This is a week of all downs, politicos. Even the only up arrow, is a down. You’ll see what we mean.
And don’t miss PoliticsPA’s Celebrity Look-Alikes!
Cleveland. That’s right, the Mistake by the Lake gets an up arrow this week. That’s because they got about a thousand new quotes for their tourism brochures courtesy of the Pittsburgh officials who travelled there this week. They wanted to look at Cleveland’s innovative system of buses that work like a train. They want a similar system to connect Oakland to downtown Pittsburgh.
Chuck McIlhinney. It took about 15 minutes after the state Senator introduced his proposal to semi-privatize the Pa. liquor business before players on almost every side started taking shots. Dominic Pileggi said it doesn’t have the votes in the Senate. Mike Turzai doesn’t like it. The unions don’t like it. Businesses don’t like it. It doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere…
Tom Corbett. …and that means the broader liquor privatization effort – a marquee initiative by the Governor – has hit a huge snag. It may not get done before the budget deadline, or at all. That plus the results of a leaked poll give the Guv a rough week. Yes, it’s an internal poll and should be taken with a grain of salt. But it shows Corbett’s approval numbers, re-elect numbers, and head-to-head numbers in the dumps, just like independent polls have.
Kim Bracey. A photo-op gone wrong. The mayor of York, Pa. enrolled in a motorcycle safety course at Harley-Davidson, which has a manufacturing facility in the city. She wanted to impress fair-goers at Bike Night in September. But that went wrong this week when she broke her ankle during a motorcycle accident. We say: get well soon, and get back up on the hog.
Pa. Dems’ leaders. For a long time, leaders of the Pa. Democratic Party sought to forestall, delay and prevent members from passing a motion calling for a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing. That’s the process used to extract gas from the Marcellus shale and has received vocal criticism from the environmentalist faction of the party. Leaders were concerned such a statement would open them up to criticism from the GOP and hurt the party’s appeal in western Pa. But this week, no bylaws or parliamentary parlance could stop it; the grassroots prevailed and the party officially passed the moratorium call.
Chris Christie. Ugh.
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Tweet of the week: Larry Sabato. The national elections forecasted his some grim words for one Pa. Republican.
GUV RATINGS CHANGES — Corbett (R-PA), toss-up to LEANS D; he’s in a ton of trouble, & don’t be surprised if he steps aside
— Larry Sabato (@LarrySabato) June 20, 2013
4 Responses
Are the Rendell hacks for fracking? And who are the Rendell people who were hired and no one cares what dem state committee says or does.
People who are concerned about the environment should spend their time and effort on pushing for more stringent safeguards, a severance tax and defeating Corbett. Until we have an administration that will enforce laws and protect the public, all of the calls for moratoriums are whistling in the wind.
Sadly, the moratorium ship has sailed. All that can be done now is to get this under some kind of control as opposed to the free for all that exists now.
I’m going to nominate Tom Wolf for a down arrow for this reason: I heard he is hiring bunch of old Rendell hacks whose skills are, shall we say, questionable if not dated. I hear he’s paying them a ridiculous amount of money. for what? here’s what: he’s buying Rendell baggage. all the easier to loop Rendell around his neck. suddenly, Wolf isn’t some cool Democratic businessman. he’s just another hack who hired a bunch of hacks. For that, ladies and gentlemen, Tom Wolf should get a down arrow. No amount of money can buy you independence or repair a reputation of being tied to hacks.
Of course, as one who lobbied, on behalf of Clean Water Action, at the Lancaster Democratic State Committee Meeting, I would see the passage of a Moratorium resolution 115-81 as an UP rather than a DOWN.
Labor was against the Resolution. The Party leadership was against it as well. But we won anyway. The days that a Democratic politician can support Gas Drilling in PA without consequence are over. Every candidate for Governor will get grief about this in the Primary.