IS THE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN FOR GOVERNOR A LOSER BEFORE IT EVEN STARTS?
February 2006
By VINCENT P. CAROCCI
No matter who is endorsed by the state party organization
in February, nor who ultimately is nominated by the party’s registered voters in
the state’s primary election in May, the eventual Republican candidate for
governor in 2006 must confront one irrefutable political reality:
Unless the party and its nominee finds a way to minimize, if not neutralize,
incumbent Democrat Edward G. Rendell’s hold on the voters of southeastern
Pennsylvania, the GOP campaign is doomed to failure before it even starts.
The fact that Rendell is the sweetheart of the populous southeast, where 33 per
cent of the registered voters make their home, is hardly revealing to anyone
with but even the slightest interest in Pennsylvania politics. But to fully
grasp just how daunting is the task the Republican candidate will face this year
requires, for most of us, a hard look at the numbers—the tale of the tape, the
proverbial bottom line, so to speak. What they tell is so compelling that they
bear repeating at this early stage of the electoral cycle if only to reinforce
for the record the magnitude of the challenge confronting the GOP and its
gubernatorial nominee.
Four years ago, Rendell--then the former mayor of Philadelphia, a former
Democratic national chairman and a prodigious political fund-raiser—defeated
Robert P. Casey Jr.--the son of the former governor. the incumbent state Auditor
General and the party organization’s endorsed candidate--for the Democratic
gubernatorial nomination by a modest margin of 162,700 votes (702,500 to
539,800).
What was not so modest were the margins Rendell rolled up among Democratic
voters in Philadelphia and the four suburban counties of the southeast:
Philadelphia, by 163,100 votes (no surprise there); Bucks, by 34,700; Chester,
by 17,800; Delaware by 31,900; and populous Montgomery, by a stunning 57,900. In
sum, Rendell defeated Casey in the southeast by an astronomical 305,400 votes
(396,600 to 91,200). There’s no doubt Rendell’s avowed pro-choice position
versus Casey’s avowed pro-life position had a significant impact on the outcome.
But there was more to it than that. Rendell was as much the mayor of the bedroom
counties as he was the mayor of Philadelphia in matters of public policy—mass
transit not the least among them—and the results reaffirmed his standing in the
suburbs.
In the remaining 62 counties of the state, Casey outpolled Rendell by 143,000
votes: 448,600 to 305,600. Casey won 57 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties by a total
of 260,400; Rendell won only 10 counties—Philadelphia, the suburbs, Berks,
Centre, Lancaster, Lehigh and Northampton—but his margin thanks to the southeast
was 423,100. Thus, he, not Casey, became the Democratic nominee for governor.
Furthermore, it should not have been surprising when, six months later, the
Rendell performance was repeated in his general election race for governor
against Republican Attorney General Mike Fisher. Rendell won the governorship by
323,800 votes. His margin in the southeast was over a half-million votes,
515,500 to be approximately exact. Fisher (like Casey, pro-life without
qualification) won in the rest of the state by 191,700. Again, Rendell won only
18 counties of the Commonwealth while Fisher won 49. But again, thanks largely
to the southeast, Rendell’s margin in his 18 counties was 635,100; Fisher’s in
his 49 was only 311,300 votes. Therein lies the reason why Ed Rendell and not
Mike Fisher is governor of Pennsylvania today.
Polling data in these earliest stages of the 2006 campaign for governor tells us
that Rendell’s standing in the southeast is as undiminished, undeniable and,
perhaps, as irreversible, as it ever has been. That voters who make southeastern
Pennsylvania their home tend to look at issues differently than their electorate
brethren in the rest of the state was reinforced just three months ago in the
judicial retention balloting for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. You remember
those results, I’m sure. They made electoral history in the Commonwealth when,
in the wake of the contentious and now repealed state pay raise, incumbent
Justice Russell Nigro was rejected for another term on the high court while his
retention partner on the ballot, Justice Sandra Schultz Newman, was saved by
only the narrowest of margins. Both Justices Newman and Nigro won big in the
southeast—a 118,500 majority for the former, and 105,600 for the latter. Justice
Newman lost in the rest of the state by 3,500; Justice Nigro was overwhelmed by
133,700. That’s why she remains on the bench today while he, presumably, is
returning to the private practice of law.
So with this recent political history on the record for all to absorb, the
question is: Why, with governor’s demonstrated stranglehold on the southeast and
with the established 30-year precedent of incumbent governors in this state
winning a second term, would anyone of substance decide to challenge Rendell?
Yet both of the principal Republican challengers—William W. Scranton III and
Lynn Swann—are men of acknowledged reputation and/or celebrity. They are not of
the stuff of Ivan Itkin (Democrat against Gov. Tom Ridge in 1998,) or Barbara
Hafer (Republican against Gov. Bob Casey Sr. in 1990), both of whom were handed
the nominations of their respective parties because no other candidates of
higher political pedigree would make the race. Do Scranton and/or Swann perceive
some gubernatorial vulnerability that the rest of us do not yet detect? Maybe.
But, in any case, whoever emerges the victor between them, certainly had better
have a strong game plan for the southeast in hand. Or else, for all their drive
and good intentions, their bids may go for naught before they get out of the
gate.
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Copyright (c) 2008 VPC, L.L.C.