For years, anyone following Pennsylvania politics closely had to marvel at the continued success of the Pennsylvania Republican Senate Campaign in retaining GOP seats while aggressively delving into Democratic terrain to get new ones, especially in Western Pennsylvania.

It started in Erie County in 1996 when Jane Earll beat four-term Democratic incumbent Anthony “Buzz” Andrezeski. It continued with Don White in Indiana County and environs in 2000 replacing long-term Democrat Pat Stapleton. Then Bob Regola wrestled a seat from incumbent Allen Kukovich in 2004, Pat Browne kept a contested Lehigh Valley seat in Republican hands in 2005 and Chuck McIlhinney did the same in Bucks County in 2006.

In fact, Capitolwire, the Harrisburg-based internet news service, recently reported that Pennsylvania is the only state above Virginia in the mid-Atlantic and New England regions with any legislative chamber that is majority Republican. And Republican it is by a substantial 29-20 margin with one vacant seat to be filled that has trended Republican.

By contrast, Democrats have only regained some of the lost ground in the state Senate by working hard and taking advantage of the continued bluing of the Philadelphia suburbs. That was first ushered in by the 1996 election of Connie Williams to a Montgomery County seat and then by Andrew Dinniman in 2006 in what used to be red-as-can-be Chester County.

In 2008, the Senate Republicans had an even steeper hill confronting them. Pennsylvania had been gripped by fervor from the Democratic presidential contest between now-President-elect Barack Obama and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and that party’s registration swelled to a more than 1.1 million advantage over the GOP.

But despite that daunting Democratic advantage, the Senate Republican caucus prevailed for its incumbents and even managed to keep its footing in Westmoreland County and establish a new beachhead in very Democratic Beaver County. In the final three weeks, it faced two additional challenges: the once dormant contest in Dauphin County had become a genuine prize fight and Sen. Jim Rhoades died two weeks before Election Day from injuries sustained in a car crash. But once again, the Republicans prevailed with a new team at the helm – Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati of Jefferson County and his chief of staff, Todd Nyquist, who took leave in August to run the Senate campaign committee. Nyquist, 34, and his twin brother, Tim, also on the Senate staff, are natives of Youngsville in Warren County.

Joe Scarnati

Here are the results of the four biggest challenged races:

Dauphin and York counties:
Jeff Piccola, 52% to Democrat Judy Hirsh 48%
Westmoreland County:
Kim Ward 54% to Democrat Tony Bompiani 46%
Beaver County and part of Lawrence County:
Elder Vogel 57% to Democrat Jason Petrella 43%
Schuylkill, Carbon and part of Monroe counties:
Jim Rhoades 63% to Democrat Peter Symons 35%

For Scarnati and Nyquist, it was their first full election cycle since taking command of the caucus in December 2006 after the departure of longtime leader Bob Jubelirer who lost re-election and his chief of staff, Mike Long, both of whom entered the private sector. Nyquist, a long-time loyalist and aide to Scarnati, was interviewed about the campaign in the committee’s rented quarters across from the state Capitol.

Insider: How did you pick your targets this past cycle?

Nyquist: We took a look at electoral history, vote tallies but at the end of the day it’s still gut instinct. Is it an uneducated gut? It’s not. It’s an educated decision but at the end of the day it’s still a gut call based on trends, based on whether you have a good candidate in that district, based on current issues in a district. It’s a whole host of things. We looked at maps, we looked at issues and we looked at the candidates we had in each race.

Insider: Tell us about the Elder Vogel race. Here’s a farmer from Beaver County running for the state senate. On the surface, it sounds like the kind of candidate the Republican Party puts up as token opposition in a Democratic district. How the hell did you see that as a winnable race?

Nyquist: We looked at the trends in the district and to be honest the trends didn’t hold true (to make a contest.) The only Republican to prevail in that district was Melissa Hart for a congressional seat and she only won it by 700 votes. That race was one decided on a number of factors. Number One, it was an open seat. Number Two, it was a seat in the western part of the state. Number Three, it was a gut feeling by the president pro tempore who took a look at the atmosphere, took a look at the people and saw that they were ready for a change personified in an honest, hard-working farmer like Elder Vogel. We took a little heat up front. But we supported Elder Vogel and we believed in him.

Insider: Was he a good candidate?

Nyquist: Elder was an excellent candidate. He had been a supervisor in New Sewickley Township but that’s it as far as prior campaign experience. But, boy, could he work a room. He was believable and honest. I think people saw that he was coming to Harrisburg to represent them and to fight for their values, not for themselves. Here’s a guy who has dairy farm, 450 acres, and he farms it himself with his father.

We wanted people to know Elder Vogel and what he would do for the district. We were aggressive in the district. We were able to identify who Elder Vogel was and we were able to identify who Jason Petrella (the Democratic candidate) was.

The boss spent a lot of money in these races. In some cases, it meant going on broadcast network TV and that was the case with Elder Vogel – direct mail and network TV because the district was 2-1 Democrat-to-Republican. I think we spent $1.3 million in that race alone.

Insider: In Westmoreland County, you had to deal with the withdrawal of a candidate, Bob Regola, and then having to find a new candidate. It could have been real messy. Tell us about that race?

Nyquist: This seat starts out almost as difficult as the Elder Vogel district. It’s 60 to 40 percent Democrat versus Republican. But this seat clearly trends Republican in voting patterns. But if we don’t have a good candidate, we don’t win here. The people in Beaver County and Westmoreland County are not going out looking for Republicans to vote for. They are looking for good people to vote for.

This seat was just as difficult starting out. Tony Bompiani (the Democrat) already had name identification and a substantial amount of the vote that was committed to electing him on Sept. 1. But he had not been identified who he was and that he had raised taxes eight times (as a school board member). We let people know about that.

Insider: And you stayed with that tax increase message despite pressure to change things around. You decided to stay on target.

Nyquist: You get a lot of advice in running campaigns. We stuck to the message, never left it. It was a little risky on our part but we put all our eggs in that one basket and we won (by eight percentage points). The approach in both cases was an aggressive approach that only my boss would want to see. I went door-to-door with Kim Ward. She has a gift with people one-on-one. I was amazed at how good she is (as a candidate).

Insider: You had two crises toward the end of the campaign – first a suddenly competitive race in Dauphin County (Harrisburg and its eastern suburbs) and the death of a veteran Republican senator two weeks before his re-election.

Let’s talk about the Piccola seat first. Here’s a guy who ran against your boss (for president pro tempore in an intra party contest in 2007) and he finds himself in political trouble and has to turn to Joe for help. And you give it to him and you take control of his campaign and the campaign message.

Nyquist: First, you have to recognize how hard Jeff Piccola worked. He went door to door, back to old school shoe-leather politics. He sat in people’s living rooms and reminded them of all the good things he had done. Look, it’s true we helped monetarily ($100,000-plus). It’s true we helped with campaign message. Jeff had a plan to deal with property taxes while his opponent said publicly the present system was okay. Jeff worked extremely hard and he got his message to the voters. And it was a huge message. Jeff was fighting a huge registration change in that Dauphin County now has more Democrats and Obama carried Dauphin County. What Jeff did and what Jeff accomplished was very important to the caucus.

Insider: How about the Rhoades seat?

Nyquist: He had been a terrific senator for nearly three decades and the people in that district deserve to have a choice – a choice to have a senator who represents their values as Jim Rhoades did and represent their views as Jim Rhoades did. And they are going to get one. They are going to have a voice. There will be a special election to choose his successor.

In this election cycle, we were on broadcast network TV in four races. I don’t know if that ever happened before. Joe Scarnati authorized network advertising more than three weeks out for Kim Ward, two weeks for Elder Vogel, two weeks for Jeff Piccola and the last eight to 10 days with the Jim Rhoades seat. These were not half commitments from the boss. When the boss commits, the boss commits and he likes to win.

At the end of the day we won in all these races because we had good candidates in every single seat and they represented the views and values of the district and second, we had Joe Scarnati willing to spend enough money to make sure they got their message out. That’s how we won.

Insider: So how much did the caucus spend?

Nyquist: Three million plus. Clearly. That’s my ball park guess. Joe had about $1.7 million in his campaign account and he dropped it down to about $200,000 so he spent $1.5 million.

Look Joe Scarnati worked hard and he made commitments that he kept. You take a look at the Elder Vogel race. A lot of people said, “You two guys are naïve. C’mon. It’s your first cycle. What are you doing?” We heard a lot of those comments. We believed and we stayed. And as a result, Elder Vogel didn’t just win. He got 57 percent of the vote! A vote of 52-48 would have been considered a landslide there for any Republican.

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Cycle! What Cycle?
Line of Democrats for governor in 2010 hardly dissuaded by 8-year jinx on incumbent party

Conventional Wisdom 1: A Philadelphian can never be elected governor.

Well that was disproved in 2002 when Ed Rendell turned his popularity and record as Philadelphia mayor into a platform to be elected statewide, beating early favorite Bob Casey Jr. in the primary and Republican Mike Fisher in the general.

Conventional Wisdom 2: America will never elect an African-American president and if it does, it will be without the help of Pennsylvania because there are “too many racists” in the Keystone State.

Despite a politically incorrect comment about Pennsylvania racism by U.S. Rep. Jack Murtha, that theory was disproved last month when Barack Obama was elected the 44th president winning the Keystone State on his way to an Electoral College landslide. He carried Pennsylvania by an astonishing 10.1 percentage points. There may well be racists in Pennsylvania but there were not enough to overcome the daunting Obama electoral machine.

This leads us to…

Conventional Wisdom 3: Pennsylvania voters always elect a governor of the opposite party every eight years, swapping a Republican for a Democrat and then a Republican for a Democrat.

Well, that piece of conventional wisdom turns out to be true. It’s been historically accurate going back to the 1950s. It was even true when the governorship was limited to one term. Voters would elect a Democrat followed by another Democrat, equaling eight years, and then two Republicans for another eight years. In 1970, governors were allowed to run for one re-election and the pattern has held firm. Every eight years, the Governor’s Mansion changes and 2010 would theoretically be the Republicans’ turn.

But that history is not stopping a slew of Democrats from stepping into the ring and trying to succeed Ed Rendell, a Democrat, as the state’s chief executive.

The reasons are numerous but most are rooted in the old axiom that “Hope springs eternal.” Just because it hasn’t happened in the last half century doesn’t mean it’s can’t happen now. One Democratic hopeful said when asked about the eight-year cycle by a political supporter. He dismissed the theory as “a historical coincidence.”

One factor cited by many of the hopefuls is Pennsylvania’s higher Democratic registration edge, now up to 1.1 million voters over the GOP, and the strong Obama victory in November

Add it all up, and you can see why Democratic State Committee Chairman T.J. Rooney says: “In 2010 we will make history. We will break the cycle.”

“The reason is simple. We will have exceedingly qualified candidates in the primary as we did six years ago when we had now-Gov Rendell and now-Sen. Casey competing. The primary in 2010 will be good, and showcase candidates and give them the exposure they need to win in the general election.”

Who will the nominee be?

Well the favorite remains Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato, who has a strong organization in his home region of southwestern Pennsylvania, covered by the Pittsburgh RV market, and a two-decade friendship with former Rendell chief of staff John Estey, his guide to eastern Pennsylvania big donors and power players. In 2002, Gov. Ed Rendell needed now Pennsylvania Turnpike Director Joe Brimmeier and Harrisburg attorney and former western Pennsylvania lawmaker David Sweet to guide him through western Pennsylvania Democrats and their culture. Estey, a law school pal of Onorato, and a top power broker at Ballard Spahr, the law firm that Rendell and his allies made a premier force in state politics, is doing the same thing for Onorato in the east, the wallet of the Democratic Party.

Dan Onorato

Onorato still has to resolve some issues back home, involving transit and a liquor tax so controversial he had to cut it from 10 percent to 7 percent, to try to lower the volume on that issue, which many contend is simply a vocal minority of restaurant and tavern owners. Still, Onorato remains in many eyes, the best candidate with the broadest base and the best fund-raising skills.

His problems are simple: he is a Casey Democrat, although squishier and willing to countenance more and broader exceptions to an abortion ban than most pro-lifers would tolerate. But he is a pro-gun old-style politician from Western Pennsylvania, and lots of the liberals whom Rendell and Obama empowered remember beating Bob Casey Jr. in 2002 and think if they can find another liberal, they can beat Onorato with a more liberal candidate.

But who?

Former State Revenue Secretary and one-time family lumber baron Tom Wolf has been dropping hints like crazy and doesn’t discourage speculation about a gubernatorial run. He is smart, rich, hard-working and well admired by those who know him. Plus he spent close to $1 million since 2005, helping Democrats around the state the last two years run to win seats in Congress and the state House.

But he has yet to show he has the kind of retail politicking skills that are required for this kind of tough, 18-month brawl for the state’s showcase political post.

State Auditor General Jack Wagner has won statewide office twice, once running ahead of his party’s presidential candidate (John Kerry in 2004) once behind (Barack Obama this year). But Wagner’s lifelong ability to win political contests without raising or spending much money may be admirable but it is seen as a big problem by those who think any Democrat with a chance to beat Onorato will have to spend $20 million to do so since Onorato is on track to raise $10 million by the end of 2009. Wagner’s union connections and lifetime in elective politics in Allegheny County and statewide probably cuts that cost to less than $10 million, but Onorato would be the best opponent Wagner has ever run against, and they share the same base.

Jack Wagner

(Editor’s note: Wagner did beat Onorato for the party nomination for a vacant state Senate seat in a special election in parts of Pittsburgh and its suburbs but that was in 1994, a year after Wagner had greater name identification from running unsuccessfully for mayor the year before and when Onorato was just a first-term city councilman. Since that loss, Onorato has won every other race he entered, including county controller and county executive.)

The Wagner crowd likes to say that if Attorney General Tom Corbett has impressed Republican insiders by winning by 6 points over Democrat John Morganelli, then Wagner’s crushing of Republican Tom Ellis by 22 points ought to do the same for the Allegheny Democrat.

But while Corbett ran 360,000 votes ahead of his presidential candidate, John McCain, Wagner ran 30,000 votes ahead of President-elect Barack Obama.

One insider said: “Jack rode with the Democratic wave. Tom fought through it. Which impresses you more?”

Millionaire Tom Knox, who finished a close second in the Philadelphia mayoral primary in 2007 after spending $10 million on Philadelphia area TV, may run for governor. Some insiders think he overestimates the positive residue of that $10 million in voters’ minds and will not spend the $20 million it would take to become competitive.

Most think either Knox or Wolf will get real and that, in the end, only one of the millionaire Toms will actually get into the race. Certainly the fact that they both share the same first name and profile of successful businessman looking to make a quantum transformation into governor will cause one or the other to back down.

Then there is the candidate who has probably worked nearly as hard as Onorato so far to run for governor, Lehigh County Executive Don Cunningham. Cunningham is a strong candidate with the best resume so far for a pre-governor: mayor of Bethlehem, Secretary of General Services for Rendell, and now essentially mayor of Lehigh County. Cunningham is also playing the pro-choice Catholic card hard, trying to win liberal votes in the Philadelphia suburbs, but many question if he can raise the money to be competitive. He also is up for re-election to his present post in 2009.

Next is Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Hoeffel, who wants to run, and thinks of himself as the natural eastern candidate, who may also run for U.S. Senate. He is given little chance in either race.

In terms of long-shots, two interesting names have emerged, and there is some sign that state Treasurer Robin Wiessmann, appointed by Gov. Rendell, might run for governor, or, some party officials hope, for U.S. Senate. There has also been speculation that she might run for lieutenant governor on a ticket with Onorato. Wiessmann is married to Ken Jarin, an uber lawyer at Ballard Spahr, Rendell’s former firm, and Jarin is one of the state and nation’s top Democratic Party fund-raisers. A woman who can raise money from southeast Pennsylvania (or get her husband to do it for her) could be “Onorato’s kryptonite” one statewide Democratic Party official offered. Wiesssmann has shown some interest, but it is hard to tell if she will run. “It’s in the evaluation stage right now,” Wiessmann said in an interview with the Insider that will run in the next issue. “I’m not precluding any opportunities announced or unannounced.”

Robin Wiessmann

And finally, many party officials hope, but admit they have no idea if Katie McGinty, former state secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection will run. She is also considered a candidate for the top post at the Environmental Protection Agency in the Obama administration.

The charismatic, friendly, smart and workaholic McGinty, close to Rendell, Al Gore and many of the state’s top fund-raisers, has shown no clear public sign she wants to run, but would attract a lot of interest if she put out those signs.

One Democrat summed it up: “Right now it seems like a strong field, but everyone but Onorato has to prove their candidate skills, or build a base, or show they can raise the big, big sums it will take to win this. Onorato has some barnacles attached to him the last few years, but has impressed a lot of people, and clearly he has the straightest path to the nomination.”

How big? Well, in 2002, Casey lost, spending $18 million in the primary. Rendell won the primary, spending about the same.

And costs haven’t gone down since then, and probably won’t in the next two years.