Every week, PoliticsPA will give you a taste of the buzz, rumors and gossip floating around Pennsylvania’s political wags. This week’s edition focuses on a congressional candidate’s impressive fundraiser, Obama’s potentially harmful endorsement, Rove’s new book, behind-the-scenes action in the 12th and speculation over Onorato’s ads.
How well-regarded is Pet Meehan’s candidacy among Republicans nationwide? Enough that NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions (R-Texas) flew into Harrisburg on Tuesday to attend a fundraiser for the 7th District congressional candidate. PoliticsPA is guessing that not every GOP candidate is so fortunate.
The event will boost Meehan’s already impressive fundraising – the former U.S. attorney had about $700,000 on hand to end last year (a $250,000 night of fundraising with New Jersey GOP Governor Chris Christie certainly helps). Of course, his opponent Bryan Lentz isn’t exactly hurting for cash, either. He had about $460,000 on hand to start the year and is also one of the Democratic Party’s highest-profile candidates this year.
Quinnipiac University’s recent poll that showed Arlen Specter beating Pat Toomey raised a few eyebrows across the state, but a nugget buried within the survey could cause some Democrats pause.
Eighteen percent of those who responded said President Obama’s support of Specter makes them less likely to vote for the incumbent, compared to just 12 percent who said it make them more likely to do so. Sixty-nine percent said it didn’t make a difference.
The president’s endorsement certainly helps Specter in the Democratic primary, but it might hinder him in the fall.
Karl Rove has written a new book and the former senior Bush political adviser plans to help push sales in Pennsylvania later this week.
He will be attending the Allegheny County Lincoln Day Dinner on Friday and the Chester County Day Dinner on Saturday, with book signings at local stores before each.
No word if he’ll be offering free political advice to Tom Corbett, Sam Rohrer or Pat Toomey. It’s probably a safe bet, though, that he will have plenty of free criticism of President Obama.
The Democratic race to fill the Congressional seat once held by John Murtha was frenetic, fierce and, naturally, full of rumblings that party leaders were trying to secretly orchestrate the selection of their favored candidates. The campaign culminated Monday evening when the state party’s Executive Committee selected Mark Critz as its nominee for the May 18 special election. (We also learned today his chief opposition, Barbara Hafer, is exiting the race after problems with her ballot petitions.)
PoliticsPA interviewed an array of people involved in the race, and the general sense most of them had was Governor Ed Rendell supported Critz – although the governor did not publicly back any of the candidates. At least one committee member told us that another power-broker, Bob Brady, was also tacitly supporting the congressman’s former district director.
Jack Hanna, a prominent Hafer ally, said Monday night he thought the Executive Committee members did a good job making the best decision they could.
“I thought the members today were responsible today considering the influences that were brought to bear,” said the Democratic official, who declined to be more specific about what the influences were.
With May 18 now just 10 weeks way, at least one GOP operative wondered privately to PoliticsPA recently when Dan Onorato, the Democratic front-runner, was going to begin running TV advertisements.
The Allegheny County Executive had more than $6 million in the bank to start the year, and an aggressive ad campaign could separate him from his three inter-party opponents, all of whom are very close in early polling.
The Republican strategist speculated Onorato might have as much as $9 million budgeted for the primary media campaign.
Loading ...
