By Dick Miller:
WE CONNECT THE DOTS: Pollsters expect Kathleen Kane to garner more votes than any other candidate on the Pennsylvania ballot. The victory will make the 46-year-old former Lackawanna County prosecutor the first elected Democrat to be state Attorney General. She will also be the first elected female in an office established in 1643.
Her election should bode well for citizens/consumers after three decades of sleaze promulgated by state Republicans rolling over incompetent Democrat candidates.
PA voters approved a constitutional amendment providing for an elected Attorney General beginning in 1980. Democrats lost all eight of the AG elections despite having a large registration surplus. In the last five elections for state attorney general Democrats went down to defeat despite their party’s candidate for President carrying the state.
Republican Leroy Zimmerman was the first elected state attorney general, winning in 1980 and for re-election in 1984. Republican Ernie Preate won in 1988.
Preate won re-election in 1992 over Democrat Joe Kohn 50-48 percent while Bill Clinton was trouncing George H.W. Bush 45-36. Kohn narrowly lost again four years later, 49-48 percent, while Clinton was pounding Bob Dole, 49-40.
In 2000 Republican Mike Fisher crushed Democrat Jim Eisenhower 54-43 percent while Al Gore swept George W. Bush, 51-46 percent. In 2004 now Gov. Tom Corbett beat Eisenhower 50-48 while John Kerry edged Bush 51-49.
Four years ago, Corbett handily won re-election 52-46 over John Morganelli, against President Obama’s landslide victory over John McCain, 55-44 percent.
All five Republican elected attorneys general lusted to be governor but only Corbett made it, in 2010. Fisher ran against Ed Rendell in 2002 and lost. Preate’s drooling was noticed by a US attorney and he went to jail for corruption in 1995.
It was at this point that Corbett took sleaze to a higher level in the Attorney General’s office. Promising not to run for election to a full term (that year!), Corbett was appointed to Preate’s vacancy.
If not earlier, Corbett became a commodity politician the late Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving in 1995. Knowing that media staffers were off for the holidays and big news would get smaller play, Corbett approved the controversial merger of Blue Cross and Blue Shield.
For Corbett, playing patsy for a monolithic health care business was just a warm-up for cover up of Penn State’s cover up of a pedophile football coach. At PSU the slow walk of an investigation not only benefited the University, but Corbett continued to solicit contributions for governor from central PA big shots who did not know of the Sandusky case.
Kane’s opponent, David Freed, is the latest Republican who [might well] continue the party’s general philosophy of justice. In this world, high profile accusations become never ending “investigations.” Investigators and prosecutors are too busy with drug cases to pursue business crimes against consumers.
One example is a long-standing investigation into business practices of the fabled Hershey Trust, allegedly committed while former Attorney General Leroy Zimmerman was charity board chairman. This probe will show no progress if Freed is AG. Mr. Freed is married to Mr. Zimmerman’s daughter.
Not only are Zimmerman and Gov. Corbett allies, but the Governor cleared out opposition to Freed in the primaries. Freed sees little need for a review of Corbett’s conduct as attorney general during the Sandusky investigation. If so, Freed would appoint an independent investigator. The final document could gather dust with the Freeh report.
Prosecutions of corrupt auto dealers were more common until the dealers increased lobbying efforts and political campaign checks.
As fate would dictate, Mrs. Kane defeated former Congressman Patrick Murphy in the AG primary. Murphy is the second most qualified Democrat candidate to ever run for state attorney general.
Will Penn State alumni realize they have more chance of truth in the Sandusky scandal if Kane is Attorney General?
