:00.000-05:00

For all those Democrats icing the champagne, here comes some ominous news, courtesy of the Pew Foundation Polling Machine, aka Pew Research Center for the People and Press.

Here the lead graph:

A nationwide Pew Research Center survey finds voting intentions shifting in the direction of Republican congressional candidates in the final days of the 2006 midterm campaign. The new survey finds a growing percentage of likely voters saying they will vote for GOP candidates. However, the Democrats still hold a 48% to 40% lead among registered voters, and a modest lead of 47%-43% among likely voters.

Here's the rest.

Coup de Grace

2006-11-03T08:39:00.000-05:00

From Websters:
Main Entry: coup de grace
Etymology: French coup de grâce
... a decisive finishing blow : an act or event that puts an end to something.

From the AP:

Sherwood suit deal described

By Michael Rubinkam

Associated Press
ALLENTOWN - U.S. Rep. Don Sherwood agreed to pay the ex-mistress he is accused of abusing about $500,000 in a settlement last year that contained a powerful incentive for her to keep quiet until after Election Day, a person familiar with the terms of the deal told the Associated Press.
Sherwood, a Republican from northeastern Pennsylvania, is locked in a tight reelection race against a Democratic opponent who has seized on the four-term congressman's relationship with the woman. While Sherwood acknowledged the woman had been his mistress, he denied abusing her and said he had settled her $5.5 million lawsuit on confidential terms.
The settlement, reached in November 2005, called for Cynthia Ore to be paid in installments, according to a person who spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal is confidential. She has received less than half of the money so far and will not get the rest until after Tuesday's election, the person said yesterday.
A confidentiality clause requires Ore to forfeit some of the money if she talks publicly about the case, according to this person and two other people familiar with elements of the case.
It is common in settlements for payments to be made in installments and for the parties to be held to confidentiality.
Sherwood admitted no wrongdoing, a standard provision in such agreements, this person said.
Sherwood, 65, a married father of three who is considered a family-values conservative, had one of the safest seats in Congress until Ore sued him in June 2005, alleging he physically abused her throughout their five-year affair.
Reached by telephone Wednesday, the congressman and successful car dealer said: "I can neither confirm nor deny because this was a private settlement. If I'd like to talk to you about it, I can't."

Become A Pundit! Win A Prize!

2006-11-03T08:18:00.000-05:00

Time is running out. Be sure to enter my Pundit Contest.
Pick the winners of the statewide races in the Nov. 7th election and become a certified Political Pundit, plus win a $25 gift card to Borders.
In order to win, here is what you must do:

1. Correctly predict the winners of Pennsylvania's Nov. 7th election for Governor & U.S. Senate and list the percentage of votes each candidate gets. (For the record, the candidates for governor at Democrat Ed Rendell and Republican Lynn Swann; the candidates for U.S. Senate are Democrat Bob Casey Jr. and Republican Rick Santorum
2. As a tiebreaker, you must also predict the exact number of votes, rounded to the nearest thousand, that will be cast statewide in the race for U.S. Senate, which is the race that tops the ballot this year. (For the record, there are about 8 million registered voters in in Pennsylvania.)

Sample Entry:
Tom: I want to be a pundit!
Here is my prediction for the Nov. 7th election:
Bob Casey Jr. -- 54% of the vote Rick Santorum - 46%
Ed Rendell -- 58% Lynn Swann - 42%
Total votes cast: 3,773,000

The deadline is 11:59 p.m., Monday, Nov. 6th. Do not submit your entry via a posting. Send it to my email address: tferrick@phillynews.com Include your name and address.
The winner will be announced in this space at noon, Wednesday, Nov. 8th. The vote total will be based upon the latest Associated Press count as of 11 a.m. that day.

Don't miss this opportunity to become a pundit. Email your entry today!

The Kerry Sampler of Botched Jokes

2006-11-02T08:18:00.000-05:00

What they wrote for John Kerry to say in Pasadena:
“Do you know where you end up if you don’t study, if you aren’t smart, if you’re intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush.”

What he said:
"You know education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

What they wrote for John Kerry to say at the Shriners Convention:
"What is this, an audience or an oil painting?"

What he said:
"What's all this, this audience and its oral panting."

What they wrote for John Kerry to say at the Ted Kennedy roast:
"But, seriously, Teddy, you've built bridges to new ideas all your life....

What John Kerry said:
"But, seriously Teddy, all your life, there've been bridges, you see, and you have crossed most of them....with new ideas, I mean."

What they wrote for John Kerry to say on the Jay Leno show:
"Jay, you are the only guy with a longer face than me!"

What John Kerry said:
"How's your face, Jay? I mean, is it longer or not?"

What they wrote for John Kerry to say at the Union League comedy night:
"Take my wife, please!"

What John Kerry said:
"Please, Theresa's my wife. Take her!"

What they wrote for John Kerry to say at the Gridiron dinner:
Two guys are out walking their dogs and pass by a bar.
One says: Let's go inside and get a drink
The other says: But look at that sign, it says no dogs allowed.
The friend says: Watch this. He puts on sunglasses and walks into the bar with his dog.
A few minutes later, the friend decides to try it.
He puts on sunglasses and walks into the bar with his dog.
He sees his friend sitting drinking a beer, with his German shepherd at his side.
He goes up and asks for a beer himself.
Bartender says: Sorry, pal, no dogs.
The guy says: It's my seeing-eye dog.
Bartender says: But that's a chihuahua.
The guy slaps his forehead and says: You mean, they gave me a Chihuahua!

What John Kerry said:
"I have a joke that I hope you will find amusing. It's about two blind guys and they have a German shepherd, see, and the other has a Chihuahua.
At any rate, they are passing by a tavern. And they are wearing sunglasses, I think.
And one of them goes into the bar. Wait! Wait! I think the guys are not blind really. Yes, that's it. It's a ruse, you see. At any rate, they are thirsty and they want to drink a beer. Now, let me see, what happens next....

A Donald Segretti Moment

2006-11-01T08:16:00.000-05:00

The mailings went out to homes all over the Philadelphia suburbs, apparently targeting areas known for support of Democratic candidates.

The brochures compared and contrasted the public stands of U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum and his Democratic opponent, Bob Casey Jr. The message was clear: on a number of hot-button issues, such as gay marriage, abortion, stem cell research and gun control, the two candidates hold similar positions. So why draw the contrast?

Well, the sponsor of the brochure was a group called the Progressive Policy Council, which stated it's mission iis to "advocate for progressive public policy solutions for contemporary social issues."

Still, for many recipients, it was a head scratcher. What was the point? Was this a liberal group urging progressives to sit out the election, rather than choose between Casey and Santorum -- implying there really was no difference between the two pols?

It sure looked that way, until people began scratching below the surface. For one thing, when people went to the web address listed on the brochure nothing was there (as of Monday). Later, notice went up saying, in so many words, "Watch This Space."

A check of clips turned up zero on the Progressive Policy Council. And I do mean zero. It's rare, to say the least, for a non-profit advocating policy to never, ever get a mention, especially since the brochure said it was headquartered in Arlington, Va. in the heart of the Beltway.

What is this ghost of an organization? Well, the sheet's been lifted, thanks to TPMMuckraker.com, a site sponsored by the Talking Points Memo. Reporter Paul KIel posted an item yesterday that disclosed that the person who filed for the corporate charter for the group in June was a guy named Jason Torchinsky.

Torchinsky is a lawyer with a mega-Washington law firm. But, more important, he is a former Bush-Cheney Campaign political operative. He was on the campaign's payroll in 2004. He is also involved, according to the clips, with the Voting Rights Legislation Fund, another Republican front group involved in ways to suppress voter turnout.
So, what we appear to have here is a Republican-financed phony mailing from a non-existent group seeking to suppress Democratic turnout. It's a dirty trick -- though that's the cleaned up version of what Donald Segretti and his merry pranksters called this kind of stuff.

They called it (explicit language alert) ratfucking.

Questions & Answers

2006-10-31T08:23:00.000-05:00

Question: Who awards himself with a donut for every $100,000 he raises? Answer

Question: Who was the first to discover that "finmeccanica" is an Italian phrase meaning "nepotism." Answer

Question: Is there any evidence that the residency issue is still bedeviling Rick Santorum ? Answer

Question: Who got on a bus imediately afterwards and headed for Atlantic City? Answer

Question: What do you do when you are trialing in double digits and it's a week out from election day? Answer

Inside the Fishbowl

2006-10-26T08:46:00.000-04:00

When I was a kid reporter, the Editorial Board of the paper was strictly off limits.
It was on another floor. The Editorial Writers rarely mingled with reporters. Even when they did call -- usually to ask a mundane question about a story we did -- they began by offering their apologies for breaching the wall between the two departments.
This is the way is was meant to be. The Editorial Board dealt with Opinion. The reporters dealt with Facts. The same is true today. As a reporter, I have no business in trying to convince the board to take a certain position on an issue. In the same way, members of the Editorial Board have no business in trying to influence what stories I write or cover.
And it always exhibited itself at election time. Though you could never convince candidates of it, the two sides rarely communicated with each other. In fact, when candidates came to talk to the Board, it was strictly off-the-record and reporters were barred from the proceedings.
That Church-State separation remains true today, but the secrecy has melted away.
Now, when folks visit to talk to the Editorial Board, the sessions are on-the-record. Reporters on relevant beats get invited to sit in, free to report on the event in case any news erupts.
The new transparency is reflected in the architecture of the the board's meeting room. At The Inquirer, it is a large conference room with floor-to-ceiling windows facing the hallway and the main elevators on the 2nd floor of 400 North Board Street. They call it the fishbowl -- because it resembles one. In fact, they have decorated it with cloth and plastic fish, which hang from the ceiling.

This year the Editorial Board took a second step in opening up the process. It has taken to recording its candidate interviews and posting them on the web. Here is the home page of the interviews posted so far.

The board has begun trying to get competing candidates to appear at the same time, so they can hold a face-to-face debate. So far, they got candidates in the three hottest congressional races in the Philly region to do it.

Theyturned out to be fairly meaty sessions, where the candidates are asked to discourse on a variety of issues. The sessions -- and the recordings -- often last for more than a hour.

A lot of what you hear, at least at the beginning are the standard stump speeches. But, then the questions begin and the back-and-forth can get fairly heated.

I encourage you to scan through them. For those of you who don't have the hours needed to listen to them in their totality, let me offer a brief highlights guide:

In the the 1st installment of the Bob Casey Jr. interview, go to minute 21:second 19 to hear him on the issue of immigration reform and slam Rick Santorum for being a hypocrite and fraud on the issue.

In Casey 2, hear him get passionate about Social Security, from minute 0 to about minute 5:00.

Hear a Q&A on his contradictory stands on wireless wiretapping from 5:11 through 9:00.

And, at 15:55 hear him answer this question: "Are you too mild-mannered to fight for Pennsylvania?

In Santorum 1, hear him give a lucud exposition on the topic "Why I Deserve to Be Re-election," from 0:00 to 2:34. At 2:50, he launches into a seven-minute disquisition on Iraq, but seeks to make the case that Iran is the real threat. At around 9:00, he begins to talk about Islamofascism -- one of his favorite topics. Note: Casey & Santorum appeared before the board on different days.

In Rendell I, he is asked to list some of his accomplishments at 0:00. He finally rolls to a stop at 21:16. Along the way, he bitches about how The Inquirer has failed to cover his many achievements.

In Rendell 2, he is asked about the notorious and nefarious pay grab at 0:58 and he tells why he signed it and why he now thinks it is a mistake until about 5:00. At 5:40, he does a four-minute riff about how lousy the press is in reporting his achievements. (You may notice a trend here.)

In Swann 1, he makes his basic pitch on "Why You Should Vote for Me," from 0:00 through 4:20. The board then tells him Rendell's defense of the pay raise and he goes on a riff attacking the Governor for signing the bill from 4:20 for about three minutes. Note: Rendell & Swann appears before the board on different days. Also, at 18:15 through 23:47 Swann ends up boxing with the board over his property tax proposal.

In Swann 2, he boxes with the board over violence and gun control and makes it clear he is pure NRA on all measures. This section lasts from 0:00 to about 8:10.

Some other highlights:

In Gerlach/Murphy II, the two spar on their negative campaigns for about 5 minutes beginning at 18:55.

In Weldon/Sestak II, Weldon is asked about nepotism charges regarding his children at 0:00 and he defends himself up to 8:02. Sestak is then asked about charges that he's an abrasive S.O.B and he defends himself for about 6 minutes (He does go on. Sestak rarely wavered from his stump speech.) At 12:00 through 15:00, Weldon talks about his close ties to local pols, etc. and Sestak interrupts to call them "a bunch of bubbas" in the district. Weldon says, increduously: "Did you just call them bubbas?"

In Schwartz/Bhakta II, Bhatka is asked about his playing the race card in the Northeast at 4:05 and he answers at length. At 30:25, he is asked about his various DUI's and his "maturity" and he boxes with the Editorial Board for four minutes.

What's That Song I Hear?

2006-10-25T09:13:00.000-04:00

Time to play Taps for U.S. Rep. Don Sherwood.
The latest Keystone Poll out today shows him trailing his Democratic opponent, Chris Carney, by 9 percentage points in Pennsylvania's 10th Congressional District.
The problem isn't the margin in points. It's not impossible to make up the difference.
The problem is that voters in the district all know about Sherwood's extra-marital affair and they are judging him harshly for it. It's the issue that won't go away.
As Madonna told the Daily News: "The affair is the single driving issue in the campaign. You can't reach any other conclusion."
The poll, conducted by Terry Madonna's crew at Franklin & Marshall College had a sample of 384 voters and a plus/minus margin of error of 5%.
There is no reason for Sherwood to lose PA10 -- were it not for the sex scandal.
This used to be U.S. Rep. Joe McDade's district, but it was redrawn in reapportionment to extract Democratic-leaning Scranton and add rural Republican communities along the northern tier.
It is resolutely Republican in its voting habits. If anyone wants further evidence of the GOP being in trouble with the voters, the Keystone Poll provides it.
For instance, 40% of the district's voters give President Bush a performance rating of "Poor." Another 23% say it is "Only Fair." If this were school, that would average out to a D-minus grade. Not good.
In the gubernatorial race, Ed Rendell is ahead of Lynn Swann 50%-36%, with 14% DNK.
Most of the undecideds are leaning towards Rendell. He could end up winning by 10 points here. Astonishing.
In the U.S. Senate race, Rick Santorum leads Bob Casey Jr. 46%-41%, with 13% DNK. Again, most of the undecides are leaning towards the Democrat. Translation: Casey could win PA10 or Santorum could take it by a hair. The Casey name is known up here -- but this should be an area of the state where Santorum is king.

Another Day, Another Poll

2006-10-24T11:56:00.000-04:00

This one is from McClatchy-MSNBC, sample size 650, and it tracks with the results of most of the public polls in recent weeks.
It shows Bob Casey 12 points up on Rick Santorum in the U.S. Senate race, Gov. Rendell with a 21-point lead over Lynn Swann.

For the record, it was Casey 51% - Santorum 39% - 10% Undecided/Other
For the record, it was Rendell 56%- Swann 35% - 9% Undecided/Other

Here is the poll story, as it ran in the Centre Daily Times. Here is a link to the questionnaire. And, for number freaks, here is are the tabs from the poll.
A couple of interesting numbers that illuminate Santorum's problem:
A huge gender gap. Women prefer Casey 52%-35%
Problems among independent voters, who favor Casey 54%-36%
He is losing the Pa. Burbs, 52%-35%.

(Though I am always wary of regional breakdowns because of the small size of the sample.)

The margin of error in the poll overall is plus/minus 4%.

Speaking of which, the Santorum campaign is up with another (very clever) earth-tone Rick commercial called "Wrestling."

New & Recommended

2006-10-23T10:02:00.000-04:00

The Times of London dips into the Senate race in Pennsylvania and pronounces it a harbinger of a return of Reagan Democrats to the Democratic fold. It's a bit of a stretch to me, but it's worth reading.

My colleague Carrie Budoff's profile of Rick Santorum in the Sunday Inquirer. And Tom Fitzgerald's profile of Bob Casey Jr. in the same paper on the same day. A great headline over these pieces: The Megaphone Meets the Metronome.

Brad Bumstead's piece in the Tribune-Review indicates the Republicans are worried that they may lose control of the state House. These local elections don't get much attention in the media, so it's good to see this analysis.

A piece in the New York Sun, of all places, about a Republican mailing that blames Chris Carney for starting the Iraq War. Carney is the Democrat opposing the mistress-impaired U.S. Rep. Don Sherwood in PA10. The mailing signals a new shrillness in the race, probably due to the fact that Sherwood is down (and appears nearly out) in recent public polls.

A piece by Dennis Roddy of the Post-Gazette on Curt Weldon, an essay on the congressman's tendency of lurching towards "the dark corners of conjecture." (also known as the Wacko Factor.)

My colleague Mario Cattabiani has a nice piece in today's Inquirer about Lynn Swann's days as a Pittsburgh Steeler. Short sum: His former teammates love the guy, but some of them just don't see him as governor.

Finally, a link to the weekly Pennsy Political Podcast, which has a take off on Santorum's latest TV commercial, "Bicker," where he pronounces himself a fighter.

Become a Pundit, Win A Prize

2006-10-23T09:25:00.000-04:00

A reminder of my Pundit Contest.
Pick the winners of the statewide races in the Nov. 7th election and become a certified Political Pundit, plus win a $25 gift card to Borders.
In order to win, here is what you must do:

1. Correctly predict the winners of Pennsylvania's Nov. 7th election for Governor & U.S. Senate and list the percentage of votes each candidate gets. (For the record, the candidates for governor at Democrat Ed Rendell and Republican Lynn Swann; the candidates for U.S. Senate are Democrat Bob Casey Jr. and Republican Rick Santorum
2. As a tiebreaker, you must also predict the exact number of votes, rounded to the nearest thousand, that will be cast statewide in the race for U.S. Senate, which is the race that tops the ballot this year. (For the record, there are about 8 million registered voters in in Pennsylvania.)

Sample Entry:
Tom: I want to be a pundit!
Here is my prediction for the Nov. 7th election:
Bob Casey Jr. -- 54% of the vote Rick Santorum - 46%
Ed Rendell -- 58% Lynn Swann - 42%
Total votes cast: 3,773,000

The deadline is 11:59 p.m., Monday, Nov. 6th. Do not submit your entry via a posting. Send it to my email address: tferrick@phillynews.com Include your name and address.
The winner will be announced in this space at noon, Wednesday, Nov. 8th. The vote total will be based upon the latest Associated Press count as of 11 a.m. that day.

Don't miss this opportunity to become a pundit. Email your entry today!

More Mother's Milk

2006-10-20T09:31:00.000-04:00

As Jessie Unruh said, money is the mother's milk of politics.
Well, mommy sure has been pumping it out this year.
To date, the candidates for congress, governor and U.S. Senate have spent a total of $73 million in Pennsylvania.
But wait, there's more.
They had $38 million left to spend in the final weeks of the 2006 fall campaign.
By Nov. 7th, election spending by these candidates should exceed $111 million.
And that doesn't include the money being spent on behalf of candidates by party committees and various soft-money groups, a figure which I expect will total another $10 million, most of it going directly into television.
Nor does it include the millions being spent for state House and state Senate races, which I estimate will top $12 million this year.
Estimated grand total, when all is said and done, probably $130 to $140 million. It will average out to about $35 for each voter who shows up on Election Day. And that's a conservative estimate.

The most expensive race, not surprisingly, is the contest between U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum and Bob Casey Jr. The two candidate have spent $31 million so far, and had a total of $7 million on hand as of Sept. 30th. As of that same date, Santorum had outspent Casey $18.8 million to $11.2 million, but the yield on the extra $7.7 million Santorum spent has been poor. He has yet to break 40% in most of the head-to-head public opinion polls.

The most lopsided race, in terms of money and (most likely)in votes, is the race for governor. As of Sept. 18th, the two candidates had spent a total of $16.7 million and they had $17 million on hand to spend in the final seven weeks. But those totals are deceptive. Incumbent Gov. Ed Rendell ($12.6 million) has outspent Republican Lynn Swann ($4.1 million) by a margin of 3-1. Rendell has enough on hand to continue that pace. As of the latest report, he had $13.7 million in his campaign account, compared to $3.7 million for Swann. Another spending report is due next Friday.

The most expensive Congressional race so far has been in PA6, the Montco-Bucks-Chesco-Berks district where incumbent Republican Jim Gerlach faces Democrat Lois Murphy. The two had spent a total of $3.7 million as of 9-30, and had $2 million left. This is one race where the spending is even: Murphy has matched Gerlach dollar for dollar. This is also a race where the party committees are likely to match candidate spending in the final weeks. Here is OpenSecret.org's PA6 summary.

Close behind, we have the race in the Bucks-centered PA8 between incumbent U.S. Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick and challenger Pat Murphy. They had spent $3.2 million as of 9-30. This is one district where the challenger had the money edge going into the final weeks. Democrat Murphy had $632,000 on hand on 9-30, compared to Fitzpatrick's $446,000. Here is a PA8 summary.

Finally, we have the Delco-centered PA7, where incumbent U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon faces Democrat Joe Sestak. As of 9-30, the two had spent $2. million and had $2.6 million left, with a slight edge to Sestak. One must wonder, though, whether word of the federal investigation into Weldon's daughter and political associate Charlie Sexton will make who spends what in the final weeks irrelevant. Here is a PA7 summary.

In PA10, which spreads across a multitude of counties in the state's northeast tier, incumbent U.S. Rep Don Sherwood ($1.2 million) has outspent his Democratic opponent Chris Carney (660,000) by a margin of 2-1. But this may be another example of where money cannot buy happiness. Sherwood is being dragged down by his (admitted) extra-marital affair and his (denied) abuse of his mistress. Here is the PA10 summary.

Two other races of note:

-- In PA12, in the state's southwest, warhorse U.S. Rep. John Murtha is facing a challenge from Republican warhawk Diana Irey. Conervative Republicans hope to punish Murtha for his outspoken criticism of the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq War. But, it will be hard for Orey to gain traction without more money. So far, Murtha has outspent her 5-1. Here is a PA12 summary.
-- In PA13, which straddles Northeast Philly and Montco, freshman U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz faces the unitentionally hilarious Raj Bhakta. It's no content when he comes to money. Schwartz ($1.7 million) has outspent Bhatka ($352,000) by a margin of 5-1. Here is the latest PA13 summary.

If your favorite congressional race was omitted, go to OpenSecrets.org for details.

The Eye of Mordor?

2006-10-19T06:33:00.000-04:00

A friend who works at Bloomberg News in New York sent me an item yesterday in which Sen. Rick Santorum was quoted as saying that the United States has avoided a 2nd terrorist attack because the "Eye of Mordor" was drawn to Iraq.
I sent him a note back, telling him to stop kidding and not let something like that get out on the wire. These fantastical stories, done up as jokes, can get people into trouble.

Today, I get up and start doing by dawn web scan and what do I see? The following item from the Uniontown Herald-Standard:

LEVITTOWN - Embattled U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum said America has avoided a second terrorist attack for five years because the "Eye of Mordor" has instead been drawn to Iraq.

Santorum used the analogy from one of his favorite books, J.R.R. Tolkien's 1950s fantasy classic, "Lord of the Rings," to put an increasingly unpopular war in Iraq into terms any school kid could easily understand.

"As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else," Santorum said, describing the tool the evil Lord Sauron (blogger's note: the pix above is of Lord Sauron in happier days.) used in search of the magical ring that would consolidate his power over Middle-earth.
"It's being drawn to Iraq and it's not being drawn to the U.S.," he continued. "You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I don't want the Eye to come back here to the United States."
The 12-year Republican senator from Pennsylvania said he's "a big Lord of the Rings fan." He's read the first of the series, "The Hobbit" to his children (he has six).
...
Santorum made his comments before the Bucks County Courier Times editorial board late last week. The Bucks County Courier Times is a sister paper of the Herald-Standard. Both are owned by Calkins Media.

I think it's interesting that Santorum related his tale in "terms any school kid could easily understand" in an appearance before an editorial board. I wonder if he used finger puppets as well?

Come to think of it, though, President Bush does resemble Frodo.

Mood Indigo

2006-10-18T08:35:00.000-04:00

What's the mood of American voters as we head into the final weeks of the fall campaign?
I would pick the color indigo, which my dictionary defines as "deeper than night blue."
The polls tell us the mood is strong anti-Bush, anti-Congress, anti-incumbent, anti-Iraq War and that the majority of voters think the country is headed in the wrong direction. Blue voters tend to vote blue.
The problem with this polling data is that while you can ask questions that reflect on mood, there is no precise and direct way to predict voter behavior based upon that data. The missing ingredient: the measure of intensity.
For instance, we know that conservative Republicans are turned off by the scandals in Washington, but are they so deflated that will stay home on Election Day? We know that Democrats are upset about the Iraq War, but are they upset enough to turn out in droves to punish the ruling party? Finally, we know that most Americans are unhappy with the job perfrormance of Congress, but does that reverberate locally, where voters tend to vote the man, not the party?
So many questions, so little time.
Let's take a look at the snapshots we do have for answers.
First, there are benchmark questions related to job performance of President Bush and Congress. To put it gently, their ratings suck. RealClearPolitics, a wonderful site which does a rolling average of the polls taken nationally, puts the President's approval rating around 39% and gives Congress an abysmal 27%. This is up from late summer, but still lousy.
On pollsters' favorite "mood" question -- Do you think the country is headed in the right direction or wrong direction? -- the RealClear average is 29% right to 65% wrong. A bad omen for incumbents and the party in power. Here are all the numbers from recent polls if you want to run you fingers through them.

Next, we have the situation in Pennsylvania. How do these trends lines reflect in the hot local races? In sum, it means a lot of Republican incumbents are vulnerable.
At the top of the pyramid is incumbent U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, stuck at 40% in head-to-heads with his Democratic opponent Bob Casey Jr. in public polls for months. You don't need polling data to know that Santorum is losing. You can see it on his face.
The RealClearPolitics average has it at Casey 49.5%-Santorum 40.0%- 9.5% undecided at of mid-October. Santorum would have to capture all the undecideds to win. That's not at all likely, given past trends. Because of the mood indigo, most undecideds are expected to go to the Democrats this year.

In the congressional races, were have two special situations.
In PA10, there is incumbent Rep. Don Sherwood, who shouldn't even be breaking a sweat because his district is so decidedly Republican. But, Sherwood is in trouble -- apparently deep trouble -- because of disclosure that he has kept a mistress in Washington and an allegation that he abused her. All the fall polls done in the district have Carney up 7 to 14 points. Again, you don't need to look at the polls to see that Sherwood is in trouble. Just view his own link '>TV commercial, where he does a major mea culpa for the folks back home.
In PA7, incumbent Curt Weldon was already locked in a tough fight with Joe Sestak. Then, this week, came word of a federal investigation into Weldon, centered around the lobbying-public relations firm started by his daughter Karen and political ally Charlie Sexton. The papers this week were filled with pix of FBI agents carrying boxes of material from Karen Weldon's home in Philly and Sexton's house in Delco. Long story short, Weldon is toast. The damage from the investigation -- combined with all the other drag factors -- will tip the race to Sestak, a fresh face who has run a credible campaign.

To me, the bellweather races are PA6 and PA8. These are seats with strong Republican incumbents who should win -- unless the indigo does them in.
In PA6, U.S. Rep. Jim Gerlach is in a rematch with Democrat Lois Murphy. The most recent polls show the race trending slightly to Murphy. My rule of thumb this year is: unless the incumbent is up 3 points or more in the final polls of the season, he is done for. That's based on the assumption that Election Day will be indigo in color, with turnout favoring the anti's.
In PA8, we have first termer Mike Fitzpatrick against Democrat Pay Murphy. The credible polls there are trending towards Fitzpatrick, which is ironic -- at the beginning of the year, he was considered the most vulnerable, but he seems to have done a good job in putting distance between himself and the Bush administration.

A Jon Lovitz Moment

2006-10-17T08:26:00.000-04:00

In watching the third and final Casey-Santorum debate last night on TV, I couldn't help thinking of a line fed to me by a commenter after their first face-to-face in Pittsburgh the other week.
He said it reminded him of the old Saturday Night Live skit where Jon Lovitz plays Michael Dukakis in a debate.
At one point, Lovitz stares into the camera and says: "I can't believe I'm losing to this guy!"
Anyone who saw Rick Santorum's face during the debate realizes he was having a Jon Lovitz moment.
The incumbent admits to being "exasperated" by what he says is the Democrats refusal to give detailed answers. But it's clear Santorum's exasperation is more cosmic. He is losing this race. He knows it. The tectonics in the final weeks are moving against Republicans. He keeps trying to get his hooks into Casey. He cannot. To use another word (see post below), he is flustrated. And it shows.
Here is a sampling of debate coverage in The Inquirer, in the Post-Gazette and in the Daily News.
The concensus appears to be: Casey did well by not doing poorly. He is no match to Santorum on the facts (as the Republican keeps pointing out), but is able to get his points across. In fact, last night's debate -- as opposed to the rock 'em-sock 'em one in Pittsburgh -- was more about laying out their respective talking points which, to boil down to their essence, are as follows:
Santorum: Bob Casey an empty suit born on third base who is not up to the job of being U.S. Senator.
Casey: Santorum is a Bush lap dog who holds extremist views and who doesn't deserve re-election as U.S. Senator.

The Benjamin Factor

2006-10-16T15:33:00.000-04:00

More of the campaign finance reports for federal candidates are being filed on the Federal Elections Commission web site. You can find it under Useful Sites on the right.
The reports were due Oct. 15th for the three-month period ending Sept. 30th.

The big news is how well Bob Casey did in fundraising in the 3rd quarter. He raised $4.1 million dollars in 12 weeks and had $3.7 million on hand as of Sept. 30th. Casey is the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate. The 3rd-quarter report of Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum was not available on the FEC site as of this afternoon. I'll check tomorrow.

Postscript added Oct. 17: The Santorum numbers show that he raised $3.5 million in the 12 weeks leading up to Sept. 30 and had $3.5 million on hand as of 9-30. Santorum has raised a total of $23.2 million, compared to Casey's $14.7 million. That said, both candidates had roughly the same amount on hand for the final weeks of the campaign.

I've also run the numbers on selected Congressional races, which you can find here.

The reports that date from June 30th, the last filing deadline, are noted in boldface.
I'll search for updates on these as well.

The important figure is Cash on Hand -- the amount of money the candidate had left in his campaign treasury as of Sept. 30th. As you can see, most of the candidates had healthy balances socked away on that date for the five weeks before the Nov. 7th election.

Postscript added Oct. 18th: All the 9/30 reports are posted and I have amended my table to reflect the new filings. Any candidate with a boldface date were not up-to-date when I filed originally.

This Just In....

2006-10-16T13:41:00.000-04:00

The FBI this morning raided the homes of Karen Weldon and Charlie Sexton and departed carrying out boxes of material from both. Read the Philly.com story here.

Also, see the posting directly below for background on the case.

FBI Probes Weldon

2006-10-16T12:33:00.000-04:00

In what could be a kiss of death to his re-election campaign, there were a spate of news stories over the weekend that U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon is under federal investigation.
The story was broken by the McClatchy Newspapers Washington Bureau on Friday. It quickly spread to the Washington Post, the wires, and to the Inquirer. Bob Warner has more on it in today's Daily News as part of a profile of the race in Delaware County's 7th Congressional District, where the 10-term Republican congressman is already facing a strong challenge from Democrat Joe Sestak.
The case involves Weldon's daughter, Karen, and a lobbying-consulting group she created along with Charlie Sexton, the Springfield Twp., Pa. Republican political boss.
A graph from an AP story on the probe:
Two people familiar with the investigation confirmed that federal agents were examining Weldon's work between 2002 and 2004 to help two Russian companies and two Serbian brothers connected to former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. They had hired Solutions North America Inc., a company operated by Karen Weldon and Charles Sexton, a Republican ally of the congressman.
The Weldon story first broke in the Los Angeles Times, which did a 3,500-word investigative piece on the Karen Weldon business in 2004. Go here for the complete text of the LAT story.
The case was referred to the House Ethics Committee, which never made a public ruling on the matter.
Now it looks as if the feds are on the case.

Live Update

2006-10-16T08:51:00.000-04:00

As I write this, Rick Santorum and Bob Casey are debating live on KYW-AM Radio. You can link up via the KYW site.
To summarize the debate so far:
Santorum is accusing Casey of not working hard enough and Casey is criticizing Santorum for working too hard for the wrong causes.
The debate is a low-keyed version of their slugfest in Pittsburgh last wee.
The two will debate again tonight at 7 p.m. on WPVI-TV (Channel 6), with a rebroadcast on PCN at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.

Become a Pundit, Win a Prize

2006-10-16T06:48:00.000-04:00

People always ask me: How can I become a political pundit? The short answer is, you must be accepted into membership in the American Pundits Guild.This is a select group, created by the National Newspaper Columnists Act of 1934, which dispenses about 90 percent of this nation's punditry. (It used to be 100%, but some of it has been off-shored to India in recent years.)
The APG is headquartered – where else? -- in Washington, D.C. The current head is E. J. Dionne. His official title is Most High Priest, but we won't get into that now.
Because this is the Blog That Cares ©, I am going to once again offer you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to become a certified political pundit -- and win a wonderful prize!
All you must do is enter my Semi-Annual Regional Pundits Contest.
The winner will get an official APG certificate, suitable for framing, declaring him or her a Political Pundit, First Class.
You will also win a $25 gift card to Borders, which will come from my very own Pundit's Expense Account (which I will list as "Lunch with Source.")
In order to win, here is what you must do:

1. Correctly predict the winners of Pennsylvania's Nov. 7th election for Governor & U.S. Senate and list the percentage of votes each candidate gets. (For the record, the candidates for governor at Democrat Ed Rendell and Republican Lynn Swann; the candidates for U.S. Senate are Democrat Bob Casey Jr. and Republican Rick Santorum

2. As a tiebreaker, you must also predict the exact number of votes, rounded to the nearest thousand, that will be cast statewide in the race for U.S. Senate, which is the race that tops the ballot this year. (For the record, there are about 8 million registered voters in in Pennsylvania.)

Sample Entry:
Tom: I want to be a pundit! Here is my prediction for the Nov. 7th election:
Bob Casey Jr. -- 54% of the vote
Rick Santorum - 46%

Ed Rendell -- 58%
Lynn Swann - 42%

Total votes cast: 3,773,000

The deadline is 11:59 p.m., Monday, Nov. 6th.

Do not submit your entry via a posting.
Send it to my email address: tferrick@phillynews.com
Include your name and address.

The winner will be announced in this space at noon, Wednesday, Nov. 8th. The vote total will be based upon the latest Associated Press count as of 11 a.m. that day.

Don't miss this opportunity to become a pundit. Email your entry today!

Jab, Punch, Jab, Punch

2006-10-13T08:25:00.000-04:00

Towards the end of the Phillies season, as the team was in the midst of its (as always) losing effort to make the playoffs, manager Charlie Manuel was asked on a radio interview about Pat Burrell, the Phils perpetually slumping slugger.
I feel bad for Pat, Charlie replied, he's flustrated.
Thus, with his marvelous malaprop, did Manuel coin a new and wonderful word. A conflation of flustered and frustrated, flustration perfectly decribes those moments when things are going bad and you don't know what to do about it.
In the race for the U.S. Senate, Rick Santorum is flustrated.
The incumbent has spent $10 million or more to earn the love and respect of Pennsylvania voters and has fallen short -- way short. If the election were held today, Santorum would lose, perhaps by double-digits. Even with three-plus weeks until Election Day, it is unlikely he can catch up, his own problems compounded by the anti-Bush drag that threatens all Republicans. Political professionals (and professional bettors) have started to look at Pennsylvania and put a check mark next to the name of Bob Casey Jr.
So, is it any surprise that Santorum came out swinging at last night's televised debate on KDKA? To describe it, reporters covering the debate reached into their huge kit bags of sports cliches and pulled out the ones under the heading "BOXING." Here's a sample of the coverage: on KDKA-TV, which hosted the debate, in the Inquirer, in the Post-Gazette, (which also includes audio links) and in the Patriot News, whose story carried the headline: The gloves come off.

With Santorum, as always, what you see is you get: cold political calculation -- an aggressive debate strategy designed to rough-up Casey -- mixed with red-hot emotion. As he said at the end of the debate: "You can see from this debate -- I'm a passionate guy. I'm tough. I'm a fighter. But you know what? I'm an Italian kid from a steel town. What do you expect from me? ... I wasn't born into a family that had a great name."

Of course, Santorum's central problem is the feeling among voters that while he's happy to fight for you, he's just as happy to fight you. An example is the YouTube moment the senator had last month in Camp Hill, Pa. where a voter, who questioned the senator's residency, set Santorum off. Even when she tried to back off, he chased her down to verbally smack her a few more times. Have a nice day!
Santorum's first task in this campaign was to shed his image, apparently fixed in the minds of Democratic and swing voters, that he is an arrogant (explicit language alert) asshole, with a touch of fanaticism. My Merriam-Webster's defines fanaticism as an exhibition of "excessive enthusiasm, unreasoning zeal, or wild and extravagant notions on some subject." Sounds about right.
This is a tough image to shake and the poll numbers indicate Santorum hasn't succeeded, despite a series of ads designed to portray him as a nice guy. Santorum does burn hot. It surely flustrates him that what he sees as an asset -- his passion -- has become such a liability. In recent ads -- and in last night's debate -- he's shed the happy-face Mr. Nice Guy tee-shirt and gone back to being The Fighter.

But fight against whom? So far, he's been campaigning against a ghost. The Casey strategy has been to keep their guy under wraps and keep the focus on Santorum, under the sound theory that the incumbent's worst enemy is the guy who stares back at him when he looks into the mirror of his (Washington? Penn Hills?) home. Through the summer and into the fall, Santorum's been dancing around the ring, his gloves on, punching and jabbing at thin air. Last night, Casey showed up in the flesh, knowing Santorum would be coming at him, so he answered in kind. Santorum's better at it, but those Casey blows about cyberschooling hit the incumbent where it hurt the most with Pittsburgh voters.

The two meet again next week in debates in Philadelphia, so get your scoring cards ready. At least it will be interesting. But, at this late stage of the campaign, with Santorum's numbers stuck on loser, will it make a difference?

Like Charlie Manuel said, it's flustrating.

The Unbearable Lightness of Raj Peter Bhakta

2006-10-12T08:20:00.001-04:00

Somewhere between farce and the absurd lies the congressional campaign of Raj Peter Bhakta.
The 30-year-old Montgomery County resident is running against Democratic incumbent Rep. Allyson Schwartz in Pennsylvania's 13th Congressional District, which sits astride Northeast Philadelphia and the Montco suburbs.
Maybe the word "running" should be in quotes. In political terms, this is a laugher. Bhakta has no money, no visible party support, no new ideas and no chance.
The 13th was redesigned in the 2000 re-apportionment to tilt Republican. Instead, Schwartz, who is a freshman, is the runaway favorite. So it goes.
What Bhakta does bring to the table is celebrityhood, albeit a weak-tea version of it. He appeared on the television show "The Apprentice," in 2004, before being booted off by The Donald in episode seven.
Almost weekly, Raj displays for us the vast difference between being youthful and being juvenile.
Since he got the Republican nomination, Raj has been hamming it up, bringing his flair for self-promotion to bear on a variety of issues. First, he put the spotlight on crime. Now, it is on illegal immigration, though it's more accurate to say that the spotlight is always on Raj. It is the Reality-TV school of politics. In fact, in a exquisite example of life imitating art imitating life, Raj has had a camera crew following him. Their hope is to turn the Raj campaign into a reality TV series. My suggested working title: The Fool.
Given this background, why am I not surprised to see Raj in the news again, this time from the U.S.-Mexican border near Brownsfield, Texas making a point about illegal immigration -- with three elephants in tow, along with a six-piece mariachi band.
Let's pick up an AP dispatch about the stunt:
Bhakta paraded an elephant and the band through the water near the mouth of the Rio Grande along the Texas-Mexico border Tuesday.
"The elephant never made landfall into Mexico, but I tell you something, he could have made 15 laps back and forth, but no one showed up," Bhakta, a Republican, said in yesterday's Brownsville Herald.
Bhakta, who favors construction of a fence along the border, said he was in Brownsville to raise money with friends when he saw a half-dozen men swimming under one of the international bridges "with complete immunity" and decided to pull the stunt.
Circus producer James Plunkett said he had been hired for the photo shoot and had provided three elephants.
Plunkett said his crew had entered the Boca Chica beach area in Texas and remained for about an hour. The Border Patrol alerted the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the elephants were detained and sprayed for ticks, then released, the newspaper reported.

Myself, I wish that Raj had been detained and sprayed for ticks, but there is no justice in life.

Country Club Republican

2006-10-11T08:26:00.000-04:00

I've often wondered why the Lynn Swann campaign wasted the spring and most of the summer dithering when it had a wonderful opportunity to make merry over the issue of the legislative pay raise. Let me count the ways I think it could have helped the Republican challenger:
First, Swann's handlers could have used the pay-raise as a fulcrum to position their candidate as an outsider-reformer who would shake Harrisburg out of its politics-as-usual stupor that had so angered voters. Suggested slogan for the campaign: I'm angry as Hell and I won't take it anymore!
Second, it was a stance that would have taken Swann's lemon -- his lack of government and political experience -- and turned it into lemonade. Suggested slogan: A New Broom Sweeps Clean. (It's a bald theft of the Clean Sweep movement's slogan and icon, but what the heck.)
Third, it would cast Gov. Rendell in the role of retrograde -- excuse the expression -- fat cat pol in bed with the forces of evil. He signed the damned payraise bill in exchange for what? More of his pet tax- and- spend programs that's what! Suggested slogan: We don't need a governor who kisses ass. We need a governor who kicks ass. (Swann's machismo aura as a former jock would help here.) It could have positioned Swann early and strongly as The Reform Candidate.
Fourth, it would have played well in the Angry Zone of Pennsylvania -- that vast area west of the Susquehanna River, where go-for-the-throat populism strikes a chord with many voters. That's a voter base which, once you add in the Republican T, would have given Swann some solid ground from which to wage his (admittedly uphill) campaign.
In retrospect, though, I was wrong.
While the idea of running a populist campaign against Rendell was a good one, Swann's the wrong guy to do it. And watching him try is painful.
That's because he's the rich white guy in the race.
Whoops! Strike that. That was Jim Seif's characterization of Swann made before the primary. Seif, campaign manager for Bill Scranton, uttered it on a PCN call-in program and was promptly fired for his observation. As Seif explained to The Inquirer at the time:
"There's no excuse. It was a stupid thing to say," said Seif, who added that the comment was not intended as a racial slur. Seif said he was trying to say that Swann, who portrays himself as a political outsider, was really part of the establishment.

Seif said the wrong words, but he had the right idea. More accurately, Swann is a Country Club Republican -- a wealthy and comfortable member of the establishment. It's quite an accomplishment for an African-American born to parents of modest means, a transmigration made possible by sports.
The country club part came through last night when I watched Rendell and Swann debate on WPVI-TV. Go here for video snippets.
Swann is, in many ways, an ideal TV-age candidate: He is an articulate, handsome man, who looks 10 years younger than his chronological 55. He exudes poise, especially when set beside the rumpled Rendell. In this debate (the last) the governor clearly had the command of facts, but Swann had the commanding presence.
Here is the Inquirer's Amy Worden take on the debate. Here is the PG's story on it.
But Swann simply isn't credible in trying on the mantle of "citizen soldier" ready to take on the Harrisburg establishment. He's not running to burn down the country club. He's running to chair its board of directors.
His views -- as enunciated in the debate and elsewhere -- are a paint-by-the-numbers reiteration of Republican positions dating back, oh, about 100 years. Even when given the opportunity by Rendell to join the anti-gun movement (and maybe attract some urban votes) he declined. Guns don't kill people, Swann said, in so many words. People kill people.
It's pretty weak tea when set beside Rendell's governor-as-activist model. Think of FDR versus Calvin Coolidge. (who, I understand, was a pretty mean golfer.)
This is not meant as a shot at Swann. In politics, above all, you must be true to yourself. Swann's not a ranter. He's not a populist. He's not angry. And he won't pretend to be.
It's obviously too much of a pretzel twist for him to to run against the Republican establishment when he is the candidate of that establishment.
What we get is a vigorous, youthful, commanding candidate with nothing much interesting to say.
And the voters are telling the pollsters they aren't at all impressed.

Place Your Bets

2006-10-10T08:03:00.000-04:00

Most of politics, including this blog, is nothing but talk, talk, talk. So let's take a reality check and ask the people who put their money where their mouth is. I'm talking bettors. My colleague Andy Cassel pointed this site out. It's a blog called Econbrowser. Its latest posting shows where bettors are putting their money when it comes to control of the U.S. House and Senate. (To sum up, the money is trending Democratic.) Most of the betting is done on a site called Tradesports, which offers this chart of bets on the U.S. Senate race in PA.

It's not clear enough to see details, but you catch the drift. The statement that goes along with this chart is: Republican Party candidate to win the U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania.

Postscript: For more political charts, go to Tradesports, click on politics and use the search engine. This site doesn't use names that much, mostly races. Try Pennsylvania as a search term.

A Rising Tide

2006-10-10T06:30:00.000-04:00

With the release of yet another poll showing Ed Rendell with a double-digit lead over Lynn Swann, it may be time to play one of my favorite math games: "What If?"
The latest poll, by the way, is the Allentown Call/Muhlenberg College poll, which shows Rendell with a 21-point lead. That spread is 5 points higher than an August poll by the same group. In that poll, there were 14% undecided. In the latest, there are 9% undecided. To put it another way, Rendell picked up all the undecideds from August.
So, what if Rendell beats Swann on Nov. 7th by 21 points? What would his margin be and what impact would it have on the rest of the Democratic ticket? Does a rising tide lift all boats? Or do modern, savvy voters pick through the ballot, gleefully splitting their tickets?

Let's look back before we look forward. In 2002, Rendell beat his Republican opponent, Mike Fisher, by 9 percentage points or 324,000 votes. The Democrat got 53% to Fisher's 44%. Green Party and Libertarian candidates got a total of 3%.
Go here for a breakdown of the 2002 vote totals by media market.

Now, the question recurs: What if Rendell wins by 20 points. The way I see it, each point will be worth 36,000 or so votes -- I'm assuming here that voter turnout is roughly the same as in 2002. So, the math is :

36,000 x 20 = 720,000 votes.

A win of that dimension would have to have a coattail effect.

Of course, folks will say: It's not possible for Rendell to win by 20 points. The race will tighten. Republicans will come home. Swann will exceed 40 percent of the vote. But ask yourself these two questions:

Do you think Swann will do better or worse than Mike Fisher did in 2002?

Do you think Rendell will do better or worse than he did in 2002?

It is likely that Swann will do worse and likely that Rendell will do better. A 60-40 race is not out of the question, especially since so most public polls are showing the percentage of undecideds in single digits. And, since the electorate seems to be trending anti-Republican, it's likely that a lot of those undecideds will break Democratic.

By the way, most political professionals I talk to can't believe that Rendell could win by 20 points. They predict a victory for the incumbent, but not of that proportion. They put it at the 12- to 16-point range.

But, you've got the numbers. Go and play with them and come up with your own "What If?" scenario.

A Churchillian Moment

2006-10-06T10:50:00.000-04:00

U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum was only half way through his declamation on Islamofascism yesterday (Thurs. 10-06) when a quote from Winston Churchill, nestled somewhere deep within my brain, struggled up to the surface. It was his famous definition of a fanatic -- as someone who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.
Santorum was visiting the Inquirer's Editorial Board for its endorsement meeting, an on-the-record interview that is a ritual for candidates at election time. Santorum's relationship with the Editorial Board has not been one of mutual warmth and affection, but it was a civil encounter because the board was content mostly to let the senator do the talking.
And talk he did.
Santorum's discourse on the manifold evils of radical Islam was a Reader's Digest version of one he gave earlier at the Harrisburg Press Club. You can find the full text of that speech here.
I won't go into the merits of his argument. There are other blogs for that.
No, the thought that struck wasn't philosophical or theological. It was purely political.
Rick Santorum is running for President of the United States.
And he is running as Winston Churchill.
If he does win re-election on Nov. 7th (a prospect that looks doubtful at this point) he will run as a political wunderkind: A red-meat conservative who survived against all odds in a blue state. If can win in Pennsylvania, imagine what he can do elsewhere? He becomes just what the Republican party needs to lead it out of the wilderness.
If he loses, he runs as a Martyr-Saint of True Conservatism. The man who stood by his principles, spoke the truth as he saw it, and went down to defeat due to a (temporary and regrettable ) triumph of moral and political relativism. He becomes just what the Republican party needs to lead it out of the wilderness.
The analogy to Churchill is not my own, it is the senator's.
As Santorum tells it, this is not 2006 and the United States is not grappling with mere terrorism. This is 1936 and we are facing the rise of Fascism. Why can't we see the clear and present danger? Because we are besotted by the vices and enticements of the modern world. Fat and happy, zonked out on HDTV, too morally and intellectually weak to see the manifest evil of our enemy.
Iran is an example. Europe wants to pretty-please the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad out of developing nuclear weapons. Even President Bush is dithering. In short,
the best lack all conviction, while the worst are filled with passionate intensity…
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Why, it's Islamofacism.
(I always wondered what that poem meant.)
It is easy to get swept away in the Santorum cosmology: Good vs. Evil. Islam vs. Christianity. East vs. West. It is also equally easy to hear it in and say: This is f%#*ing nuts!
But that's beside the point.
The point is the political value of these views to Santorum. People who to react to Santorum viscerally (pro or con) tend to forget that he is a wonderfully talented and skilled politician. . He's won two terms in the Senate in a state where, arguably, he is way too conservative for the average voter. He has risen quickly to a leadership position in the Senate, and (if re-elected) he seems destined to go higher. Along with regular discourses on Faith, Life & the American Way, he also delivers the pork to the folks back home. (As yesterday's meeting, he took credit for $800 million of the $1.2 billion Philadelphia has received to redo its public housing.) His political campaigns are models of smart media and brilliant field operations.
In short, Rick Santorum may pray the rosary, but he's also read Machiavelli.
And now he has decided to become Winston Churchill, which is a wonderful thing to be, if he can pull it off. Resolute, fearless and eloquent. What a glorious combination.
Of course, Santorum lacks Churchill's benign public demeanor -- something he shared with his fellow artistocrat, Franklin Roosevelt. The senator can't help but exude arrogance, a trait that is off-putting, but probably beyond remediation. It's hard-wired into his personality.
He also lacks on his current vita an important chapter in Churchill's life -- his years in political exile between the two World Wars, when he was scorned by liberals and conservatives alike as an eccentric liability to any regime in power. The one-word title of second volume of William Manchester's great biography of Churchill tells it all. "Alone."
The thought crossed my mind yesterday, whilst the senator was launching his peroration on Islamofascism, that the likelihood of defeat has crossed his mind. Not to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but to Bob Casey. And that he is preparing himself, psychologically and politically, for the next stage in his life. One that would last, he would hope, not 18 years as Churchill's did, but 18 months.

A Full Brenda Lee

2006-10-05T07:48:00.000-04:00

What do you do when you are an incumbent congressman, behind in the polls, getting hammered by your opponent over an (admitted) extra-marital affair that includes an allegation (denied) of physical abuse?
You do a full Brenda Lee.

You apologize. You get on your knees (metaphorically, of course) and ask for forgiveness. You sing (ditto on the the metaphor)-- as Brenda did, in her plaintive, tearful voice: I'm Sorry
Or, as Brenda so aptly put it:

I'm sorry) I'm sorry
(So sorry) So sorry
Please accept my apology
But love is blind
And I was to blind to see
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Uh-oh
Oh, yes

Oh yes, indeed. This is what U.S. Rep. Don Sherwood did this week, with a mea maxima culpa TV ad that aired in Pennsylvania's 10th Congressional District, which runs along the top of the state on the right-hand side of the Republican "T."

Here is a link to the Sherwood ad.

Sherwood's ad is in direct response to one aired by his Democratic opponent, Chris Carney, called "Father" which directly criticizes the incumbent for his sexual indiscretions. I blogged on this earlier.

This should be one of the safest Republican seats in the country -- it was re-apportioned to be one -- but Sherwood may be the most vulnerable GOP incumbent in the state.

If you parse Sherwood's message, he is posing an interesting question to voters in the 10th: Who do you want in Congress: an admitted philanderer who usually votes your way or a good family man who often won't vote your way?

Or as Brenda would say: Oh, oh, oh, oh,uh-oh...oh, yes

Oh Yeah, Sez Who? Sez Me, That's Who

2006-10-05T06:21:00.000-04:00

Ed Rendell and Lynn Swann held their first televised debate last night (Wed. Oct. 5) in Pittsburgh. It was broadcast locally on KDKA-TV, which offers this highlight.
The Post-Gazette story includes audio links to the debate, though (I warn you) they take a while to download.
John Baer's take is that it was a Rendell win, though he gives Swann points for poise and aggressiveness.
Angela Couloumbis has a piece in The Inquirer that extracts what are probably the two best lines of the night:
"Well, Lynn, you'll learn that the people of Pennsylvania don't elect you king," Rendell said, explaining that his property-tax plan is primarily targeted to helping low-income seniors because lawmakers were unwilling to raise other taxes in order to offset more cuts in property-tax bills. "You have to work with the legislature."
"He's always complaining that it's the legislature's fault," Swann said at one point earlier in the debate. At another point, he said: "I believe in the two R's - I believe in reform, and I believe in results. My opponent believes in the two R's as well. He believes in rhetoric, and he believes in Rendell."

To underscore that point, the Swann campaign went up with a new ad yesterday called "Decades" that is a LOL hoot. It's from the shop of John Braebender, who is also Santorum's media guy.

Three Quick Items

2006-10-04T06:09:00.000-04:00

It Isn't Easy Being Green
The Supremes have ousted the Green Party's Carl Romanelli from the ballot in the race for the U.S. Senate. It was done in a one-line dismissal of his suit, challenging the state Election Bureau's call that it would take 67,000 voter signatures for the Green candidate to get on the ballot. Here is Jim OToole's take on the ruling. See my earlier post on this, The Romanelli Factor. The bottom line: this is bad news for the Santorum campaign.

Get Out the Popcorn
Coming to the tube tonight, the second debate between Gov. Rendell and challenger Lynn Swann. This one is in Pittsburgh. It will be televised there on KDKA-TV and in the rest of the state on the Pennsylvania Cable Network at 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. I have satellite and don't get PCN, so I'm going to have to get someone to tape it for me. Here is an Angela Couloumbis piece on the debate and what it all means.

Bang, Bang, Shoot 'Em Up
So much for the effect of the Lancaster slaughter. The state House yesterday rejected a bill to limit hand gun sales to one a month in Pennsylvania. It was an anonymous straw vote -- one of more than 100 taken on various bills to deal with violence. The vote was 130-63. Here is Catherine Lucey's piece on it. My bet is that if the vote was public -- and legislators had to record where they stood -- this bill would have gotten more than 80 votes. Under cover of anonymity, a lot of the lawmakers voted "No" just to make the issue go away.

Creative Consulting

2006-10-03T10:35:00.000-04:00

It isn't often there is a break-through moment in political advertising.
Most of the TV ads have that derivative, I've-seen-this-before feel to them. That's because you have seen them before. The music, the announcers, the graphics, the pacing -- it's all the same work of the same media consultants, who were, in turn, inspired by other media consultants, who were, in turn, inspired by other media consultants, and so on and so forth. There are a few exceptions to this rule -- John Braebender, who is Rick Santorum's media guy -- is one of them.
But, as Fred Allen said, imitation is the sincerest form of television.
So, I have to tip my hat to the Republican National Congressional Committee.
It's recent ad against Lois Murphy takes a unique approach to solving a dilemma that is bedeviling a lot of incumbents facing neophyte opponents this year -- How do you do attack ads against a challenger who has no record? It is tough to get your hooks into them.
(Witness Curt Weldon's early attempt to tag his opponent Joe Sestak as a carpetbagger, which ended up sounding like Weldon was dissing Sestak's daughter, who had brain cancer. Ugh.)

The RNCC, in an ad on behalf of 6th District incumbent Rep. Jim Gerlach, gets past this barrier by leaping over it. It treats Murphy as an incumbent.
In the ad, which went up on cable this weekend, the RNCC accuses Murphy of opposing a bill to provide body armor for American troops in Iraq.
"Hard to believe," the announcer says, as "Source: Vote 669, 12/19/2005" appears on the screen.
You would think from that ad -- and you are meant to think -- that Murphy was in the U.S. House chambers that day, casting that vote. She was not. Murphy has never held public office.
She is running against Gerlach to get into the U.S. House so she can cast votes.
It was a bit much for the Murphy campaign, who complained to Comcast about the ad.
Comcast pulled the ad for "further review." That is TV speak for 'You will never see this ad again." My colleague Todd Mason has the particulars in the case.
One final note: I will bet you, by the time this campaign season is over, what the RNCC will look tame, prim and understated. We are in for a wild ride over the next five weeks.
See my earlier post on this Republican and Democrat congressional committee advertising: Bombs Away

In related news, Carrie Budoff has a a good exegesis on the soft money coming into -- flooding? -- the state, most of it pointed to the Casey-Santorum race.

Postcript added on Friday, Oct. 6: As several commenters have noted I had an attack of dyslexia on the titles of the campaign committees. It is the National Republican Congressional Committee) not the Republican National Congressional Committee.

Postscript 2 added on Friday, Oct. 6: Courtesy of Politics PA a link to the ad in question.

The Muted Earth Tones Gambit

2006-10-02T14:43:00.000-04:00

The Casey and Santorum campaigns are up with new TV ads.
The Santorum one features the Senator back in an open-collar, earth-tone shirt (It looks like adobe to me, but others are better judges of such things.)
The ad is titled "Bicker" and it features Santorum talking straight into the camera, swearing to folks that he's fightin' for 'em day and night. He also takes a slap at Casey, calling him a "get-along-go-along" kind of guy. In my opinion, the ad may be trying to do too much -- bolster Santorum's image, while knocking down Casey's. Also, I am not privy to Santorum's internal polls, but I don't think there's enough time or money to reverse his image among swing voters. They guy has too much smirk in him to come across as a regular guy.
But, I guess they gotta try. They need to move the numbers for their guy.
Casey has a new ad called "Cards" that features him speaking in front of a crowd of extras, trying to convince them he's got cajones and won't be no stinkin' get-along-go-along guy in Washington.
(I wonder if the campaigns talk to each other about their upcoming ads? These two fit together like bookends.)
To be honest, I don't find Casey convincing as a tough guy and I don't find Santorum convincing as a regular guy (He smiles -- and smiles and smiles -- a lot in Bicker.)
In fact, the best ads done so far by the campaigns don't feature the candidates at all.
See Casey's ad "Behind" and Santorum's over-the-top "Corner Bar".

Sometimes Life Just Sucks II

2006-10-02T06:01:00.001-04:00

Drum roll, please. It's time to award our 2nd

Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week Award

U.S. Rep. Don Sherwood

Actually, Sherwood has had a no good, very bad time ever since it was disclosed that (a) he had a mistress in Washington and (b) that she alleged he had tried to choke her one night.

Not a good thing to do. Not a good thing to have disclosed in the family-values, oh-so-very-conservative 10th Congressional district in Northeast Pa, wherein resides your wife and 3 children.

Under normal circumstances, Sherwood would be a shoo-in for re-election, especially since the post-2000 census re-apportionment surgically removed the district's largest city, Scranton, and gave Sherwood a long slice of the Northern tier counties (up to and including Lycoming County.)

In fact, Sherwood race without opposition last time out. This time is different. His opponent is Democrat Chris Carney, who is running a campaign that has made Sherwood's philandering a centerpiece -- witness his slogan: Taking Our Values to Washington, not bringing Washington's values home.

To date, Carney's strategy was to point to Sherwood's affair without mentioning it directly. That indirection ended last week with this Carney TV commercial.

Here's a piece in the Scranton Times about the ad, an AP piece that lays out the basics of the race and another piece that talks about Democrats being happy about Carney's chances.

Meanwhile, President Bush is due in the Lackawanna County later this month to help Sherwood with fundraising, which no doubt needs to counter the Carney attacks.

Why Is This Man Smiling?

2006-09-29T11:46:00.000-04:00

Two surprises from Keystone Polls taken in the Philadelphia suburbs. In a poll of Delaware/Chester Counties' 7th District, the poll shows Joe Sestak in a dead heat with incumbent U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon. Among likely voters, it is Sestak 45% to Weldon's 44%, though keep in mind that the plus/minus in this poll is 4% or so.
Frankly, I would have thought that Weldon would be ahead in this race by 8 points or more at this stage in the campaign, given his 20 years as the incumbent in this district -- where 58% of the voters identify themselves as Republicans. However, only 37% of the voters say Weldon deserves re-election, while 49% believe it is time for a change.

The poll was done by Dr. Terry Madonna's crew at Franklin & Marshall College. Here is a link to the F&M web page that links to the polls, though I must warn you I was unable to call up the .pdf for the 7th.

Another surprise in this poll: Bob Casey's 17-point lead over incumbent Rick Santorum in the 7th. It was Casey 49%-Santorum 32%. Carl Romanelli (who was booted off the ballot this week) got 3%, while 16% DNK. In 2000, Santorum won Delco, which comprises most of this district, by a margin of 54%-44% over Ron Klink.

In the Bucks/Montco 6th District, incumbent Jim Gerlach had a 7-point lead over challenger Lois Murphy. It was Gerlach 45%-Murphy 38%-DNK 17%. Again, there is a margin of error in excess of 4 points. This is the race that most folks thought was competitive for the D's because Murphy came so close two years ago. There is room for the challenger to grow, though, because 30% of the voters said they were still making their mind, even if they did go for one candidate or the other in the initial questioning.

The contest is much closer in the U.S. Senate race in this congressional district. It was Casey 42%-Santorum 40%-Romanelli 2%-DNK 16%

The Benjamin Factor

2006-09-29T08:48:00.000-04:00

Culled from the latest campaign finance reports (filed Tuesday), I have compiled lists of the top contributors to the Rendell and the Swann campaigns.

Pennsylvania Political Pundit Podcast

2006-09-29T08:31:00.000-04:00

I am doing a brief podcast every week between now and the election. The latest went up yesterday.

It generally will consist of two brief interviews about the various races, trends, etc. plus a free commercial produced by the Committee to Make Merry At Election Times.

This week, I talk with Inquirer political reporter Tom Fitzgerald about the Temple-Inquirer poll and Terry Madonna about the Lynn Swann candidacy.

You can access the podcast here.

The Romanelli Factor

2006-09-27T14:53:00.000-04:00

In retrospect, Monday, Sept. 25th may be seen as the day Bob Casey Jr. won the race for the U.S. Senate.
That was day a state judge all-but knocked Green Party candidate Carl Romanelli off the ballot. See Jim O'Toole's piece in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for particulars.
The way I add it up, that will throw close to 200,000 votes in Casey's direction.
That's how many votes I estimate Romanelli would get statewide on Nov. 7th if he remained as a candidate.
My estimate is based on the total vote for U.S. Senate cast six years ago -- the last Rick Santorum ran -- and on share of the vote Romanelli was getting in the latest public polls. The Quinnipiac poll of Tuesday is the latest. It showed him with a 4% share.
There were 4.7 million votes cast in the Santorum-Ron Klink race in 2000.
I assume a slight bump up in turnout this year -- let's make it 5 million votes cast.

5,000,000 x 4% = 200,000 votes.

Of course, it is possible that some of those Romanelli votes will go to Santorum on Nov. 7th, but it would only be a handful. At most.
Everyone knew that a Romanelli candidacy would hurt Casey. That's why Santorum allies gave the Green's cash to help their effort at collecting voter signatures. That's why the state Democratic party spent thousands on its legal effort to get him removed from the ballot.
The Romanelli factor would have hurt Casey the most where he could afford it the least -- in Philadelphia and its suburbs, among liberals who could not bring themselves to vote for either major party candidate. Last week's Keystone poll showed Romanelli getting 8% of the vote in Philly, and totals ranging from 4% to 6% in the burbs.

Romanelli has one card left in his hand, an appeal to the state Supreme Court asking it to consider making the judicial retention race of 2005 the one it counts when it comes to determining the number of voter signatures required to get on the ballot. My bet is the Supremes will reject that appeal. (See my earlier post on this below)

Speaking of Quinnipiac, the poll showed Casey up by 12 points over Santorum, even with Romanelli in the race. It was Casey 51% to Santorum's 39% with 4% for Romanelli & 5% undecided.

The Quinnipiac release on the poll also contained this pithy quote but depressing quote (if you are a Santorum fan) from Clay F. Richards, the poll's assistant director:
“Sen. Rick Santorum’s comeback momentum has been stopped dead in the water. Santorum’s attack ads against Casey have failed to spark voters’ support, and 50 percent of voters say the Senator does not deserve re-election. Casey, just like his father, is attracting a significant number of Republican votes – perhaps enough to make it hard for Santorum to make it back to Washington."

PostScript: As several commenters have noted, 200 was a Presidential year with super-heated turnout. They rightly state that it is likely that turnout will match a gubernatorial year, with closer to 4 million votes being cast. That would put Romanelli closer to 140,000-150,000 if he got 4% statewide. The point remains: most of that 4% would have come off Casey. If Romanelli stays off, it makes Santorum's climb steeper. TF

Get Out The Bugle

2006-09-27T06:03:00.000-04:00

It's time to play Taps for the Lynn Swann campaign.
The final tally is $13,700,000 vs. $3,600,000.
That's not votes. That's the cash Ed Rendell had on hand vs. the cash the Swann campaign had on hand in the campaign finance reports filed yesterday. Here is The Inquirer's piece on the disclosures. As astonishing as Rendell's figure is, the most revealing is Swann's.
In modern politics, the sad fact is that money buys media and media buys visibility. Without money and media you are invisible.
With six weeks left to Election Day, Swann is already is trailing by double digits in the most recent public polls. Now, we learn that he now lacks the money needed to maintain a strong media presence statewide, which can cost $800,000-to-$1 million a week.
You add it up and what does it spell? A fade out of the Swann campaign.
Oddly (cruelly?), it comes at a time when Swann the candidate seems to be doing better. He always had poise and star-power, now he seems more comfortable with the substance side of the equation. In a recent face-to-face with Rendell, he was judged the winner by most folks who saw it. See John Baer's take on Monday's debate before the state Chamber of Business and Industry.
There will plenty of time to pick over why a candidacy that began with such promise in February never really took off.
There is also plenty of time to ponder the implications (pundits love to ponder implications). Here's one question for this morning? Will the Swann fade-out help other Republican candidates? The reasoning is this: Without a vigorous contested race, Rendell voters in the Philadelphia media market have no reason to rouse themselves for their guy. This results in a drop in turnout in places like Philadelphia and the burbs'. A drop in turnout aids Republicans, who otherwise might be swamped my the presence of so many independent/moderate/Democratic Rendell voters. Think Rick Santorum. Think Jim Gerlach & Curt Weldon.
It's called the Law of Unintended Consequences.

P.S. I was in Harrisburg yesterday for the anti-violence rally and the special House session on crime. Here is my piece on those events.

PostScript added at 4:40 p.m. As if on cue, a new Quinnipiac poll was released showing Rendell with a 16-point lead. Here is the AP's take on it.

New & Recommended

2006-09-25T09:39:00.000-04:00

A piece in today's New York Times on the Santorum-Casey race aptly summarizes the Santorum strategy headed into the home stretch: keep the race as close as possible, then win with field on Election Day.

In Forbes, a look at a phenomenon 25 years in the making: the switch of the Philadelphia burbs from redder-than-red Republican to pale-blue Democrat, especially in statewide and federal races. Can anyone name the guy who began it all? Answer here.

A profile of Lynn Swann in Sunday's Post-Gazette by Tracie Mauriello. It reads like an advance obituary of the Swann campaign, beginning with the headline: Swann has trouble catching on.

Death rattle of the Carl Romanelli campaign for U.S. Senate? It sure sounds like it in this piece from the Allentown Call.

The Bush Factor

2006-09-24T10:02:00.000-04:00

I've said it before and darned if I won't say it again: In his quest for re-election to the U.S. Senate, Rick Santorum faces two obstacles. One is Rick Santorum, the other is George Bush.

One is the love-him-hate-him dichotomy among Pennsylvania voters towards the Republican incumbent. I think he can overcome this -- with about $15 million in TV commercials, either by lowering his negatives or raising the negatives of his opponent, Bob Casey Jr. As Carrie Budoff notes in a piece yesterday (Saturday), the Santorum campaign is working hard at going after Casey.

But what about the Bush factor? By that I mean the general discontent among voters -- particularly moderate and swing voters -- over the President's performance that is reflected in his high unfavorable rating. Will the downard pull of the Bush factor prove too strong for Santorum and other Republican candidates? There is evidence that it will. The latest is the new Inquirer-Temple University poll released today (Sunday). The poll shows Casey with a 10-point lead (confirming the trend of most recent public polls). Tom Fitzgerald analyzes the BUsh factor in his piece on the poll.

Here is what these numbers say to me. If this election is seen by voters as a referendum on the Bush administration, a lot of Republican incumbents will be going down. If the Republicans can turn the election into a referendum on the quality and fitness of their opponents, they may survive. We have just over 6 weeks to see which way it turns.

Sometimes Life Just Sucks

2006-09-22T08:47:00.000-04:00

It's time to announce my new award. It will be given weekly to the politician who has the worst run of luck in the previous seven days. Straight up, I'll tell you I stole the name for my award from the title of Judith Viorst's wonderful children's book about a boy called Alexander.
So, allow me to unveil my new:

Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week Award

I haven't decided what the winner will get. I was thinking of an emergency shipment of cookies and milk to soothe the wounds to their psyche, but I'm open to suggestions. I had a lot of good candidates for this new award, but one stood out from the crowd. So, the envelope please. Now, the drum roll. My winner is:

U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon

I am not a big fan of Weldon's -- a feeling that is reciprocated by the Delaware County Republican -- but you have to feel sorry for the guy. Here he is in the midst of a tough re-election campaign and he spends the week getting hit left and right. Let me count the ways:

Terrible: In comes Time columnist Joe Klein to do a profile on Weldon's race against Democratic Joe Sestak. It ends up being a Valentine to Sestak, who's portrayed as a Jimmy Stewart-type, filled with earnestness and savvy (a rare combination.) As to Curt, the Klein piece includes these gems. There's this quote. "Curt can be absolutely brilliant," says a House colleague. "But there's also a slightly unhinged quality to him." And this one: "He's like an out-of-shape boxer," says one of Weldon's friends. "His timing is off. I know he deeply regrets that comment about Sestak's daughter." Yikes! And that's a friend talking?

Horrible: A liberal Washington-based goo-goo group comes out with a list of the Hill's "Most Corrupt" electied officials and guess who's on it? Curt Weldon. The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) blasted Weldom and others for "egregious, unethical and possibly illegal activities." This is not the first run-in Weldon has had with CREW. In 2004, CREW wrote the Justice Departmeet seeking an investigation into Weldon after the Los Angeles Times ran a piece about his daughter's work as a lobbyist. While the allegations are not new, the CREW "Most Currupt" tag comes at a bad time. Like in the midde of Weldon's re-election campaign. Here is Bill Bender's piece on the flap that ran in the Delco Daily Times.

No Good: A couple of year's ago, Weldon got a ton of ink on his "Able Danger" allegations -- his assertion that American intelligence officials bobbled the ball before 9/11 because they had knowledge of some of the organizers of that terrorist attack and did nothing to stop them.

On Thursday, the Pentagon's Inspector General's office released a report debunking the "Able Danger" allegations. His fellow Able Dangerites lambasted the report, as did Weldon, who told the Delco Daily Times that the Pentagon was out to get him by releasing the report right before the election. But, the headline on the story must have made Weldon wince. "Report: Curt wrong about Able Danger"

Very Bad: Finally, this morning, the Inquirer runs a piece about a certain pol coming to help Sestak. Guess who? Bill Clinton. Outside of Ed Rendell, Clinton is arguably the most popular Democrat in the Philly burbs. He won Delco both times he ran for President. While in the Navy, Sestak worked in the Clinton White House as a military staffer. Clinton's appearance on Oct. 5th will be a free media bonanza for the Democratic challenger. He is the last person you want around if you are a Republican in a district that has been trending Democratic in recent years.

The Surrogates' War

2006-09-21T17:59:00.000-04:00

Two ads have started running in some TV markets across the state paid for by PAC's and 527's, -- the so-called "soft money" PACs that can raise and spend money on behalf of candidates. (OpenSecrets.com has a good primer on them.)

One is anti-Santorum. The other pro-Santorum.

One of the ads, called "Body Armor" beats the hell out of Rick Santorum for failing to support bill that would have provided up-to-date body armor for troops in Iraq and Afganistan. The vote in question was over a $1 billion bill, offered by a Senate Democrat, that went down along party lines. Identical ads -- run by the same group in Virgnia -- have raised hackles, certainly among their targets, who are Republican incumbents.
The ad are paid for by a group called VoteVet.org, an organization of Iraq and Afganistan veterans that includes Gen. Wesley Clark & former Sen. Bob Kerrey -- both Democrats -- on its board of advisers. Here is their web page.

PostScript Friday, Sept. 22: There is a piece in today's Allentown Morning-Call about the vets ad. It reports that it is running only in western Pa.

The other ad, called "Who I Am Today," praises Santorum for his support of welfare reform and criticizes Bob Casey for opposing it. It features a former welfare recipient who tells of her experience on welfare and post-welfare. It is a much softer piece than the Vets ad. And it was done by Softervoices, a 527 founded and supported by conservative women. The board includes Midge Decter and Heather Higgins. Here is the group's web page.

Rick Santorum's YouTube Moment

2006-09-21T10:07:00.000-04:00

Temper, temper, Sen. Santorum.
YouTube. com has posted a video of Santorum doing a major rant at a street fair on Camp Hill, Pa. The object of his ire: a woman who comes up while he is wading through the crowd, and takes him to task for have the Penn Hills School District pay for the cyberschooling of his home-school kids, who live in Virginia.
Santorum razzes her for her criticism -- and keeps after her even after the woman tries to walk away with a "have a nice day."
His basic argument: "It's my tax dollars going to work for me." He tells her he pays Pennsylvania taxes -- even though he lives in Virginia -- and that it was appropriate for the Penn Hills District to pay for the cyberschooling of five of his six children.
What he pays in taxes to Pennsylvania, "is far in excess of the money the state paid for that (cyberschooling)" Santorum tells the woman, identified only as a teacher. The YouTube excerpt is taken from PCN.
Santorum then launches into a rap against the "curious bias of the media around here," after a photographer for the Harrisburg Patriot-News goes to talk to the woman. Keep in mind: This is in Camp Hill, Pa., not in Philly or Pittsburgh.

I don't buy Santorum's assertion that he pays "far in excess" in local and Pa. taxes than the cyberschooling cost.
As near as I can tell, Santorum pays somewhere in the range of $7,000 and $9,000 a year in state and local taxes (the bulk of it to the state in the form of state income taxes).
Paying for the cyberschools cost the Penn Hills District about $33,000 a year, according to the district. Santorum disputes that number, saying it was closer to $17,000 a year. Recently, the state reimbursed the district the equivalent of $27,500 a year for the two years the Santorum children were enrolled in the cyberschool. Any number you take, though, is in excess of what he pays in Pa. and Penn Hills taxes.

Casey Holds His Lead

2006-09-21T08:28:00.000-04:00

The latest Keystone Poll, conducted by Terry Madonna and his crew at Franklin and Marshall College is out today. It shows Bob Casey Jr. holding his lead over Rick Santorum in the race for U.S. Senate. The poll shows Casey up by 7 points (45%-38%), with Carl Romanelli, the Green Party candidate getting 5%. Twelve percent of the voters say they are undecided.
Casey has held the lead in all of Madonna's Keystone polls. In fact,
this poll, which was in the field last week, shows a slight improvement
for the Democratic challenger over the August poll: he is up one point,
Santorum is down one point.
Don't pay too much attention to the small change in numbers. It is well within the margin of error, which is plus/minus 4%. The telephone survey included 604 voters, with Madonna & Co. trying to screen for "likely voters."
For Casey, here is the good news: He maintains a lead he has held since the first public polling was done. He is running ahead of Santorum in every area of the state, except Central Pa. Santorum's favorability rating among voters is at 36%, his lowest so far this year in this poll.
FYI: The President's favorability rating also remains below 40%. In this poll, it was 38%, a slight uptick from the August poll, when it was 36%.
For Santorum, here is the good news: his head-to-head numbers have improved since early this year (when the same poll showed him trailing Casey by 11 points). Among voters who identified a favorite, 37% were "soft" -- they told Madonna's people they could change their minds. So, it is possible for Santorum to shake some votes from the Democrat. Also, it is clear that Romanelli's presence on the ballot is hurting Casey.
If I were Rick Santorum, I would worry about two things: My low standing in my home base of western Pennsylvania, where Casey still holds the lead; and the court challenges seeking to remove Romanelli from the ballot, which appear likely to succeed. (See my earlier posting in this Carl Romanelli R.I.P?) If he can't improve those numbers in the west and if Romanelli is ordered off the ballot, he will be in deep doo-doo, to quote George the Elder.

On another front, the Keystone Poll shows Gov. Ed Rendell holding a substantial 18-point lead over Republican Lynn Swann, It is 52% for Rendell, 35% Swann with 14% undecided. This is virtually unchanged since August.

Here are details of the latest Keystone Poll.

Watch Your Back!

2006-09-19T10:14:00.000-04:00

Is Rick Santorum in trouble with his Republican base?
Personally, I think not. In the August Quinnipiac poll, Santorum got a
66% favorable rating among Republicans, with only 20% listing their opinion of his performance as unfavorable. Other polls I have seen show the incumbent getting 75% of the vote of Republicans.
Yet, there is a school of thought advanced that Santorum has let down the conservative wing of his party and no longer deserves their vote. The root of the problem? Santorum's support of Arlen Specter's re-election in 2004 when Specter faced conservative/libertarian Pat Toomey.
Now, someone has come along to outline conservative doubts about the incumbent.
This piece, by Jim Panyard, appeared in the Evening Bulletin.
It's an interesting primer on the whys and wherefors of unhappiness among Republicans, at least among a slice of GOP voters.
Conflict of interest note: I worked with Jim years ago in Harrisburg when he was a reporter for the old Philadelphia Bulletin. After that, he became an exec. with the Pennsylvania Manufaturers Association and briefly flirted with the idea of running for governor this year. He is a conservative/libertarian.

Carl Romanelli R.I.P?

2006-09-19T09:38:00.000-04:00

For all of you who sit up at nights worrying about whether Carl Romanelli will remain on the November ballot as the Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate, I bring you an update.
The Romanelli case is running on two tracks in the judiciary.
One. He is seeking a hearing before the state Supreme Court on his petition to change the method by which the state determines how many voter signatures are needed for an independent candidate (read: Carl Romanelli) to get on the ballot.
The law states that such candidates must get a total equal to 2% of the votes cast for the candidate who got the highest number of votes in the most recent statewide election. The state Election Bureau hath interpreted that as 2% of the vote total Bob Casey Jr. got in the 2004 election for state Treasurer: 2% = 67,000 signatures.
Romanelli's forces have argued that the requirement should be based on the Supreme Court retention vote in 2005. That, they have said, is the the most recent statewide election. The top vote getter was Justice Sandra Newman, who got a total of about 1.4 million votes (yes & no). That would greatly reduce the number of signatures required: 2% = 29,000 signatures.
On Monday, the Supreme agreed to hold a hearing to consider Romanelli's suit on the signature threshold.
So, score one for the Green candidate (and his Republican backers. Santorum forces want Romanelli on the ballot to siphon votes from Bob Casey.)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Romanelli is fighting a Democratic attempt to get him off the ballot on the basis of having invalid signatures. This one is in Commonwealth Court. The jist of it is: even though Romanelli's forces collected 94,000 signatures -- far more than the 67,000 required -- the Dems say they have found 29,000 invalid ones -- wrong address, signatures from non-voters, etc. This would bring his total of valid signatures to about 65,000 and result in Romanelli being tossed off the ballot.
The Dems presented their case last week. Romanelli will get a chance to rebut next week (Sept. 25th).
Then the judge will rule.
Any bets on the fate of Carl Romanelli?

The Brett Lieberman Fund

2006-09-18T17:04:00.000-04:00

Anyone seen signs lately that all is not going well in the Santorum re-election campaign?
I'm thinking of the incident Saturday at a meeting of Republican State Committee, held as sort of a pre-election pep rally for GOP stalwarts. Enter Sen. Rick Santorum.
According to Editor & Publisher, a newspaper trade magazine, here is what happened next:

Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), in a bruising race for re-election, slammed a Pennsylvania newspaper -- literally -- this weekend.
The Patriot-News of Harrisburg, Pa., reports that Santorum, who trails Democrat Robert Casey in most polls, referred to his "rocky relations with the press" as he moved from room to room to attend regional caucuses earlier at a GOP state committee meeting in a hotel in East Pennsboro.
Later he refused to talk when a Patriot-News reporter, Brett Lieberman, approached with a question about Iran -- and again complained about what he called biased coverage.
"I have to raise tens of millions of dollars because of the junk you feed the people of Pennsylvania," he said, according to the paper. It added that he "then used an expletive to describe the coverage and slammed down a newspaper."

What was the expletive? The E&P does not say. I'm guessing it rhymes with fit.
Santorum apparently was unhappy with Lieberman's coverage of the first Santorum-Casey debate, which -- the reporter opined -- Casey won. Lieberman is the Patriot's Washington reporter.
I think it is fundamentally unfair for Santorum to blame Lieberman for the "junk" that has forced him to go out and raise $10 million to counter.
I think we are all to blame.
Who among us had not written something that has put the senator in a bad light? His guts-and-glory support of the Iraq War. His keep-them-barefoot-and-pregnant views on the gentler sex. His famous "man on dog" comment. His K Street Days. His residency problems. The whole cyber-school brouhaha.
We've been there. We've done that.
I myself have had numerous transgressions, writing about the Santorum "wacko factor" and calling him "one of the finest minds of the 13th Century."
I could go on. No wonder he is furious at us media jackals.
The thing is, I don't think Brett Lieberman should bear the brunt of the Santorum ire.
We should all chip in.
My suggestion is simple: If every reporter in Pennsylvania contributed $300 each, we could raise close to $10 million. This would go a long way to reimbursing the senator for all the grief we have given him.
So, I am calling on all reporters -- at radio & TV stations, the wires and newspapers large and small (except the Greensburg Tribune-Review) to make a $300 contribution to the Santorum campaign.
In the memo field of your check simply write:
I'm sorry, Senator. I couldn't help myself.
It would go a long way to easing his pain.
Please, write that check today.

P.S. It's been suggested that you can save up your blank taxi slips and expense the contribution as cab rides over the next couple months. Also, try "lunch with source," for some of it. Plus a few bucks here and there for "Parking & Tolls."

Lost in Philadelphia

2006-09-18T15:30:00.000-04:00

The stealth campaign of Lynn Swann pulled into Philadelphia today (Monday, 9-18) for a news conference.
You folks in the rest of the state may have seen a lot of the Republican candidate for governor. In the east, he's been the invisible man.
And why not? Better for Swann to spend his time elsewhere. This is Rendell country. It's daunting to go on the home turf of an opponent who left the Philadelphia media market four years ago with a 550,000-votes in his pocket.
That's not total votes. That's the Rendell margin over Mike Fisher.
Still, I wish Swann would give an encouraging sign that he gets it.
As a public figure, he is everything you could ask for -- sleek, handsome and articulate (up to a point -- that point being when he must answer in specifics. )
As a candidate, though, why does he seem so hapless?
Then again, maybe it isn't him. Maybe it's his campaign.
Case in point: The Swann TV ad up in some markets. The topic? Welfare reform.
Not, let me ask you, is welfare reform on the top of your agenda? Is that what keeps you up at nights with worry -- Oh, my gosh, I wonder how welfare reform is going! It is a Clinton era program and Swann's principal criticism is that the Rendell administration hasn't gone fast enough in implementing some of its provisions. Will that makes his numbers move? I doubt it.
Case in point 2: In this race, Swann is supposed to be the fiscal conservative and Rendell the big spender. So, what's he come to Philadelphia to do? To unveil an anti-crime program, a centerpiece of which is to have the state help pay for 5,000 additional police officers across the state.
(Swann is a week late on this. House Speaker John Perzel has trotted out a similar idea, though Perzel wants the state to pay for 10,000 officers.)
Swann mentioned something about paying for this program by "increasing (court) fees and fines" Apparently, he means hiking the fines and fees people who commit crimes must pay. When questioned about the cost, he replied: "I don't want to get locked into particulars."
On the other hand, I have no problem with particulars.
It costs between $60,000 and $80,000 to put a cop on the streets in Pennsylvania (including salary, fringe benefits and OT). Using the lower figure, it would cost $300 million to add 5,000 officers statewide. Even if the state picks up half the cost, it still will cost $150 million a year.
That's a lot of fines and fees.

Megaphone Man

2006-09-17T09:53:00.000-04:00

Another in a series of posting I do on
letters and emails I get in response to
columns and blog posts. This one is
about gun control. I've done a number of
columns in support of a proposal to ban
handgun sales in Pennsylvania to one-a-month.
The idea is that by limiting sales, we can
also pinch the secondary (illegal) market
in handguns that make their way into the
streets and are often used in crimes.
When I write such a piece, I usually get
a passel of emails & voice mails from
pro-gun folks. This email, from Gregory
Niblock of Philadelphia, is an example.
Niblock is more vociferous than others, but the points he makes are very much the same.
One. Outrage that anyone who would propose such a limit, which they find (though the courts do not) violative of Second Amendment rights.
Two. Disdain at the person who advances the idea (in Niblock's case the fury is directed at me, John Grogan and Tony Auth), along with an assertion that we are dangerously liberal and astonishingly stupid.
Three. An assertion that gun violence is not a national problem, but a black problem, and therefore not solvable by broad legislation.
Niblock's missive is long, but my policy is not to cut these.

P.S. Please also note the comment that criticizes me for posting the letter. If I don't post, I get accused of stifling an opposing point of view. If I do post, I get accused of ...well, you get the point. I've emailed the poster and offered him space to air his point of view.

Questions & Answers

2006-09-15T08:29:00.000-04:00

Some questions & answers ripped from today's headlines.

Question: Was Hooter's closed? Answer

Question: What's more bloated that the state bureaucracy? Answer

Question: Who is getting a leg up in the state's first "I'm more Catholic that you" competition? Answer

Question: Can you find the line that will come back to haunt the Santorum campaign? Hint: It's at the end of the story. Answer

Question: Gee, do you think the Supreme Court ruling on the pay grab will at last quiet the antis? Answer

Question: Do they have more time to volunteer because they're stay-at-home moms? Answer

Question: No matter what the problem, what's the answer? Answer

This Just In....

2006-09-14T15:57:00.001-04:00

The Supreme Court rules on the pay grab.
The court said that it was legal for the legislature to repeal the pay increase it passed, except for one provision. It violated the constitutional separation of powers by repealing it for....guess who? You got it.
For judges.
Ergo, the court rules, all judges must get the pay increase originally granted them in the law.
Here is a link to the 100-page opinion by Justice Ron Castille.
Castille said repealing the pay raise law was "clearly, palpably and plainly unconstitutional to the extent that it diminished judicial compensation."
Whatever you say, Ron.
Supreme Court associate justices' salaries will increase from $155,783 to about $171,000 as a result of the ruling. Pay of common pleas judges will increase from $135,293 to about $149,000..
Question: Is there anyone in the political establishment in Pennsylvania surprised that he Supremes ruled that judges get to keep the payraise, while all other elected and appointed officials included in the bill did not? Please raise you hands.
Here is an AP summary of the ruling.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels For Casey

2006-09-14T11:45:00.000-04:00

The Santorum campaign is up with a new ad that seeks to link Bob Casey to...um, ah, a bunch of bad guys.
My colleague Larry Eichel reports that it is a statewide buy, so I guess this signals the beginning of the negative ad portion of the U.S. Senate race. Casey began airing his own negative earlier in the week, an ad called "Debbie." Here is a link to the latest Santorum ad.
See below for a link to the "Debbie" ad.
As Eichel points out, the ad mentions no names. Instead, it has actors portray shady pols and businessmen who later got into trouble with the law.
He also points out that none of the shady guys has any role in Casey's U.S. Senate campaign and their support for previous campaigns came at a time when they were neither under investigation nor being prosecuted.
The interesting thing about the ad -- and this is obviously intentional -- is it's lack of specificity. It's purely atmospheric. To put it another way, it is pure innuendo.

Stevens Lane Redux

2006-09-13T10:16:00.000-04:00

The residency issue is the tar pit of the Rick Santorum's re-election campaign. He just can't seem to free himself of it.
He was asked about it on Meet the Press in his debate with Bob Casey. The papers back home keep hammering him on it. It is hurting him bad with voters, particularly in western Pennsylvania.
I have no polling data to support that assertion, but if you want evidence, just turn on your TV. There you are likely to see a Santorum campaign commercial called "Important Job."
It's a very effective piece (or a shameless one, depending on your point of view) that features his children vouching for Dad.
The ad is designed to change the conversation from Santorum's residency (negative) to being a good Dad (positive). It also is intended to innoculate Santorum against a likely flight of Casey ads on the residency issue. Finally, from a tactical standpoint, it opens the door to allowing Santorum to claim that Casey is attacking his children by raising the issue.
(May I suggest that the Casey ad feature his children, saying: "We know where our Dad lives and he's never lied about it.")

On Meet the Press, host Tim Russert went after Santorum with hammer and tongs on the issue. ( Here is a transcript of the exchange) Russert got Santorum to admit that he probably, maybe spends about 30 days a year in the house on Stevens Lane.
In turn, that admission prompted Allegheny County Democrats to make merry with the issue this week. They wondered out loud why Santorum claimed a Homestead Exemption -- thus lowering his tax bill by $70 a year -- when such as exemption is supposed to be given only on a primary residence. A copy editor at the Post-Gazette wrote a clever headline for the piece:

County Democrats trying to hit

Santorum where he doesn't live

But, wait there's more. Santorum got a total of $73,000 from the Penn Hills School District so his five of his six children could attend a cyber-charter school from the family home in Leesburg, Va. (Not a bad deal. Santorum pays about $2,000 a year in property taxes on the house on Stevens Lane, but got $38,000 a year from the district for the cyber charter.) Discovery of the payments led to a brouhaha over whether it was right or wrong for Santorum to take the money. He pulled his kids out of the school when the issue was first raised, but it won't go away.

Recently, the state decided to pay the Penn Hills District $55,000 to settle the issue after Penn Hills sued the state over what the district said were foggy and contradictory rules and regs on cyber charters. On Tuesday, the district decided to accept the state's offer, but that gave Santorum's bete noire, Erin Vecchio -- Penn Hills Democratic party chair and school board member -- a chance to slap him around again over the whole mess. It also gave the PG an opportunity to do the same in an editorial , which suggested that if Santorum was a good and decent fellow, he would repay the district the entire $73,000.

See what I mean? A tar pit.

A postcript: I've blogged before about this issue, You can find earlier posts here and here.

Data & Miscellany

2006-09-13T08:40:00.000-04:00

More information about House Speaker John Perzel's proposal to have the state help pay for thousands of new police in Pennsylvania.

Here are some numbers on the police complement in Philadelphia in recent years that I gleaned (with a little help from my friends) from city budget documents.

Here is a .pdf on how the Perzel plan could break down by county. Take this with a grain of salt. It probably overstates the number of police that can be hired. But, it is based on the formula of the state putting up $22,500 per officer.

Here is a link to the House Republican Caucus web page, with more info on the plan.

As I mentioned below, Rendell says he is cool to the plan because it will cost too much money. Here is a link to that story. It gives him the rare opportunity to look like a fiscal conservative.

I did a column on the Perzel plan today. It struck me later that Perzel is not simply positioning himself on the issue for this election. This very well may be the first step in his campaign for governor -- for 2010.

This Just In....

2006-09-12T17:46:00.000-04:00

Amtrak announces it will start high speed service between Philadelphia and Harrisburg.
It will cut the travel time from 2 hours to 90 minutes.
This means regular folks will be able to travel between the two cities nearly as fast as the governor.
But they'll have to take the train.

Here are the details.

Thinking Big About Blue

2006-09-11T10:54:00.000-04:00

A major state politican recommends spending $225 million a year in state money to enable local governments across Pennsylvania to hire up to 10,000 police over the next five years.
Guess who?
No, not that notorious big spender Ed Rendel. It is state Rep. John Perzel, the Republican House speaker.
Perzel floated the idea Sunday in a sit-down with my colleague Mario Cattabiani.
Perzel's idea seemed to take his Republican colleagues aback. And no wonder. They are the party that is supposed to oppose costly new programs, not propose them.
The idea is not without strings. Perzel wants the state to pick up half the cost of new officers and have local governments pick up the rest. And, as he articulated it, the program is not designed to subsidize officers already on the payroll, but only for expansion of departments.

Still, the Perzel proposal is an example of big thinking. The state and federal government give nearly zero for local law enforcement, which places a burden on communities small and large. Some of the smallest have had to abandon having local police. Some of the largest had attritted down in recent years.
Let me use Philly as an example. Nearly 45 cents out of every dollar spent by the city of Philadelphia is on public safety -- by that I mean the police, the courts, the DA's office, probation and parole, the prisons, the sheriff's office and the public defenders. (I am using 2005 figures here) Six out of 10 city employees are involved in public safety. The largest, obviously, is the police department. The city has about 6,400+ uniformed officers.
Perzel said his proposal would let Philly put another 1,300 police on the streets over the next few years. Horray for that, but it would cost the city a big chunk of change. It costs about $80,000 to add one police officer to the Philly force -- including base salary, OT and fringe benefits. To add 1,300, as proposed by the House Speaker, would cost the city $100 million a year more in city money, on top of the $100 million in state aid. (see below for correction.)

Posted Tuesday, Sept. 12: I made a mistake in the above calculations and overstated the costs to the city. The Perzel plan would have the state pay 50% of the cost of the salary of a new officer, which the plan places at $45,000 a year (using the statewide average). That means the state will pay a max of $22,500 per officer. The Perzel plan does not directly subsidize fringe benefits. However, Al Bowman, a spokesman for Perzel said the plan is designed for maximum flexibility. For instance, in Philly, where it costs $80,000 a year in salary, fringes and OT to put a rookie officer in the street, the city could choose simply to hire fewer officers. Under the plan, the max the state would give to Philly is $32 million. If Philly added another $32 million to the pot, it could afford to hire 775 new officers -- not the 1,300 Perzel mentioned, but still a substantial number. Ditto for other counties and localities.

Posted Wednesday, Sept. 13: Gov. Rendell says he is against the Perzel plan because it is too expensive. Perzel's office says it is puzzled by the governor's reaction. So now we have a Republican proposing a New Deal-like plan, and a big spending Democrat against it.

New & Recommended

2006-09-11T10:26:00.000-04:00

For Monday, Sept. 10th:

The Boy Mayor
The Post-Gazette offers a day in the life of Pittsburgh's new mayor, Luke Ravenstahl.
The 26-year-old former City Council President is (wisely) still keeping a low profile.

Up & Running
The Pat-news notes that Lynn Swann is up with his first TV ads in several markets, though not in central Pa. Why? When you don't have much money you must target your buys.

Hot sauce vs. Mayo
Jim O'Toole of the The Post-Gazette weighs in with a Bob Casey profile and Carrie Budoff and Tom Fitzgerald do a piece in The Inquirer on Casey's personality, or lack thereof. Both pieces wonder outloud if Casey can win solely by being the anti-Santorum.

This Just In...

2006-09-08T17:59:00.000-04:00

The latest Santorum & Casey ads.

The Santorum ad , tagged "Important Job" by the campaign, seeks to tackle the residency issue, using the senator's children to vouch for him. Very effective and nicely done. But, it shows that the residency issue is hurting Santorum and he feels he needs to address it head on. I don't know where it is airing. My guess is that play it tilted to the Pittsburgh Media Market, where the residency issue has caused the Republican the most damage.

The Casey ad, called "Debbie" is a soft negative, taking Santorum to task for remarks in his book "It Takes A Family" about how women should stay at home. Also effective. Again, I don't have info on where it is airing. By the time this campaign is over, my bet is that Santorum will have wished he delayed publication of "It Takes A Family" until after the election. It has given his opponents and enemies a silo-full of fodder.

Adlai, Eleanor & Rick: Perfect Together

2006-09-08T14:21:00.000-04:00

While on vacation, I missed the debut ot Rick Santorum's summer TV ads, but caught up with them when I got back. I call these the Marzipan Rick ads -- designed to soften the incumbent's hard image among voters and lower those negatives a bit. Have you ever eaten marzipan? It's the super-sweet confection made out of almond paste. An acquired taste, just like Santorum.

The ad that struck me was the one the Santorum campaign labeled "The Daily Bugle." It features Santorum, wearing an electric blue shirt and sitting at a desk cluttered with newspapers. Here's the lead-in to the ad:

Santorum: "I just love reading the newspapers. This one calls me too conversative. They probably didn't like my efforts to reform welfare. And this paper, they say: 'The real problem with Rick Santorum is that he’s too liberal. They didnt like my legislation to increase the minimum wage..." If you have the right media player, you can also see the ad here.
In all my years, I have never ever heard Santorum called liberal, let alone "too liberal."
I asked the Santorum campaign for the source of the quote. They replied that it was the Dick Scaife-owned Pittsburgh (nee Greensburg) Tribune-Review.

The Santorum campaign sent me this excerpt from a May 15, 2005 Tribune column by Colin McNickle: “And then there's his collaboration with Democrats. Not just any Democrats but Teddy Kennedy and Chuck Schumer. There's a proposal to raise the minimum wage. There's another plan to throw $500 or $1,000 cash at every kid born in the United States after Dec. 31, 2006. Even if there's an eventual "offset" down the road on the latter proposal, it's still taxpayer money and we're still talking about the creation of yet another government entitlement. Santorum, "too extreme"? Pshaw! Try too liberal, at least on matters economic. That's the real Santorum story being missed by the out-of-towners.”

For the record, McNickle -- whom no one would accuse of being a liberal -- is no fan of Santorum's, whom he considers an "unprincipled pandering opportunist," who went into the job as a pure-of-heart conservative, but lost his way to the blandishments of power and politics inside the Beltway.

Other than McNickle does anyone out there think that Santorum is a liberal? And, if so, what would that make Bob Casey Jr. or Arlen Specter? I know one thing, it would make Teddy Kennedy a Maoist.

The Last Hurrah

2006-09-07T17:04:00.000-04:00

A piece still causing buzz among the pols is the story done by my colleague, Angela Couloumbis, wherein Ed Rendell pronounces this campaign his last one.
"This is my 14th election - enough is enough," the governor told Couloumbis while campaigning in Lancaster the other week. Here is a transcript of their exchange.
Most pols thought it was a crock and that Rendell will be tempted to run a 15th time, maybe for President or Vice President.
But I take Rendell at his word. Read the story and you'll see that he thinks President is out of the question. (He would have had to have started campaigning months ago if he was interested.) As to Vice President, he confesses, it is not a job he wants. Besides, he adds, he's not exactly on the "A" list of any of the potential presidentials, nor does he expect to be. Rendell's reputation in Washington as a shoot-from-the-lip candidate assures that.
I don't think Rendell is without ambition. He simply realizes the reality of the situation.

The piece served a second purpose. It allowed Rendell to state that if re-elected as governor he will serve his entire four-year term. This clearly is designed to quell Knollophobia in political circles -- the nagging fear that Rendell will depart for Washington in mid-term and that Catherine Baker Knoll will become governor of Pennsylvania.

Rendell will be 66 in 2010, the last year of his second term if he is re-elected. He is among the state's most enduring political figures, with a career of public service spanning five decades, beginning when he joined the District Attorney's office in 1968, just out of Villanova Law School. He was 24 at the time. The guy who hired him was DA Arlen Specter. Later, Rendell went on to head the office's high-profile homicide unit.

Smart politicians know how to seize an opportunity and Rendell did that in his maiden election in 1977, when he opposed incumbent DA F. Emmett Fitzpatrick in the Democratic primary. Fitz had ousted Specter four years earlier in an upset. Rendell departed the office shortly thereafter.
This was in the midst of the Rizzo era of Philly politics. Fitzpatrick had the backing of the mayor and the party apparatus. Rendell ran an outsider's campaign -- as he's done often ever since. He was anathema to the party regulars. He was seen as representing the anti-Rizzo liberals. But he beat the machine. It had more to do with the incumbent than with the challenger. Fitzpatrick, a well-known defense attorney, had champagne tastes in an office with a beer budget. He got himself a Lincoln towncar as his official city vehicle. He loved to travel to conventions in lovely locations. And he was caught, by my former colleague Mike Leary, expensing a safari jacket he picked up on one of those trips. (He listed it as a "meal" at Aquascutum.) Rendell cleaned his clock, winning with 67% of the vote.

If that was a highlight of Rendell's career, two low points came in 1986, when he lost the Democratic primary for governor to Bob Casey Sr. and in 1987, when he lost the Democratic primary for mayor to incumbent Wilson Goode. "I may never seek office again," Rendell said after losing to Goode. Four years later, he was back running for mayor.

Rendell has had years where he was in private practice, but that was just where he hung his hat while waiting for the next election to come along. He was and is and always will be a politician -- and a good one at that. Like Al Smith, he's a Happy Warrior, who loves the game. He's popular because of his performance and his regular-guy persona. But I think the trait that seals the deal with most voters is his optimism.

I've posted a a list of Rendell's contested elections -- and their results -- on my Letters Blog.

Bombs Away!

2006-09-06T09:50:00.000-04:00

The most alarming story of the week is my colleague, Larry Eichel's , discovery that the national Republican and Democratic campaign committees have reserved $16.1 million worth of advertising time on Philadelphia TV stations in the month leading up to the Nov. 7th election.
The National Republican Campaign Committee has set aside $8.4 million to defend three of its vulnerable congressional incumbents in the area: U.S. Reps. Jim Gerlach, Curt Weldon and Mike Fitzpatrick.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has set aside $7.7 million on behalf of the challengers: Lois Murphy, Joe Sestak and Patrick Murphy.
If all the money is actually spent -- and that depends on how hot these races remain -- do you know what that translates into? About 7,400 commercials.
And this total doesn't include the commercials that will be booked by the candidates themselves or by other advocacy groups.
So, here's my piece of advice to residents of the Philadelphia Media Market. Duck!
This is the political equivalent of saturation bombing. And you are the target.
Some of the TV minutes -- excuse me, make that hours -- will be devoted to pumping up the candidates. But, if the past is a guide, most of the money will be spent on attack ads, designed to either (a) turn you against an opposing candidate or (b) make you so sick of the pols and their ways that you stay home on Election Day.
Either way, we are in for a vicious, nasty October on television.
Thank God, I've got TIVO.
Actually, this may be worth a study by social scientists.
It's axiomatic that all political advertising is essentially alike. It uses the same format, graphics and language. Ditto for negative ads. I wonder, given the volume of advertising, if it will all just melt in our minds into an oozing, odiferous, indistinguishable black mass?

I think it's also time to remind you of my Sleazy Award, given each election season to the slimiest, dirtiest, low-down, kick-below-the-belt ads aired on TV or sent via the mails.
For some reason, the Republicans have dominated the Sleazies in recent years, but I'm sure they'll get some competition from the Dems this year. By the way, here is my definition of what qualifies as sleazy from an earlier column I did on the topic:

The Sleazy is reserved for the media campaigns that engage in the lowest, dirtiest tactics in the election season.The prize - a lovely statuette of a snake with a forked-tongue, rising from a swamp - isn't easy to win. Routine bad-mouthing of your opponent won't do it. Heck, that happens all the time. Calling him or her a radical won't do it. That's a love tap. Mere negative ads won't win one. You have to be ready to go over the top. I'm talking gross distortions. I'm talking outright lies. I'm talking bona fide Grade A sleaze.

Keep an eye out for candidates for Sleazy awards and email me details at tferrick@phillynews.com. Better yet, send me links to the stuff and I'll post them here.

The Boy Mayor of Pittsburgh

2006-09-06T09:04:00.000-04:00

Funeral services are scheduled to be held tomorrow (Thursday, Sept. 7) for Pittsburgh Mayor Bob O'Connor, who died Friday of a rare and ravenous form of brain cancer. The Post-Gazette offers an elegaic piece about the late mayor that tells the tale of O'Connor's rise and his sudden and sad fall to disease. KDKA has a piece that sums up O'Connor's career. Again, at the PG, an oncologist, who was also a friend of the mayor's, tells of O'Connor's fight against his disease, saying that once it was discovered the mayor had T-cell lymphoma of the brain his physicians knew he could not survive.

The new mayor of Pittsburgh is Luke Ravenstahl, who was serving as city council president at the time of O'Connor's death. Ravenstahl is 26 years old. The city solicitor has ruled that he can serve in the job until 2009, though there is some dispute over that. The PG offers up a short profile of Ravenstahl and his quick rise. I've also included Ravenstahl's official biog as posted on his City Council web site.

Casey vs. Santorum

2006-09-05T04:53:00.000-04:00

In case you missed the Meet the Press face-off between Rick Santorum and Bob Casey (and who didn't? It aired at 10 a.m. on the Sunday on Labor Day weekend), I can point you to a transcript of the the debate, plus two stories -- one by my colleague Carrie Budoff in the Inquirer, another by Charlie Babington in the Washington Post.
The winner? Easy. It was Tim Russert.
The Meet the Press host was terse, aggressive and brooked no nonsense. It resulted in the kind of give-and-take you don't see on most debates. Russert and his staff did their homework. They had obviously unearthed every extant anti-Casey and anti-Santorum clip and were determined to ask the candidates about them. Special targets: the Santorum residency issue and Casey's stand on the morning-after pill.
The winner in terms of debate skills: Santorum. Hands down. After years in the media spotlight, the junior senator has his act down. He knows you don't give speeches on TV. You keep it short. You keep it snappy. And attack, attack, attack. He always went for Casey's throat, when he wasn't fending off Russert. He was masterful.

And yet, if I were Bob Casey, I would immediately take up Santorum's challenge to 10 debates, instead of the three others they are skedded to have. Why?
Because the debate underscores Santorum's difficulties in this re-election year.
This was not the Rick Santorum of his TV ads -- the Marzipan Rick, who dances the polka, hugs the babies, and does his darndest to appear benign. This was the Red Meat Rick, the conservative warrior for God and country.
He is pro-pro-Bush in a Blue State where about two-thirds of the voters think the president is doing a lousy job. He is pro-war in a state where nearly three-fourths of the voters hate the war. Not only is he pro-Iraq War, there were times in Sunday's debate where Santorum gave the impression he'd be happy to see that war expanded into Iran.
And this talk of Islamic Facism, while it may sound Churchillian to his supporters, is going to spook regular folks, who may not be as enthusiastic about waging a Holy Crusade against the Infidels. It may have worked for Pope Urban II, but times have changed since 1095.
It's hard to sound more hawkish than Dick Cheney, but Santorum managed to do that on Sunday.
As to the President, Santorum told Russert he is "doing a terrific job." This was after Russert flashed a graphic that showed Santorum's support for Bush in the 97% to 100% range in recent years. Which gave Casey a chance to utter his take-away line of the debate: "When you have two politicians that agree 98% of the time, one of them's not really necessary."

In a nutshell, Santorum has two problems: One is Rick Santorum and his standing among moderate and swing voters. The other is George Bush.
About $15 million in advertising may solve problem No. 1. But what the heck is he going to do about problem No. 2?

Let the Games Begin

2006-08-29T10:31:00.000-04:00

In the U.S. Senate race, the debate over debating has ended.
The two candidates have tentatively agreed to four debates over the next two months.
The first is this Sunday (Sept. 3rd) on the Tim Russert-hosted Meet the Press.
(In Philadelphia, the program airs at 10:30 a.m. on WCAU-TV. In Pittsburgh, on WPXI-TV at 10:30 a.m. In Harrisburg-Lancaster-York, on WGAL-TV at 10 a.m. In Johnstown-Altoona on WJAC-TV at 9 a.m. In Erie on WICU and in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on WBRE-TV, both at 10 a.m.)
In addition, Bob Casey and U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum will meet in a televised debate in Pittsburgh on Oct. 12th, to be televised on KDKA-TV. They will meet again, on Oct. 16th in Philadelphia for a radio debate on KYW-AM and a televised debate later that dayon WPVI-TV.
So, there you have it.

Now, the question before the court is: So what? In the coming weeks, when the airwaves are drenched in Casey and Santorum campaign commercials, will these sparsely-viewed debates make any difference?
I can remember one debate that did make a big difference, but firwst we have to step into the Way Back Machine and set it for 1986. It was the race for governor, Bob Casey Sr. vs. Bill Scranton 3d, one of the most tightly-fought gubernatorial races in the state's history.
All through that fall, Casey and Scranton see-sawed for the lead in the public polls. At the time, drawing from my kit bag of analogies, I likened their fight to two guys trying to scamper up a steep slope in slippery shoes. One would take a few steps forward, then fall back. The other would inch ahead, then slip back.
In mid-October, Scranton seized the initiative -- and, frankly, flummoxed the Casey campaign, by vowing to cease and desist from all negative campaigning. It was a tactic designed to serve two purposes: bolster the Republican among voters who were sick of negative ads and to inoculate him against the negative Casey ads (that the Casey campaign had in the can) that dealt with Scranton's younger years as, to use an antique phrase, a pot-smoking hippy and his record as a practitioner of Transcendental Meditation.

Against this backdrop, the two candidates met on Oct. 22 for a debate in Philadelphia that was broadcast statewide. Viewing the debate in the studion, I thought both candidates acquitted themselves well. But, Casey clearly came across as the more conservative of the two -- he declared himself four-square against abortion. He opposed sale of the state Liquor Stores. He also opposed merit selection of judges.
Within a few days, the private poll numbers showed Scranton pulling ahead -- due mostly to a shift among women voters to the Republican gubernatorial candidate. As one Casey consultant told me at the time: it was as if every woman in the state went to the supermarket the next day and talked about how conservative Casey was.
Casey ended up winning that race, but the Casey-Scranton debate in Philadelphia was a debate that made a difference.

Open for Business

2006-08-28T10:53:00.000-04:00

Back from vacation, I bereby declare this blog open for the fall season.
Postings to follow.

Flogging the Wet Backs

2006-07-27T19:31:00.000-04:00

The House Select Committee to Flog the Wet Backs arrived in Philadelphia on Thursday, set up its tent and proceeded on its “fact-finding mission.”
At least that’s what committee chair Rep. Mario Civera, called it.
As Civera reminded the crowd assembled at the National Constitution Center, he would frown upon demagoguing on the issue of illegal immigration.
Shortly thereafter, Civera invited to the stage that noted immigration scholar, The Sage of Geno’s Steaks, Mr. Joey Vento.
Mr. Demagogue himself.
“I am going to talk from my heart,” Vento told the committee. Which meant, alas, that he left his mind at home.
Vento, famed as the guy who put that Order in English sign in the window of his South Philly steak shop, launched into a 15-minute, exclamation-point-laced rant about recent arrivals to our great nation. Some highlights:
“It’s a privilege to assimilate and learn. You gotta assimilate...!
“You must be an American! Illegal is illegal! I don’t care how hard you work! You come to this country illegally? End of story? You are outta here...!
“Press 1 for English! Press 2 for Mexican! What’s that? You gotta assimilate...the Koreans, the Vietnamese. They assimilated real nice. What’s wrong with these people?”
“Learn English! That’s my words of wisdom! Then we’ll prosperous together. But, if you learn good English and you are illegal, you are still out!"
And so on! And so forth!
The committee members lapped it up. Here, in their very midst, a genuine international celebrity.
“Have you ever thought of running for the state legislature?” asked Rep. Stephen Barrar.
Vento demurred. He said, in so many words, that his wife would kill him if he did. The committee members smiled.

Let’s pause here for a few facts.
Pennsylvania is not California. We have trouble attracting legal immigrants, for God’s sake, let alone illegal ones.
Of the 11 million or so illegal immigrants in America, Pennsylvania’s share is estimated to be anywhere from 150,000 to 200,000, most of them from Mexico. That is equal to a little under 2% of the state’s population of 12.2 million.
If that’s a scourge, it’s a mini-scourge.
Most of these illegals work in low-paying jobs – harvesting mushrooms in Chester County, picking fruit in Adams County, washing dishes in Philly restaurants, working on construction crews in central Pa.
One final fact: there’s this document called the U.S. Constitution that makes the issue of immigration the purview of the federal government. The feds, as we all know, are jealous of their prerogatives.
As the Rev. William Ayres, director of the Philadelphia Archdiocese’s Office for Migrants told the committee:
“Immigration law is a federal matter, I believe that creating a system where different states and municipalities become involved makes the issue more complicated and divisive.”
Ayers urged the committee to deal with the issue “based on the principles of justice and charity.”
That was a mistake.
Rep. Daryl “Mad Dog” Metcalfe would have none of it. He chastised the Catholic do-gooder for being soft on “invaders.”
Among committee members, the reaction to Ayers and others “soft” on immigration who came before them, was to express SHOCK and HORROR that ANYONE would condone SOMETHING that was ILLEGAL!
Dom Giordano, from The Big Talker (WCAU-AM 1210), doing his best Steven Colbert imitation, warned the committee against listening to “factoids” about immigrants contributing to society and the economy. Liberals, he sighed, are simply “addicted to illegal behavior.”

Vento was Thursday’s prime attraction but Metcalfe is the star of this show. He rails against the invaders. He threatens their defenders. He seethes through testimony of immigration softies, scribbling questions on his yellow legal pad, waiting for them to pause so he can pounce and strangle them. Verbally, of course.
In short, he makes Joey Vento look like Mother Theresa.
What will these hearings yield?
Nada.
They are not designed to yield anything, other than to juice up ILLEGAL immigration as a hot button issue as a prelude to the November election.
The Republicans, you see, are in favor of the LAW. The Democrats are in favor of the ILLEGALS.
But even the Republicans are divided on the issue. The Red Meaters want the illegals out and now! The Capitalists want them as a cheap source of labor. With no Mexicans, who’s going to pick that fruit or wade into the manure to harvest mushrooms or work below scale on construction crews?
So, what do we get?
A dog-and-pony show, courtesy of the House Republicans. All heat, no light.
And if any of those dogs or ponies are illegals? Well, as Joey Vento put it: They are GONE! They are OUTTA HERE!
END OF STORY!!!!!!!

Mark Your Calendar

2006-07-26T14:59:00.000-04:00

Here is a list of important dates upcoming in the election cycle. The first on is Tuesday, Aug. 1, which is when we will see of the various independent candidates got the 67,000-plus signatures they need to qualify for the November ballot.

Bob Warner has a status report on those efforts in the Daily News. His reading of the situation -- it looks bad for anti-pay-grab leader Russ Diamond's bid to run for governor. Carl Romanelli, the would-be Green Party U.S. Senate candidate, says he is optimistic he will reach his goal.

If Romanelli and Diamond do submit petitions, look for legal challenges to knock them off the ballot due to forged or incorrect signatures.

Conventional wisdom is that Diamond on the ballot would hurt Lynn Swann, while Romanelli on the ballot would hurt Bob Casey.

		Important Campaign 2006 Dates

August	1	Deadline for independents and minor parties
		to file nominating petitions for candidates
		to run in the General Election.
August	14	Last day for candidates nominated in
		the party primary elections to withdrawal.
September	26	Deadline for state candidates to file
		campaign spending reports with the
		state Election Bureau, listing money raised
		and spent as of Sept. 18th

October	10	Last day to register to vote

October	15	Deadline for candidates for U.S. Senate
		and Congress to file campaign finance
		reports with the FEC, listing money raised
		and spent as of Oct. 1

October	27	Final pre-election campaign finance
		disclosure for state candidates.

November	7	General Election

Can He Do It? II

2006-07-25T10:37:00.000-04:00

For Bob Casey to defeat Rick Santorum for U.S. Senate in November, he doesn't have to make like JFK. He doesn't have to make like Bill Clinton. He doesn't have to make like Little Richard, though it would be fun to see the Casey rendition of Good Golly Miss Molly.

He has to make like Al Gore.

Yes, it's true. Casey has to make like the stolid, ex-VP, currently making the rounds of the movie-house circuit to plug his documentary An Inconvenient Truth.

In 2000, Gore won Pennsylvania by a 204,840 margin over George Bush. It was 51% Gore versus 46% Bush.

In the same year, Santorum won re-election over Democratic opponent, U.S. Rep. Ron Klink, by
327,054 votes. It was 52% Santorum vs. 46% Klink.

I think you can forget the vote totals -- 2000 was a superheated year that brought voters to the polls in record numbers. Statewide turnout was 64%

This year's race will be more like the gubernatorial election of 2002, when 3.6 million voters showed up. Turnout was 46%.

Unlike Lynn Swann, Casey doesn't have any mountains to climb.

His needs are more modest. He has to marginally improve over Klink's performance in each of the state's media markets.

Here is a more detailed chart comparing Presidential and U.S. Senate totals in 2000.

Can Casey do it?

It comes down to how you answer a series of questions:

1. Can Casey improve on Klink's margin in Santorum's home base? Klink won the Pittsburgh market, though only by 40,000 votes. It was Klink 51% vs. Santorum 47%. As of the latest opinion polls, Santorum is trailing in the double digits in the Pittsburgh area. Frankly, I think Santorum has to win this market in November to make up for erosion in the east.

2. Can Casey improve on Klink's performance in the Republican "T." To take the lower end, Santorum murderlized the Democrat in the Harrisburg market. It was Santorum 65% vs. Klink's 32%. Gore did better here, to the tune of 4% points. Casey needs to match or slightly exceed Gore's 36% showing.

3. Can Casey do better in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton media market. It was Santorum 57% vs. Klink 41% in 2000. Gore did better than Klink by 7% points. Obviously, Casey can do better here. This is his home base. He needs to win it.

4. Can Casey do better that Klink in the Philadelphia media market? He must in order to win. Klink beat Santorum 51% to 47% in the market. He emerged from the 8-county market with a margin of close to 70,000 votes, but that's only because he racked up the votes in Philly and emerged from the city with a margin of 277,000 votes. He lost in every other county in the market.

In the same market in 2000, Gore got 59% of the vote. He got 80% of the vote in Philly, but he also narrowly won Berks, Bucks, Delaware and Montgomery Counties. Casey needs a Gore-like victory in this market. In this, he will be helped by Gov. Rendell's presence on the ticket.

The long and short of it, if Casey can replicate Gore's 2000 showing in the major markets, he will be a 5-point winner in November.

Ed Rendell: The Farmer's Friend?

2006-07-23T12:49:00.000-04:00

When you think Ed Rendell, you do not think bib overalls.

The governor is a big-city guy, born in New York, lives in Philadelphia.

His opponents have criticized him for being ultra-urban. The rap is that he directs too much money to Philadelphia and its environs and not enough to the rest of the state.

Here in the evil big city we are glad he's got a Philadelphia state of mind. Rendell denies the tag, but to little effect.

But, as I was noodling around the web the other day, I came upon the Rendell for Governor site and found a nifty map they had posted that showed the extent of state investments in each county of Pennsylvania made between 2003, when Rendell took office, and today.

Hoping to make a little mischief, I decided to click on each county, write down the state investment figure and and compare it county-by-county. To make it fair, I divided the total into population (as of 2000) to come up up with a per capita figure.

The results surprised me. I thought the list would tilt towards the populous counties of the east. It did not. Most of those counties, including Philadelphia, were in the bottom third when it came to per capita state expenditures.

Who were the big winners? The rural counties of the "T". Snyder, Union, Juniata and Somerset counties led the list. I have posted the list so you can see where your county ranks.

The list, as compiled by the Rendell research staff, includes mostly grants and capital expenditures -- for highways, economic development, historic preservation, tourism, jobs training and creation, housing, etc. etc. When it comes to PennDOT, it also includes the federal matching money for highway work.

The list does not include federal pass-through money for such programs as welfare, medicare and medicaid. Nor does it include the salaries of state employees stationed in different counties, such as the state police.

I've posted a list that details the money for one county -- Allegheny -- to give you an idea of the nature and range of the grants.

Something to keep in mind in reviewing the list: large projects in less populated counties can distort the picture.

An example: A $30 million bridge reconstruction project in Snyder County, with a population of about 37,500, equals $800 per capita. A similar $30 million bridge project in Philly, with close to 1.5 million people, equals about $20 per capita.

One more thing: looking at top 20 counties on the per capita list, I can only see five that Rendell has a shot of winning in November.

By The Numbers

2006-07-19T08:46:00.000-04:00

My post yesterday on how Ed Rendell performed in 2002 in his home base generated email queries and complaints about how I was giving only part of the picture.

The gist of the comments were: Why focus only on southeastern Pa., which is where Lynn Swann faces his biggest challenge? Why not point out where Swann has a chance of winning.

The answer to that question is obvious:

The part of the state where Swann can and should do better is the Pittsburgh media market. Rendell's numbers there are negative-to-soft. The glitter associated with Swann's background as a Steeler is brightest. But, can Swann win that market?

To help you answer that question, here is more information about how Rendell's 2002 opponent, Attorney General Mike Fisher, performed in the state's media markets. You can play with the numbers and try to figure out where Swann can and must do better. The registration figures are from November 2002.

Media Mrkt....Fisher.....%%%....Rendell....%%%....Others...%%%

Erie..................65,469......56%........46,752...40%.........3,881......3%

Harrisburg....322,079......63%......186,609..35%.......13,200....2%

Johnstown....135,307.......61%........81,858....37%.........4,787.....2%

Other...............57,658.......63%........32,343....35%.........1,692....2%

Philadlphia....439,132......30%......995,113.....68%.......24,658...3%

Pittsburgh....384,986......44%......400,605....50%.......21,437....3%

WB/Scrn.......174,477......49%.......169,995.....48%......10,470....3%

Total...........1,589,408.....44%...1,913,235......53%......70,346....3%

Rendell Margin over Fisher = 323,827

Note: The media market listed as "Other" consists of 5 counties whose primary television station is in another state. The counties are: Franklin, McKean, Mercer, Potter, Tioga.

The state's largest market is Philadelphia, where 41% of the state's voters live, followed by Pittsburgh (24%) and Harrisburg-Lancaster-York (14%), Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (10%), Johnstown-Altoona (6%), Erie and Other (3% each)

Can He Do It?

2006-07-18T12:06:00.000-04:00

Republican leaders in the Philadelphia area have set the bar for gubernatorial candidate Lynn Swann. And what a low bar it is.

They want Swann to get 35% of the vote in the Philadelphia region. If he fails to do that, they fear he will drag down the Republican ticket, including U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum and the region's congressional and state legislative candidates.

As one of them told Brett Lieberman of the Harrisburg Patriot-News: "We've got to get it down in the southeast to no worse that 65-35. If we can get it that close, I don't think it hurts Rick" Santorum.

How realistic is it to think Swann can meet even that low bar?

Let's begin by making Swann's task a little bit easier by defining the southeast as the Philadelphia Media Market: Philadelphia, the four suburban counties, plus Berks, Lehigh and Northampton Counties. (Mike Fisher, Rendell's Republican opponent in 2002, did better in the last three counties than he did in the rest of the market.)

In 2002, the market was home to 41% of the state's 7.8 million voters. Voter turnout was 46%, which exactly matched the statewide turnout.

And Ed Rendell was the monster of the market.

Here is a summary of the results:

County....... Fisher.... %% ..Rendell... %%

Berks................43,790..... 43%..... 56,592.....55%
Bucks...............70,000..... 35%.... 127,850....63%
Chester............58,669..... 41%..... 81,996..... 57%
Delaware.........62,649..... 33%.... 123,117..... 65%
Lehigh.............34,738..... 41%..... 48,150..... 57%
Montgomery...81,835..... 31%.... 175,157..... 67%
Northampton..28,228..... 39%..... 42,554..... 59%
Philadelphia....59,223..... 15%.... 339,697..... 84%

Total .............439,132 .....30%....995,113......68%

Rendell Margin = 555,981

In addition, there was a Green Party candidate and a Libertarian Party candidate who got 24,658 votes in the region -- or 2% of the total vote.

The Republicans are hoping Swann can find a way to trim about 75,000-100,000 votes off Rendell's 2002 performance in the region.

Here is how Swann could do it:

1. Fired up by Rick Santorum's presence on the ticket, conservative Republican turnout will rise and Swann will win the majority of those votes.

2. In Philadelphia, voter turnout, which was 40% in 2002, will decline several points, taking votes away from Rendell.

3. As an African-American, Swann will increase his share of the black vote in the region. Fisher averaged 3% in predominantly black wards in Philadelphia. Swann will get 6%.

4. Most of the votes who went for independent candidates in 2002 will go for Swann.

If all four the the above happen, Swann will meet or exceed the 35% benchmark.

How likely is it that he can do it? You be the judge.

Reality Check II

2006-07-17T10:55:00.000-04:00

Second in a periodic update on cash on hand in selected races around the state.

No new gubernatorial numbers are available. You'll have to check my last post for those figures. The last filing for Ed Rendell and Lynn Swann was early June, but federal candidates had a filing deadline of Saturday and their numbers are beginning to show up on FEC and other web sites.

Still missing, the official Casey & Santorum numbers, though both campaigns released their totals over the weekend.

Here is the money candidates had on hand as of June 30th, according to official reports.

* = Incumbent

Race - U.S. Senate

Rick Santorum * (R) $9,500,000
Bob Casey (D) $5,200,00
Note: Ratio 1.8-1. These totals were supplied by the campaigns. Santorum is clearly the Republican's best fundraiser. He has to be. He has a tough race in one of the biggest states. So far, he has been up to the challenge. He raised $3.6 million in the second quarter and has raised a total of $20.1 million so far in the campaign. Casey has raised a total of $10.8 million so far and raised $2.8 million in the last quarter.

Race - U.S. House

6th District
Jim Gerlach * (R) $1,302,975
Lois Murphy (D) $1,402,793
Note: Ratio 1-1. Murphy has pulled ahead in cash on hand. Her theory is: she lost her race by a few points last time because Gerlach had more money to spend. She was determined not to let it happen in 2006. So far, she has met her goal.

7th District
Curt Weldon * (R) $1,152,012
Joe Sestak (D) $ 999,999
Note: Ratio 1-1. Sestak's filing was not posted as of today. His figure is an estimate given by his campaign. If money talks, the Sestak campaign is shouting. Last report, Weldon had twice as much cash on hand as his Democratic challenger. Now, the former admiral appears to have pulled close to even.

8th District
Mike Fitzpatrick * (R) $1,133,180
Patrick Murphy (D) $ 495,236
Note: Ratio 2.2-1. Murphy has picked up the pace in fundraising this quarter. At the end of the last quarter, he was 4-1 behind the Republican incumbent in cash on hand.

10th District
Don Sherwood * (R) $479,134
Chris Carney (D) $301,245
Note: Ratio: 1.5-1. Very bad news for the incumbent, already wounded by charges that he slapped around his mistress. His ratio of cash on hand was 6-1 in the last report, now the Democratic challenger appears to be pulling close to even.

13th District
Allyson Schwartz * (D) $1,491,237
Raj Bhakta (R) $ 28,352
Note: Ratio 52-1. Wipeout.

When it comes to U.S. House races, Schwartz is 2nd in the state in the cash-on-hand category.

The champion is U.S. Rep. John Murtha, Democratic incumbent in the 12th District.
As of June 30, Murtha had $1.8 million cash on hand. His opponent, Washington County Commissioner Diana Iray had $159,138 -- an 11-1 ratio in favor of Murtha.

Megaphone Man III

2006-07-13T09:19:00.000-04:00

This is another in a series of posts of letters and emails from folks who disagree with my point of view. I'm sorry I haven't posted more of them.

I got a lot of interesting emails and voice mails on some columns I did recently about legislation to limit handgun sales in Pennsylvania to one a month. Most of them called me a silly, liberal twit. Others were not as complimentary.

But, I was having technical difficulties with Blogger.com and I was, de facto, unable to post for nearly two weeks. So I missed the opportunity.

Not to worry. When I write about the gun issue again, I am sure to get more missile-like missives and I'll post some of them.

These emails came after I did a piece this week about Raj Bhakta, the Republican candidate for congress in the 13th district, which straddles Northeast Philly and eastern Montgomery County.

I took issue with what I said was Raj's thinly-veiled racialist message in re the Northeast.

These readers took issue with me. One of them denied there was any racial basis to Raj's message. Another lamented how the Northeast has been harmed by neglect from City Hall.

Questions & Answers

2006-07-11T14:55:00.000-04:00

Some questions and answers for Tuesday.

Question: Name the Pennsylvania mayor who is going to have to go out and buy a warm winter coat? Answer

Q: What job is better than lieutenant governor?
(Clue: Instead of Pottsville, you get to go to Paris.) Answer

Q: Can she be mayor and he be anchor? (Just a thought.) Answer

Q: Name two Republican incumbents who just got more nervous?
Answer & Answer

Q: As slots revenue goes up, what may come down? Answer

Invasion of the Garlic Eaters

2006-07-08T10:24:00.000-04:00

Sen. Rick Santorum said it the other day. He's not against immigrants. Immigrants have been a vitalizing force in America. But, those who come here, he said must "do it by the rules."

Joe Vento said much the same thing. Vento, owner of Geno's Steaks in South Philly, caused a international stir when he posted a sign in his window that said, simply:

This is America.
When ordering, speak English.

It was aimed, Vento said, not at foreign tourists, but at locals (read: Mexicans) who had infiltrated the Italian Market area and were refusing to assimilate -- learn the language, act more like Americans.

What he wanted, as Vento explained to one reporter, was to "go back to the 19th century, play by those rules."

The implication was clear.

Unlike the illegals of today, our immigrant ancestors came to this country legally, worked hard at assimilating, and became true Americans. They played by the rules.

It's a vision that resembles a Hallmark Hall of Fame episode.

Working title: American Dreamers.

And most of it is pure bunk.

The facts are these:

Most of the immigrants who came to America were neither educated nor wealthy nor refined. They were illiterate peasants who were castoffs from their countries of origin. They truly were, to quote Emma Lazarus, the "wretched refuse" of foreign shores.

Those who moved to the cities lived in squalid enclaves. They were viewed -- variously -- as dangerous, drunken, smelly, swarthy, stupid, inferior, mongrels. They labored at menial jobs in horrid conditions for sub-standard pay.

First-generation immigrants rarely assimilated and died with only a tenuous grasp of English. The children of urban immigrants often tended to crime, particularly the Irish and the Italians.

It has taken some immigrant groups -- especially non-Anglo, non-English speaking groups -- four or five generations to cast off their label as aliens.

Why did they come here, then and now?

To quote Willy Sutton, because this is where the money was. This is where the jobs were. This is where some relative lived -- a brother, an aunt, a sweetheart, a few cousins from your village.

In some cases, they were seeking riches. In most cases, they simply were trying to avoid starvation or death at the hands of their enemies. America -- a vast, booming adolescent nation -- was the place that offered hope for a better life.

How did native Americans react to these new arrivals? Always with fear, often with repulsion, sometimes with hatred.

Some 19th century immigrants -- the Irish, to be precise -- drove natives into a frenzy of fear and loathing, not only because they were an inferior people, but because they were Roman Catholic and, therefore, slaves to the Pope and determined to hand over this nation to a ruler seated in the Vatican.

It was a fear put to rest -- among most, but not all Americans -- only after 1960, with the election of John F. Kennedy.

The Irish didn't help by being -- unlike the more docile Germans -- aggressive and obstinate, prone to drink and violence. In other words, when struck, they hit back.

At least the Irish spoke English, or some pidgin variety of it.

The immigrants from southern and eastern Europe who came later in the 19th century did not. Nor were they fair-haired or blue-eyed. They were dark, swarthy, strange folk -- alien to the core.

My great-aunt Josephine, who grew up in late 19th century South Philly, had a name for the Italians immigrants that aptly summarized her disdain. She called them "The Garlic Eaters."

John Fiske, the American historian who popularized Darwin's work in the U.S. put it succinctly. In traveling in Italy, he reported back: "The lowest Irish are far above the level of these creatures."

By the late 1800's. nativists had a new vocabulary to discuss the immigrant problem -- the language of science. Anthropological studies, precise and "scientific" measurement of craniums and Darwinian theory were used to demonstrate that these new arrivals were inferior peoples, lacking in mental capacity and unsuited for citizenship.

For instance, here are the observations of a Professor Edward A. Ross, observing Italian arrivals: "Steerage passengers from a Naples boat show a distressing frequency of low foreheads, open mouths, weak chins, poor features, small or knobby crania and backless heads!"

The fear, then and now, was that these aliens would intermingle with American stock and create a mongrel race. (In fairness, that's exactly what happened.)

As the scholar Carl Wittke noted in the early 20th century: "What disasterous results awaited a country in which 50 Roumanian or Italian peasants would have a perfect army of offsprings in several generations, whereas the stock of 50 Harvard or Yale men would probably be extinct within the same length of time."

What Wittke could not foresee was that Harvard men would later marry the grand-daughters of those Italian immigrants and send their quasi-knobby craniumed offspring to Yale.

Procreation, it turns out, is an agent of assimilation.

Between 1880 and 1920, scholars estimate that one in three of all the Jews living in eastern Europe emigrated to American, a total of two million. In the 10 years between 1900 and 1910, more than two million Italians arrived in the United States.

This wave of aliens repulsed Americans. Political commentators debunked the "myth of the melting pot" and predicted these late arrivals would never assimilate. A mongrel nation was on the horizon unless something was done to stop it. They found a way.

After World War I, scientific racialism and political isolationism combined to create a rigid quota system to stifle immigration. The quotas, particularly the ones in a 1924 law passed by Congress, targeted southern and eastern Europeans.

When the senator's father, Aldo Santorum, and his parents entered this country in 1931, they were among the lucky few.

The quota system had reduced the legal flow of Italian immigrants from 200,000 a year to 3,845 a year after 1924, though there is evidence that double that number entered illegally each year.

As to the rules prior to that, there were none to speak of.

With few exceptions -- an 1882 U.S. law that excluded the Chinese being the most notable -- there were no restrictions on immigration between 1802 and 1921.

No Green cards. No literacy tests. No quotas. No loyalty oaths. No nothing.

If you were white and your were reasonably healthy, you were free to enter. After five years, we were permitted to become a citizen (and your local ward leader would be more than happy to file the papers for you, so you could vote for the candidate of their choice.)

You did not have to show English-language proficiency. You did not have to demonstrate an understanding of American government and history. Hell, you didn't even have to be able to read.

You were a citizen.

Between 1820 and 1920, more than 30 million immigrants came to the United States under these "rules."

They included all of my ancestors. They probably included yours.

A postscript:
Here is what Benjamin Franklin thought of certain immigrants of his day. He makes Joey Vento sound like Pericles.

Mariano Weeps

2006-07-06T13:57:00.000-04:00

This just in.

Philadelphia City Councilman Rick Mariano is sentenced to 6 1/2 years in federal prison for being stupid.

Well, that's not technically the charge.

He was found guilty of soliciting about $25,000 in bribes from businessmen in his district. He used most of it to pay off credit card debts. Some of it he used to pay for membership at his health club.

In collecting the bribes, Mariano left a paper trail that was practically a super highway. It was so wide and deep the feds had no trouble following it.

Even though he had nearly a year between the time word of the investigation leaked and when the feds raided his office, Mariano never made an attempt to repay the "loans," as he alleged they were.

After the raid, Mariano went around telling aides, in so many words, I am guilty as hell. I did it. I took the money. Those aides later testified for the prosecution at the trial.

Finally, days before he was indicted, Mariano took to City Hall Tower and had to be talked down by Mayor Street (backed by a contigent of police). The fear was that he would commit suicide.

But, maybe the dumbest thing Mariano did was to throw away a political career and a job that paid $102,000 a year with a panoply of benefits and perks. Why? For credit card debts. For membership in the Sporting Club. For peanuts.

Mariano was lucky, in a way. The prosecutors wanted him sent away for 10 years.

Still, he wept in court at the sentencing hearing -- and begged the judge to let him do community service here or in Iraq.

The judge nixed the Iraq part. He picked the here part. And he made it jail.

If I Only Had a Green

2006-07-05T14:16:00.000-04:00

News Item:

In trying to earn a spot on the ballot in Pennsylvania this November, Green Party candidate Carl Romanelli has no better friend than the man he wants to topple: U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum.

The Republican incumbent says that everyone in state politics should help Romanelli gather the large number of voter signatures - more than 67,000 - that he needs to qualify for the Senate race...

Why should Santorum aid a potential foe?

Vince Galko, his campaign manager, says it is because of his interest in free debate. "Democrats, Republicans and independents all agree that the democratic process should be open and welcoming to people of differing positions," Galko said in a letter posted on Santorum's Web site.

Common political strategy suggests the likelihood of another Santorum motive - to divide and conquer.

If Romanelli gained ballot access, he probably would draw some votes away from Bob Casey Jr., the Democratic nominee and far larger threat to Santorum's bid to win a third term.

Philadelphia Inquirer

Tuesday, July 2

Inspires this song, to the tune of "If I Only Had a Brain."

If I Only Had A Green

In the polls I am trailin'
My backers are a wailin'
"Rick, what does it mean?"
But the case is prima facie
I could beat Bobby Casey
If I only had a Green.

Oh, I love this Romanelli
Though his politics are smelly
To my backers and to me.
But, hey, let's not quibble
If the votes that he will nibble
Are the liberal bourgeoisie.

Oh, I can tell you why
The Green Party I adore.
They'll get votes from the left's hardcore
So, I can sit – for one-term more.

I don’t want to be a nothin'
Or have Casey beat my stuffin'
To lose would be obscene.
So let's make like Machiavelli

And help this Romanelli

So that I can have a Green.

A Sweeping, Historic Landmark

2006-06-30T08:02:00.000-04:00

It doesn't take much to prod us media types into adjectival overload.

In our kit bag of clichés, every reform must be sweeping, every bill a landmark, every debate historic.

It reminds me of George Bernard Shaw's observation about the failing of the media of his day – it's inability to distinguish between a bicycle accident and the collapse of western civilization.

But, I do think we had a genuine, bona fide historic moment this week when Gov. Rendell signed the property-tax reform bill.

It was the culmination of a 50-year debate over how to wean local governments off reliance on property taxes as the principal means of paying for public education.

During that half-century, there was widespread agreement – at least among political and government types – that taxes on property tended to be unfair, cumbersome to administer and unsuited to the needs of modern government. An 18th century relic in the 21st century state.

There was even agreement on what to do about it: shift from reliance on property taxes to some form of income tax or consumption tax.

This was the suggestion of study commissions and tax legislation championed by George Leader, Milton Shapp, Dick Thornburgh and, most famously, Bob Casey Sr.

Casey even got the legislature to agree to a plan to reduce property taxes by increasing local income and sales taxes.

Because it required a Constitutional amendment, it was presented to the voters, who shot it down in 1989 by a 3-1 margin.

The whys and wherefores of that defeat have been picked over for years, but I'll try to summarize.

One. Such plans tend to be complex. In theory, it is a simple transaction – resembling a seesaw – property taxes go down, while other taxes go up to an equal degree.

In reality, because of the nature of the legislative process, what usually emerges is a three-dimensional hexahedral structure resembling Crick and Watson's model for DNA.

Second. People don't like taxes. When they think taxes, they don't want shift, they want cut. They are also suspicious, and rightly so, that when politicians say shift, they really mean increase.

They look at that hexahedral structure, with its interlocking strands, and say: Screw it!

The central tension of government is that people love the services it renders and loath the taxes required to pay for them. Partisan politics feeds on that contradiction.

To quote Sen. Russell Long, the attitude of most folks is: "Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree."

Well, Ed Rendell found someone behind the tree willing to pay the tax.

Donald Trump.

There were legislators, particularly Republican legislators, who abhorred Rendell's idea of introducing casino gambling into the state. But, they loathed raising taxes even more. In effect, they became gambling's enablers.

There were others (I'm in this group) who thought it would be cleaner, simpler and more sensible to raise the sales or income tax to pay for the property tax relief. But they had gotten nowhere for 50 years.

Rendell's gambling idea changed the debate because it had an alluring aspect for legislators in both parties: When it came to taxes, why fight over how to slice the pie, when you can bake a whole new pie? The aroma of $2 billion in slots revenue proved irresistible.

You have to give Ed Rendell credit or, conversely, you have to curse him.

He came into office saying he would do two things:

One. Increase state taxes so we can increase the state's share of paying for public education, thus relieving local government of some of its burden. He did that.

Two. Cut local property taxes by introducing casino gambling into Pennsylvania. He did that, too.

And he seems perfectly happy to stand on that record as he seeks re-election.

Come to think of it, maybe that's another sweeping, historic landmark, too.

Reality Check

2006-06-27T08:01:00.000-04:00

Politics is 90 percent bullshit and 10 percent cold, hard reality.

Reality comes in two varieties: money and vote totals.

We won't know the vote totals until November, but we can look at the money now.

Here is a list of selected races using the cash-on-hand measurement -- the amount of money a candidate had in his or her campaign treasury as of the latest date available.

For state races that date is June 5th. For federal races it is April 26th.

This is the money these candidates have available going into the summer months.

* = Incumbent

Race - Governor
Ed Rendell * (D) $13,786,783
Lynn Swann (R) $3,250,331
Note: Ratio 4-1. Rendell has $13.7 on hand, despite spending $1.86 million in a statewide TV buy in May-June. Swann not only must run against an incumbent, but against one of America's premier fundraisers.

Race - U.S. Senate
Rick Santorum * (R) $7,789,703
Bob Casey (D) $4,474,331
Note: Ratio 1.75-1. A clear advantage to the incumbent. It allows Santorum to go up on TV now and stay up through the fall to "decalcify" the race, as his campaign manager put it. An effective statewide buy costs about $800,000-$900,000 a week.

Race - U.S. House

6th District
Jim Gerlach * (R) $1,096,164
Lois Murphy (D) $ 961,622
Note: Ratio 1-1. Now you know why this is one of the most closely watched congressional races in the country, with Gerlach considered among the most vulnerable incumbents.

7th District
Curt Weldon * (R) $826,466
Joe Sestak (D) $436,455
Note: Ratio 2-1. A textbook case of the advantages of incumbency, with Weldon stepping up his fundraising effort in the face of a serious challenge. His seniority on the House Armed Services Committee helps.

8th District
Mike Fitzpatrick * (R) $1,383,023
Patrick Murphy (D) $ 341,409
Note: Ratio 4-1. Murphy must do better to remain competitive against this first-termer.

10th District
Don Sherwood * (R) $474,255
Chris Carney (D) $ 83,663
Note: Ratio 6-1. Sherwood is potentially vulnerable because of charges that he slapped around his mistress, but Carney needs to do better to take the "potentially" out of this sentence.

13th District
Allyson Schwartz * (D) $1,133,222
Raj Bhakta (R) $78,806
Note: Ratio 15-1. So much for the power of celebrity.

Curt's Excellent Adventure

2006-06-25T09:33:00.000-04:00

It's aftermath time on Rick Santorum's WMD claims regarding Iraq and also time to introduce a new player in the drama -- Curt Weldon.

For starters, though the Santorum claims are being poo-pooed by defense experts, etc., Pennsylvania's U.S. Senator is sticking by his guns. Or, rather, his shells.

As my colleague Chris Mondics reported today. An excerpt:

Santorum insisted that a just-released intelligence report proves that Saddam Hussein had weapons that in the hands of terrorists could have become weapons of mass destruction.

The partially declassified report, put together by a Defense Department agency, revealed that American forces have recovered about 500 rounds of chemical-weapons shells containing "degraded" mustard or sarin nerve gas in Iraq.

"Is 500 rounds a serious threat?" Santorum asked. "I would make the argument that we had reached the threshold. The concern with chemical and biological weapons was not so much that he would use them against us but that they would secrete out to terrorist organizations for them to use."

What does "degraded" mean? Apparently it means inert. The 500 rounds have been sitting around for so long -- perhaps as long as 25 years -- they don't pack any pop.

Santorum aside, there are folks who believe there are still uncovered WMD's in Iraq. The New York Times Times had a piece on one such guy the other day.

His name is Dave Gaubatz, a former Air Force investigator and civilian employee who spent several months in Iraq during the recent (and continuing) war.

Gaubatz has been searching out sites of possible WMD's and offering his information to various elected officials, in the hope of getting a hearing. One of them was our own U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon (R., Pa.)

I found Gaubatz's web site and, sure enough, he tells his story there -- though it is clear that he currently is no fan of Weldon's, whom he came to suspect was interested in the the guy's WMD info only for political reasons.

He also says that, at one point, Weldon wanted to travel to Iraq with Gaubatz to personally uncover the sites (and, presumably, bask in the attendant publicity -- if he didn't get killed or beheaded first.)

As Gaubatz relates the tale:

On 16 Mar 2006, I had a meeting with Congressman Weldon and his Chief of Staff (Russ Caso) in Wshington DC. Congressman Weldon did not want anyone in DOD or the NRO to be notifed, because in his words he did not trust them and they would attempt to take credit for locating WMD in Iraq.

Congressman Weldon advised he would go through private corporations to confirm the grid coordinates of the sites.

Toward the end of Mar 2006, I was contacted by a private imaging company (arranged by Congressman Weldon) and we discussed the site locations.

Several telephone conferences and emails between Congressman Wedlon, Hoekstra, and their staff were exchanged during the period Mar - May 5, 2006, pertaining to the WMD sites.

I had been requested by Congressman Weldon (who had telephoned me at home and work) to arrange a meeting with 3 Iraqi citizens who were aware of one of the WMD sites in Basra, Iraq.

On 4 May 2006, Congressman Weldon, Congressman Hoekstra, members of their staff, the three Iraqi citizens, and myself discussed the suspected sites in detail.

Congressman Weldon asked me several times during the meeting if I would go with them (to include the 3 Iraqis) to the four sites near Basrah and Nasiriyah, Iraq.

During the meeting it was discussed that no member of their respective committees would be informed, specifically no member of the Democratic party.

Congressman Weldon whom I had respected very much then advised no member of the "Military" was to be informed because they could not be trusted with this intelligence information.

Congressman Hoekstra did not like this statement, nor did I.

I now did not feel comfortable going with Congressman Weldon because this was going to be a 'political personal venture" more so than for national security concerns.

It would also not be safe for two Congressmen to go to isolated locations in southern Iraq.

So, let's add it up:

Don't tell the Democrats.
Don't tell anyone in the intelligence community.
Don't tell the Department of Defense.
Don't tell the military on the ground in Iraq.
Just go and look for the WMD's Gaubatz believes he has located, dig 'em up and do a photo op.

Sounds like shameless grandstanding to me, in a war zone no less.
Sounds like it's kinda whacky, too.
Sounds like typical Weldon.

This & That for Friday

2006-06-23T10:51:00.000-04:00

This: Lynn Swann outlines his program for public education. For some reason, he does not embrace my innovative, sure-fire Bake Sale proposal. (See No. 3)

That: The House passes a lobbyist disclosure bill and Dave Ralis thinks it's a crock.

This: After what seems to be a century of lobbying, supporters finally get the Senate to pass an increase in the minimum wage in Pennsylvania. It will go up to $7.15 an hour next year with some exceptions. Someone who deserves credit: state Sen. Christine Tartaglione (D., Phila.), for whom this bill has been a personal crusade.

That: Meanwhile, the Senate passes a proposed Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage -- but with an important change intact that allows civil unions. John Baer gives the Senate a pat on the back for doing the right thing, the second he's bestowed in the last 25 years.

Back In Business

2006-06-22T14:43:00.000-04:00

After a haitus, this blog is back in business.

I had to shut down last week because of recurring problems with #$%*&%% Blogger.com, but I have ginned up some solutions (using Picassa to import pix, instead of the Blogger.com import system). I have twice purged my cookies, which sounds kind of gross now that I read it, but it did let me gain access to my blog page.

I have been able to post two items today that appear below.

Thanks for your patience.

-- Tom Ferrick

Do I Have Any Bids?

2006-06-22T14:30:00.000-04:00

As Yoda would put it, stuck in the mud is Lynn Swann.

The Republican candidate for governor can't get a break.

One day he announces that he raised more than $1.5 million in 32 days -- and most of the media compare the size of his campaign fund (paltry) to that of Gov. Ed Rendell (humongous).

The next day out comes the latest Quinnipiac poll that shows Swann (gulp) 22 points behind Rendell. Worse yet, the same poll shows the Democratic incumbent with the support of 27% of Republicans. Geez.

Out of the rut must Swann pull his wagon. Here to help am I.

Here are 10 ways for the Republican gubernatorial candidate to raise money and build political support. I modestly call it the "Pathway to Victory."

1. Sell one of your SuperBowl rings on eBay to raise money for the campaign. It shows you are truly committed to your cause, it will probably net $100,000, and it will give you millions in free publicity. Good for 2 points.

2. Challenge Rendell to a football pass & catch competition, to be held at the Linc in Philly. Loser pays winner $1 million. Good for 2 points.

3. To appeal to the T, go to Lancaster to announce a new plan for property tax relief that can be done immediately and will not require legislative approval. Tout the Lynn Swann School Bake Sale Plan as "an entrepreneurial, free-enterprise, All-American way to fund public education." Get Pat Toomey to endorse the idea. Get him to wiggle his ears at the news conference. TV will eat it up. Good for 3 points.

4. Reach into the Post-Bug playbook to attract black voters. Go to Philadelphia, hold a news conference, and announce that you just learned you are the target of a federal investigation into corruption. Say: "It's just another example of the Bush administration targeting African-American politicians." If the U.S. Attorney denies there is an investigation, reply: "They'll do anything and say anything to deny me the governorship!" Good for 5 points.

5. Court the anti-pay grab crowd. Hold a news conference with Gene Stilp saying that if elected governor you will not accept any salary. In fact, you are going to voluntarily give the state treasury an annual payment of $25,000 "just for the privilege of letting me hold the job." Good for 2 points.

6. Dump that Matthews guy you've got running as your lieutenant governor and replace him with Ron Jaworski. Great balance: Steelers & Eagles; Quarterback & Receiver. Tell critics that Jaworski is perfect for the job because he won't favor any one area of the state. He lives in New Jersey. Good for 3 points.

7. Send out a flyer in suburban Philly criticizing Rendell's "secret plan" to have Bucks, Delaware, Chester and Montgomery counties annexed by Philadelphia after the election. Better make this anonymous. I can give you the names of political consultants who specialize in these pieces. Good for 9 points.

8. Announce a "Building Pennsylvania Back Up Again Plan!" to attract new industries and jobs to Pennsylvania, with the goal of creating 250,000 new jobs. Good for 1 point.

9. The next day announce building jobs to Pennsylvania can't wait, Depart for a 20-state, 10-week tour of America to personally lobby businessmen to relocate to our state. Depart to cheers of supporters. Appoint Tom Ridge as your campaign surrogate and have him campaign for you through Labor Day. Good for 6 points.

10. After Labor Day, announce via teleconference from California that you are making progress in your "Building Pennsylvania Back Up Again Plan!" but that you must extend it through Halloween. Have Tom Ridge continue campaigning. Good for 5 points.

Return on election eve for victory party.

Savor headlines that call you "Landslide Lynn."

Pass the Mustard Gas

2006-06-22T12:00:00.000-04:00

WMD's Found In Iraq!

That was the buzz yesterday on Fox News et al., a mini-storm created by our very own Sen. Rick Santorum, who held a news conference with the chair of the House Intelligence Committee to announce the revelation. Here is Santorum's blog on the issue.

Outside of Fox, though, the issue didn't get much play. I wondered why? Was the leftist-liberal-defeat-dog media once again suppressing info. that would back the President's case for invading Iraq.

Well, no. It turns out it wasn't news because it wasn't new.

These are old shells, with decayed mustard and nerve gas, that date from the Gulf War I in 1991. They were discovered and disclosed by the U.S. military two years ago.

The Washington Post, in reporting the Santorum news conference, included this pithy graph:

The U.S. military announced in 2004 in Iraq that several crates of the old shells had been uncovered and that they contained a blister agent that was no longer active. Neither the military nor the White House nor the CIA considered the shells to be evidence of what was alleged by the Bush administration to be a current Iraqi program to make chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

Last night, intelligence officials reaffirmed that the shells were old and were not the suspected weapons of mass destruction sought in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.

Oh well. Good try.

P.S. I didn't hear it myself, but I understand Delaware County's own U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon was on WCAU "The Big Talker" yesterday, ranting about a piece I did in my column wondering how he could think there is credible evidence of WMD's in Iraq, an assertion he made to the Delco Times a few weeks ago.

It was one of those Quasi-Wacky Weldon Rants the embattled incumbent favors so much these days.

Weldon cited the Santorum news conference as proof that he was right and I was wrong.

Sorry, Curt it just doesn't cut the mustard.

(I couldn't help myself.)

Crystal Ball Department

2006-06-16T09:13:00.000-04:00

My pundit's crystal ball is out of the shop good as new, so I might as well peer into it and see what's what with the future.

Let me set it for 2010.

Hold on, an image is arriving. I see people lined up at a craps table at a big casino. At another, they are playing 21. I see a throng of gamblers around a roulette wheel. There are poker tables aplenty, each seat filled with players.

Where is this happening? I'll move my crystal-ball minicam to the outside and do a scan. What's that I see in the distance?

Why, it's the Philadelphia skyline!

Why am I not surprised? To use the adjectives employed by its supporters, the monumental, astonishing, incredible, breakthrough, historic property-tax bill passed by the state House on Wednesday is predicated on the state getting $1 billion in revenue from gambling.

Currently, slots is the only gambling permitted in Pennsylvania. (Not that any slots parlors are up and running yet. My crystal ball says the first won't even open until 2008.)

What happens when the slots yield less than the promised $1 billion, as it inevtiably will?

We will have three choices: (1) reduce the amount of property tax assistance offered by the state to our beloved seniors and local schools districts; (2) raise the income tax or sales tax to make up the difference; (3) allow gambling to be expanded to include other games of chance.

Which do you think the legislature and governor will pick?

You don't really need a crystal ball to answer that question.

In the meantime, there's a speedbump on the roadway to progress.

Ted Decker, chair of the state's Gaming Control Commission has warned there may not be any casinos in our future, unless the seven-member commission can agree on competing lists of slots suppliers.

The gambling law requires that the casino operators purchase their slot machines from Pennsylvania-based firms which, astonishing as it may seem, have ended up being dominated by politically-connected investors.

The commission can't decide how to divvy -- I mean allocate -- the business among the competing firms. Stalemate has ensued. Without an approved lists, there can be no slots suppliers, without slots suppliers there can be no slots parlors, without slots parlors there can be no....well, you get the point.

The problem here is that the gambling legislation required the commission to operate under a "super-majority" -- any action is takes must be approved by five commissioners -- and the four appointed by each legislative caucus and the governor's appointee must be included in that majority.

Why Are These Men Smiling?

2006-06-14T08:24:00.000-04:00

Harrisburg keeps serving up surprises.

Sen. Jane Earll of Erie was the latest to serve one up Tuesday in the Senate Judiciary Committee by taking the knife to a proposed Constitutional amendment designed to outlaw gay marriage.

As originally drafted -- and as passed by the state House -- the amendment read thusly:

"Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this Commonwealth, and neither the Commonwealth nor any of its political subdivisions shall create or recognize a legal status identical or substantially equivalent to that of marriage for unmarried individuals."

Here is the language, apres the Earll amendment, which was approved by the committee 13-1.

"Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this Commonwealth."

What's it all mean?

To quote that noted political analyst Mother Goose, Earll took the amendment and turned it in, turned it out and turned it into sauerkraut.

No wonder the pro-Family groups are in a dither.

By indirection, the Earll amendment allows counties and the state to approve domestic partnerships and/or civil unions. The original amendment banned such arrangements.

What's the difference between a marriage and a civil union? You got me. I thought marriage was a civil union (as opposed to Matrimony.)

Why the 13-1 vote? It was the Senate's way of saying to the House: "Go away and don't bug us with this cockamamie issue now."

My bet is, it kills the amendment.

No Habla Inglese? No Reado My Blogo

2006-06-13T12:06:00.000-04:00

Beginning today and until further notice, if you cannot speak English you are not permitted to read my blog.

This is an English-only blog, for English-only readers.

The rest of you must scram -- and make it pronto!

The sina qua non of success in this country is knowing how to read and speak English.

English is the linqua franca of the world. If you live in this country, you better embrace English. And if you don't want to?

How about this: You can leave! Go back where you came from. Capice?

In this patriotic stance, I am inspired by Joe Vento, owner and proprietor of Geno's Steaks in South Philly, about 4 blocks from where I live.

Joe took a stand. He posted a sign in his window that says: "This is AMERICA. WHEN ORDERING, 'SPEAK ENGLISH.' "

I guess he was tired of those Frenchies coming and ordering a boef-stek avec fromage or those little Mexicans you see around the Italian Market these days. They are popping up everywhere. They are even taking over empty storefronts and opening groceries.

You know what's next: They are going to get married, start having children and settle down.

There goes the neighborhood.

Since Joe announced his ban, he's gotten worldwide publicity, lots of network interviews. He's been blogged to death.

This is all good and it got me thinking. Why can't I share in the limelight, or maybe get a little corner of it?

Why can't I have my 15 minutes of fame, even if it's as an ignoramus?

Vento told The Inquirer last month that: "If you can't tell me what you want, I can't serve you."

This applies not only to foreign-born people, but folks from elsewhere in America.

Let's face it, if you are from Cleveland or Minnesota or Tennessee or Mississippi you don't speak real English. It's ersatz, like a Esperanto or Yiddish or something.

We Philadelphians can barely understand you.

An example: I've heard people at restaurants in Philly ask the waitress for WHA-ter.

For the record, it's WOOD-er.

If you can't tell her what you want, how can she serve you?

Ditto for leg and egg.

In English, it is LAIG and AIG. Not LEHG or EHG.

If you go into a restaurant, you don't say:
Do YOU have any EHGS?

You say:
Do YOUZ have any AIGS?

Here are some other words often mispronounced by outsiders:

kEL-er. As in: I went to Best Buy's and bought a color TV.
bu-TEE-ful. As in: My, what a beautiful dress.
wid. As in, I'd like that cheesteak with cheese.
ANT-knee. As in: I often pray to St. Anthony for guidance.

So practice after me:

"ANT-knee, I want a cheesteak wid and my bu-TEE-ful wife would like a fried AIG sam-ITCH. I'll take a Pepsi. She's want an ARNGE soda. How mudge do I owe youz? Ten BUGS? Dat's a lot. I kin get it for cheaper from the Mexikins down the street. "

Practice and you'll do okay at Geno's. If you are refused service, not to worry.

There's a little Mexikin place called La Lupe across the street.

Rubik's Cube

2006-06-12T07:55:00.000-04:00

Now, it is the House Republicans turn to solve the Rubik's Cube of property tax reform.

GOP House members last month rejected a proposed compromise worked out between Gov. Rendell and the state Senate.

Word is that the House is mulling (I love it when they mull) a proposal that would increase the state sales tax from 6% to 6.5% to raise about $650 million that, in combination with slots revenues, would go towards lowering property taxes. The Patriot News has a piece on it today.

Is there any reason to think this plan will succeed where others have failed? You got me.

After the primary, I sent my crystal ball into the shop for some much-needed repairs.

Two quick notes, though:

1) If the plan calls for an increase in state taxes (in this case, a 12% increase in the sales tax) it's not the best timing, this being an election year with so many incumbents jittery over voter anger.

2) How can Harrisburg justify increasing taxes when the state has a huge surplus, which currently amounts to $722 million?

FYI: Rendell has a plan to spend some of that surplus (a mix of tax cuts, new spending and socking some of it away in the state' Rainy Day Fund.)

At its base, I think there's a disconnect between policymakers' and regular folks' understanding of what constitutes "property tax reform."

The policymakers see it as tax redistribution -- lower property taxes but keep the size of the pie the same or even make it bigger by raising some other tax (sales tax, local income tax?) or finding new revenue (from slots, etc.)

Voters tend to see it -- simply and plainly -- as tax reduction. They are happy to have their taxes property taxes cut, but what makes anyone think they like the idea of having other taxes raised to make up for the lost money?