York countian Tom Wolf is leading the Democrat primary pack due largely to his spending millions of his own dollars in television advertisement.
Wolf’s has had a good education and, by local standards, is a relatively successful businessperson. He is a York civic leader and a past state cabinet official, the Secretary of Revenue.
But if the ability to spend $10 million dollars is qualification for becoming governor, there must be at least a thousand Pennsylvanians who could readily do the same.
One of the things that disturbs us about Wolf is that he has hung out and provided support to some of the most unsavory local officials.
He is not noted for speaking out for reforms. (A Google search suggests he isn’t noted for almost anything.} His record would suggests that he ‘sees no evil, hears no evil, speaks no evil’. Is that the type of governor we need to clean up state government?
This is not to say he isn’t a decent guy, someone who could sit on bank boards, head the local chamber of commerce or a United Way campaign. But what is it about him that suggests that he has a broad understanding of the commonwealth, that he would stand up for what is right, that he is sufficiently savvy to head up the state?
Below are excerpts form a Philadelphia Daily News article “A (Tom) Wolf trap?” It is difficult to find discussion of Wolf because, until he began spending his money, few knew of him.
“…Wolf, the wealthy York biz guy whose TV ads catapulted him to the top of the pile of seven Democratic candidates for governor in recent polling, was campaign chairman for former York Mayor Charles Robertson, a defendant in a sensational 2002 murder trial.
“Robertson was found not guilty of charges he was an accomplice in the shooting death of a black women during race riots in York in 1969 while he was a police officer. He served as mayor from 1994 to 2002. He admitted shouting racial slurs during the riots but said he was young and that subsequent sensitivity training reformed him.
“More recently, Wolf helped raise funds for the legal defense of former York County state Rep. Stephen Stetler, convicted in 2012 of public corruption related to using state employees for campaign work. Wolf also was a character witness at Stetler’s trial and remains a friend…”
Tom Corbett must be salivating over the prospect of facing the unvetted Wolf in the general election. Who knows what stories about Wolf and his York pals might surface after the primary election?
Wolf may by Corbett’s only hope for re-election.
