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INSIDER INFO -- APRIL 2009
Bombshell goes off!
Budget battle
Rendell Merry-Go-Round
A mayoral mayhem
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Bombshell goes off!
Arlen Specter switches to the Democratic Party, setting off political earthquakes at the state and national level
Confronting polling that showed him facing near-certain political death if he ran in the 2010 Republican primary, Specter announced that he is changing his party affiliation after 43 years as a Republican.
The 79-year-old political moderate and maverick said he is joining the Democratic caucus and will run in the 2010 Democratic primary in Pennsylvania. Already the state’s longest-serving U.S. senator, Specter is seeking what would be his sixth six-year term next year.
Specter’s earth-moving decision was made at the confluence of two occurrences – the results of a private poll he commissioned that matched public ones saying he faced political extermination in the GOP primary and a long but secretive courtship by high-level Democrats, including Gov. Rendell, Vice President Joe Biden and fellow U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr., D-Scranton.
Specter’s polling was done by Public Opinion Strategies, a Washington-based firm that only serves Republican clients. Based on Specter’s decision, the firm has now withdrawn from his campaign, according to Roll Call.
“I am not prepared to have my 29-year record in the United States Senate decided by the Republican primary electorate, not prepared to have that record decided by that jury," Sen. Arlen Specter said at the news conference at which he made his decision public.
“I’ve cast more than 10,000 votes in the Senate. Even I don’t agree with all of my votes,” Specter said, invoking laughter from the media.
Two months ago, Specter said that his vote as one of only three Republicans to approve President Obama’s economic stimulus package likely put his political career at risk but the nation’s need was more important than his re-election.
Still, Specter, despite bouts with cancer, brain tumor and other health problems, has shown steely resolve to run for a sixth term. And now, by his own admission, he’s made a “political calculation” that he can’t single-handedly preserve “the Republican moderate in Pennsylvania.”
Interesting because last year Matthews, a native Philadelphian, had been exploring a challenge to Specter as a Democrat; Mitchell covered Specter when he was district attorney of Philadelphia for KYW news radio and Fineman, a native Pittsburgher, has followed his career for three decades.
Matthews could hardly be contained from his burst of glee at having explosive political news to report. Fineman said that when they were Senate colleagues riding an Amtrak train together from Philadelphia and Wilmington to Washington, that Biden often suggested to Specter that he consider switching parties.
Fineman revealed that since early January the vice president has had 19 conversations with Specter involving a potential party switch. Mitchell reminded the audience that Specter had been a Democrat until the party passed him over and he joined the GOP to run for DA.
Rumor on Judge (Mrs.) Rendell
The trio also reported on one hot political rumor that has circulated the last month that Rendell will try to cash in his good will with Democrats to get his wife, Marjorie Rendell, nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court. She currently serves as a judge on the next level down, the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
Rendell was a supporter of Hilary Clinton in the primary last year but he campaigned for Obama in the fall and the Specter switch, if it helps the president, will be another political I.O.U.
And that brings us back to the starting point for Arlen Specter – Philadelphia’s seedy ward-leader-infested politics.
Indeed, Specter was a “Kennedy Democrat” who only switched to the Republican Party after the corrupt Philadelphia Democratic Party machine refused to slot him for district attorney. He ran in 1965 as a Republican and became a highly visible prosecutor who held daily afternoon press conferences.
When he first ran statewide for a Senate seat in 1974 and then governor in 1978, Specter was unsuccessful but his moderate Republican stripes and independent streak served him well in the then-all-Republican Philadelphia suburbs and that support finally carried him to victory.
In an east-west contest in 1980, Specter finally survived a multi-candidate Republican primary and ran against the late Democrat Pete Flaherty, the former mayor of Pittsburgh, to win the Senate seat he now holds.
Amid cries of outrage and betrayal from Republicans, Specter did find support in one GOP corner from former Republican National Committeewoman Elsie Hillman, who recently hosted a fund-raiser for him in her Pittsburgh home.
“I believe he is the brightest member of the United States Senate and I will continue to support him and will vote for him in next year’s general election,” Hillman said in a prepared statement.
Clearing the Democratic field for Specter
Specter did not make the party switch without the infrastructure being in place to give him a comfortable landing spot after he parachuted into statewide Democratic politics.
Gov. Rendell, who served as an assistant district attorney under Specter and has always had a good relationship with him, was scheduled to travel to Washington on Wednesday to appear with Specter. He has promised to raise money for Specter.
More importantly, Obama, Rendell and Casey are expected to “clear the field” of other Democrats who were considering a Senate challenge. Already, state Rep. Josh Shapiro, D-Montgomery, announced he will not run for the Senate.
The only announced and organized Democratic candidate, Joe Torsella, former head of the Constitution Center in Philadelphia, said Tuesday he will remained in the race and U.S. Rep. Joe Sestack, D-Delaware County, made noises about his continued interest. But both are expected to back down when pressure is applied by the Obama-Biden-Rendell-Casey axis.
Scrambling the Republican field
Right now, the two active candidates are former U.S. Rep. Pat Toomey of the Lehigh Valley who came within two points and 17,000 votes of beating Specter in the 2004 primary. The other candidate is conservative activist Peg Luksik of Johnstown, a strong anti-abortion and family values candidate who ran unsuccessfully for governor in the 1990s.
Earlier this month, John Cornyn R-Texas, the national Republican Senatorial Committee chairman, wrote a letter to Pennsylvania Republicans calling on them to support Specter.
Cornyn wrote in his letter that Republicans should support Specter because he was the “best bet” to keep the seat in Republican hands because Toomey could not win a general election.
Cornyn said with his political profile he could not run in Pennsylvania and win and that Specter could not run in Texas and win.
Cornyn likely regrets the wording of that letter now but there is some wisdom in saying that Democratic-leaning Pennsylvania is unlikely to elect another Rick Santorum-like conservative candidate four years after it soundly rejected the real Rick Santorum.
Specter’s decision could entice Jim Gerlach, also a moderate but the only surviving Republican congressman from the Philadelphia suburbs, to reconsider his exploratory bid for governor and instead run for the U.S. Senate.
If Gerlach stays in the governor’s race, he faces steep competition from front-runner Tom Corbett, the state attorney general, and former U.S. Attorney Pat Meehan, who shares a southeastern Pennsylvania base with Gerlach.
Some Republican minds immediately turned to former Gov. Tom Ridge, now a Washington-based consultant, who still maintains residency in his native Erie. Ridge is still popular with the state party and might be best position to defeated Specter in a general election.
But Ridge loyalists point out that Ridge spent 12 years in the U.S. House in the minority party and shows no desire to give up the private sector to return to a similar scenario in the upper chamber.
Besides, they note, the national GOP has twice had the opportunity to nominate Ridge for vice president (in 2000 under George W. Bush and 2008 under John McCain) and both times he was passed over for more conservative running mates.
After that treatment and a stint in the thankless job of homeland security director, “Tom Ridge doesn’t owe his party a thing,” one loyalist said.
Filibuster Fixation
The national press was intrigued by the Specter defection for two reasons:
First, it put s a human face on the Republican Party’s alleged failure to adequately supporting moderates when they are up for re-election in an effort described by moderates such as Specter as “purifying the party.”
Specter ticked off a number of examples in his news conference but he especially pointed out that former U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island was so harmed by conservative opposition in the primary that he lost the general election.
Specter said the GOP would have controlled the Senate in the 2007-2008 sessions if Chaffee had survived. And he noted that Chaffee’s primary foe was supported by the Club for Growth, the national organization that Toomey headed just before resigning to announce for the Senate.
Secondly, Specter officially becomes the 59th Democrat in the Senate and if Democrat Al Franken is seated from Minnesota after a protracted recount court battle, the Democrats would have 60 seats – theoretically a filibuster-proof majority with the 40 Republicans hapless to stop them from passing whatever they wish.
But as Specter is quick to point out he will be far from an automatic 60th vote on many controversial issues and other conservative Democrats may also put state interests before the party at times.
The battle lines have been drawn for a while but now after weeks of verbal sparring some numbers are coming into focus.
Later, Corman and other GOP senators produced some pain-inducing numbers.
Instead of the $29.1 billion spending plan presented by Gov. Rendell, which already has some sharp cuts and reductions, the GOP goal is to come up with a state budget at $27.5 billion.
The main difference between the two spending levels is that Rendell’s higher spending level relies on federal stimulus money that will be exhausted in two years.
Senate Republicans believe it is unwise to rely so heavily on federal spending and want that money just to fill gaps until the state’s economy is on surer footing.
Another point of contrast is the Marcellus Shale and drilling for the natural gas trapped in that vein which underlies much of western and northern Pennsylvania.
Rendell favors and extraction tax on the natural gas excavated from the state while Republicans, energy and business interests believe the industry should be allowed to grow in its early stages and drillers should be subject only to normal state business taxes.
The formal announcement of the Republican’s spending goal touched off frenzy among lobbyists, according to Capitolwire.com. Lobbying interest “stepped up their campaigns to persuade GOP senators to keep their projects or interests from getting targeted by the Senate GOP budget” – the goal being to get your budget items on both spending plans.
Rendell Merry-Go-Round Crawford moves up to become governor’s third chief of staff in seven years; Kopp replaces him
Another week. Another headline. Another rant from Gov. Ed Rendell.
We’ve all grown accustomed to its pattern and predictability.
There was once a time early in his governorship when Ed Rendell resented not getting the fawning press statewide and from the capital press corps that he had become accustomed to during most of his Philadelphia mayoral tenure.
Now, he anticipates the negativity and flaunts his outrage at the outset. He knows some of his decisions will trigger bad press and editorial page criticism and he seems to wait as if in ambush to give gubernatorial push back.
For that, the governor relies on his own sense of self-righteousness – the size of which has been compared to the Allegheny National Forest.
Staff changes happen to every second-term governor. Some higher-ups leave the administration for greener pastures. Others lower down step up to replace them.
Steve Crawford, who has been Rendell’s legislative secretary since his governorship began in 2003, will advance to chief of staff.
Colleen Kopp recently returned to the Rendell administration as a deputy legislative secretary. She spent the past two and a half years as a lobbyist – first with former state House Minority Whip Mike Veon with whom she has long been associated and then as a solo practitioner.
Veon set up the lobbying firm with Kopp after he was defeated for re-election in 2006. But since then, he has been indicted twice by State Attorney General Tom Corbett.
The first time was in the summer of 2008 where Veon was charged with being the mastermind behind Bonusgate, a widespread conspiracy to pay state House Democratic employees with taxpayer-financed “bonuses” for campaign work.
The second time was earlier this year when he accused Veon of defrauding taxpayers by looting a non-profit he founded, BIG (Beaver Initiative for Growth) for both personal and political purposes, including “bonuses” for campaign work.
BIG was founded in the 1990s when Republicans controlled the governor’s office but it began to receive millions in taxpayer grants – especially after Gov. Rendell took office in 2003. As a key person in Rendell’s legislative strategy, Veon was skilled and credited with helping the governor pass many of his initiatives during Rendell’s first term.
A recent grand jury presentment said Kopp, while on Veon’s staff, was one of two people who instructed the former director of BIG “to ignore what it says on grant applications” and prepare general grant applications because the grants were legislative earmarks and were sure to be approved.
Rendell said he asked Kopp about the presentment and she told him “she wasn’t implicated in anything.”
“I believe her. I trust her,” Rendell said last week in announcing the changes.
It is hardly the first time Rendell has turned to his own compass rather than the one most people follow in making recent decisions.
He took flak for the hiring for former state Rep. Dan Surra to a $95,000 tourism job and for entering a public relations contract to promote the state’s federal stimulus money with Ken Snyder, a protégé of former state Sen. Vince Fumo, recently convicted in federal court of 142 counts of corruption.
Both of the new employments came as exceptions to Rendell’s self-imposed state hiring freeze and the governor was quick to respond to the negative press that both hires invoked.
No one should expect Rendell to change his pattern this late in his tenure. Look for more examples of Rendell’s ranting and raving whenever his decisions are called into question by a press corps just doing its job.
A mayoral mayhem Scranton has a curious contest to determine who will run the city the next four years
It may be ironic that the television situation-comedy, The Office, is based in Scranton but here’s another funny “Office” episode from Scranton – this one being the mayor’s office.
The current mayor’s race has all the makings of a screwball comedy. And it’s funny because it’s true.
Chris Doherty, the incumbent Democratic mayor of Scranton, wants a third term. He needs to win the mayor’s office to hold open his options for higher office – such as Congress (if and when U.S. Rep. Paul Kanjorski ever retires) or a state row office someday.
Even though he’s been mayor for almost eight years now, and served a four-year term as a city council member before that, there is a reported undercurrent of disaffection with Doherty, according to local media reports. One insider put it more succinctly: Doherty just does things that piss people off at times.
Like his contentious negotiations with the city’s police and firefighter unions which have been nearly continuous for the past seven years.
Or his support of school board candidates that were not endorsed by his party in 2003, 2005, and 2007.
And then there is his sister -- Virginia McGregor. She ran his 2005 reelection campaign. When she said last year that she was just a “housewife” and a “nobody,” the room erupted in howls of laughter from local politicos. Many take her to be Doherty’s political brain trust.
The city Democratic Committee chairman, Art Moran, who engineered the endorsement away from Doherty, is rumored to be holding a grudge against the mayor. Moran is one of those who believe McGregor does her brother’s political bidding that he can’t do in public himself.
Last year, for instance, she was said to have been flirting with the idea of backing John McCain in the presidential election.
After the committee vote, Moran said Doherty had “failed” to control the political activity of his sister and that “there’s a problem.”
But Doherty has more money than any other candidate, more than $42,000 and no debt, and eight years in office behind him to point the city’s accomplishments during those two terms.
Prior to becoming mayor, Doherty made his living by running his family’s religious book and items store in the city.
The mayor also has the support of Gov. Ed Rendell, who came to Scranton on earlier in April to stump for him. That’s no surprise. Rendell is fond of incumbent city mayors having served as Philadelphia’s from 1992 to 2000.
DiBileo, the “endorsed” Democrat sells insurance and reports only $111 in his campaign war chest. He has $184,106 in debt from past campaigns, a huge amount for a local candidate but most of it is to his own committee, primarily personal loans from himself and family members.
DiBileo has been inactive in politics for the last four years since he lost to Doherty in the mayoral election in 2004.
In addition to the Democratic Party’s endorsement and whatever that brings him, he also has the support of the unions, who are eager for Doherty to leave office.
And the only Republican running for the office, Bob Bolus, is a convicted felon who is determined to run even though he acknowledges that under current circumstances, if he wins, he cannot serve.
Bolus was convicted of three felonies in 1991 -- two counts of receiving stolen goods and one count of criminal conspiracy. He now owns a trucking company and is described as someone “with his fingers in a lot of pies.”
He lost the mayoral race in 2001 when Doherty first ran.
Lackawanna County’s District Attorney, Andy Jarbolus, filed suit to prevent Bolus from running, but lost on a technicality -- he filed his legal challenge a day too late.
Bolus’ goal, his dream, is to get his felony conviction overturned by the courts so he can serve if elected. Since he is unopposed on the primary ballot, he has months to work on his legal issues prior to the general election in November.
So the question is who’s going to win in this predominately Democrat city? The underdog candidate with no cash and the right endorsements? The incumbent who doesn’t always do the politically correct thing but has the most money and a record of accomplishment? Or the wild card, the guy with an actual criminal record.
It’s always those movies that state in the beginning, “based on a true story” that are the most interesting.
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