By Dick Miller
WE.CONNECT.DOTS: Political pundits predict another record low turnout for Pennsylvania voters Tuesday, Nov. 4 and why not?
Never has their votes counted for less – even less so in Western Pennsylvania.
In fact, the predicted low turnout remains the only factor preventing everyone from forecasting that Democrat Tom Wolf will send Republican Tom Corbett into the history books as the first PA governor to not succeed for a second term since the state constitution was changed to permit succession in 1970.
Philadelphia Democrat voters can do that.
The state’s largest single block of voters is a full 30 percent of that’s party’s registered number for the entire state. Wolf will carry the state if just one-fifth of those Philadelphia Dems trek to the polls, but that is a number still in the “iffy” stage.
An unfortunate by-product of the one-man-one-vote edict of the 1960s U.S. Supreme Court is that political power is gifted on residential concentration rather than votes. That keeps Philadelphia – undeservedly – at the front of the food chain.
Philadelphians staying away from the polls has little to do, however, with the irrelevancy of Western Pennsylvania voters. That’s more about the population growth and progressive prosperity of the counties that surround Philadelphia. Once Republican strongholds that offset Philadelphia’s numbers and kept the Republicans in play during presidential years, the trend has changed in the last three decades.
For Democrat Wolf the bedroom counties and Philadelphia is where he can get the most bang for his bucks and time. Even Corbett seems more focused this year on voter suppression efforts in the southeast, knowing a light turnout there could still deliver him the upset of the century.
The shows and no-shows support the premise of this column at least in West Central PA’s Mercer County.
Wolf made one personal appearance in Mercer County in the primary. Tuesday he is scheduled for his second and last, a bus stop on the Pittsburgh to Erie route. That event is being micro-managed by an Erie-based staffer on Wolf’s campaign committee. His main job is to convince the very few Democrat activists in counties surrounding Erie that their efforts are (chuckle) relevant.
Corbett’s appearances (or lack thereof) in Mercer County have made little sense.
In the summer, the Governor showed at Joy Cone Co. in Hermitage, promoting economic development. Originally touted as an official appearance where even Democrat officials were invited, at the last minute it was re-labeled as a “campaign” event. The Democrats were hurriedly asked to not attend.
Last month Corbett was the guest of honor at a private luncheon held by Sharon businesswoman Karen Winner Sed. Fifty of her friends attended, but Republican officeholders and party leaders were not made aware of the event held at a hotel her company owns in West Middlesex.
More recently, Corbett’s wife, Susan dedicated a state-of-the-art media center at Thiel College. Just four miles away – and unbeknown to Thiel’s homecoming crowd or the media – her husband was a guest of State Sen. Bob Robbins at a steak fry.
While Wolf is not known to excite Western PA type voters – for or against. Wolf is not only unexciting, he can be boring. Without personal contact, Corbett will draw his vote from an increasingly conservative Western PA. Single-theme voters, who hate unions, are against abortions for any reason and, of course, love guns will turn out to support Corbett.
The story of political contributions (who donated what) also is a tale of relevancy. If Wolf had to depend on funds raised in West Central PA, he would strain to buy an ad in the Area Shopper. According to publicsource.org, a Pittsburgh-based journalism tank that compiles such data, Corbett has outraised Wolf in donations by a 7-to-1 margin in this area.
In Mercer County Corbett has collected over $52,000 so far with the biggest contributors being First National Bank PACs and the Winner business interests. Meanwhile records show that Wolf has collected $3,825 from Mercer County sources. $2,000 of that sum was gifted by four Mercer residents through a New Castle fundraiser. An inept Democrat organization in Mercer made no formal effort to help Wolf financially.
Bottom Line: Weak political leadership by both major parties in Mercer County has contributed to problems of poverty and high crime not being battled effectively by local government or private sources. And, of course, mainstream media remains out to lunch.
