By Peter L. DeCoursey
Bureau Chief
Capitolwire
HARRISBURG (Jan. 2) – Today we saw the first stop on Gov. Tom Corbett’s “Make-up” tour in State College, where he announced a lawsuit aimed at trimming back NCAA penalties on Penn State and its football team.
It is only the first stop on the governor’s three-pronged make-up tour this year.
It appears likely that Penn State and various ethics charges of various levels of credibility are going to be hurled at Corbett for most of the next two years by assorted groups of Democrats, conservative Republicans, and potential gubernatorial challengers from the GOP and the Democratic Party.
Republican Montgomery County Commissioner Bruce Castor and Democratic gubernatorial longshot John Hanger are already leading the charge against Corbett, and both are skilled at verbal assault and willing and able to bruise opponents.
Now, taken together, their chances of either one becoming their party’s nominee are small, maybe 10 percent, if that. But if they set a confrontational tone, and both excel at just that, both are capable of generating a lot of free media and putting Corbett on the defensive.
And Corbett plays a little better defense than the Philadelphia Eagles –last in the league in most defensive measurements – but they are not the high hurdle.
More so, both Hanger and Castor are the kind of people who can set a negative, confrontational tone – from Corbett’s point of view, not theirs – which, again, does not put Corbett on his best footing. As any teacher knows, classes usually follow the lead of one or two kids and develop a tone based on those kids. If the teacher is lucky, they follow kids who like the teacher or who have good manners. If they are unlucky, the kids follow the little brat who can get the teacher’s goat.
Same thing in campaigns. So while state Treasurer Rob McCord is the most likely challenger to Corbett, and Corbett’s biggest threat, insiders believe, Hanger and Castor are important for two reasons: first, they could catch fire and become much more relevant and significant, and second, if they hammer Corbett hard enough, often enough, McCord doesn’t have to.
So since Corbett knows Castor and Hanger and many others are coming, and knows they will be trying to drag him down as much as introduce themselves, what you do in that case, is try to make sure the nattering nabobs of negativism – from Corbett’s point of view – find as few listeners as possible. In other words, the governor has to make up with as many of his old constituencies/girlfriends as possible, as quickly as possible.
There are three groups of folks who are likely otherwise to support Corbett by decent margins who are now sort of down on him:
• K-12 public school parents and community folks who think Corbett is destroying their school, dollar by diminished dollar;
• Penn State Nation; and
• Rich conservative business owners.
The governor believes he is a supporter of public schools, but that they have to do a better job. So he will spend many trips this winter and spring trying to at least diminish the idea that he is Snidely Whiplash and public schools are the girl he is trying up on the railroad tracks.
Even though Corbett thinks that perception is unfair, he will try to combat it. How? Not sure yet, and not sure he is sure yet about how to do that.
The re-wooing of Penn State Nation started today. Back when the sanctions were announced on July 23rd, the governor said: “The appalling actions of a few people have brought us once again into the national spotlight. We have taken a monster off the streets and while we will never be able to repair the injury done to these children, we must repair the damage to this university. Part of that corrective process is to accept the serious penalties imposed (Wednesday) by the NCAA on Penn State University and its football program.”
Now, on Jan. 2, the governor said they were too much, hurt the Pennsylvania economy too much, and added he waited until football season ended so he wouldn’t take “momentum” from the team.
So why were the sanctions – fines of $15 million a year for four years to help avert sexual abuse of minors and years and years without going to a bowl game – appropriate in July but a violation of federal law in January?
By doing what he has now done, Corbett opened the door to legions who will say he cares more about Penn State football than he does about victims of sexual abuse, who will benefit, hopefully, from the $60 million.
But if he did not do this, Penn State Nation would continue to put him in the group that unfairly blames them and their football team for what one terrible guy did, and what three others allegedly covered up for years.
By now, the Corbett team and most observers concluded, there was no point in Corbett supporting the penalties: the group that thinks football is too powerful and that the sanctions were appropriate is not a group that will vote for a Republican for governor. Ever.
But Penn State Nation is, by and large, a GOP bastion. And Corbett, fairly or unfairly, has been lambasted for more than a year by both sides: the Penn State critics think he did too little, he took too long and he gave Penn State too much time and too much leeway.
Penn State Nation thinks he made them all look like enablers of a child molester.
When both sides hate you for the same course of conduct, it may be proof that you did the right thing legally, but it is a sure sign you mishandled the politics.
So what Corbett did today is to pick a lane, and try to win back Penn State Nation, hoping to at least be seen trying to diminish the penalties the NCAA assessed on Penn State.
If he succeeds, most likely through a settlement, and Penn State is bowl-eligible by 2014, when he is running for re-election, he will have an argument to woo back Penn State Nation. If he tries and fails, he at least has that argument to plead before Nittanyville.
Then it is a matter of getting rich folks to vote their wallet, or at least not to fatten Castor’s or McCord’s, and figuring out how to get public school folks to treat him as neutral, not their enemy.
This governor started today, but he has a lot more kissing up to do.
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