By Alex Roarty
PoliticsPA Staff Writer
roarty@politicspa.com

Analysis of Republican Joan Orie Melvin’s 6-point victory last week against Democrat Jack Panella focused on the GOP’s resurgence and their opponents’ no-show turnout. Pundits said Panella’s campaign lost the race when it lost most of the southeast while Orie Melvin’s western-Pennsylvania roots helped her win the region handily.

Nobody disputes turnout and regional politics played the biggest role in the unexpected success. But amid the mountains of analysis emerged another question among Pennsylvania’s chattering class: Did the fact that Orie Melvin is a woman also give an advantage?

It probably gave her a slight edge, Republican, Democratic and nonpartisan experts told PoliticsPA, particularly because voters sometimes know little else about judicial candidates. But each cautioned that the candidate’s sex, while relevant, is unimportant compared to an array of other factors.

“There’s no question, historically, if you look at judicial elections in this state, women … tend to win,” said Vince Galko, a GOP strategist who has worked on judicial races.

Orie Melvin wasn’t the only woman to win last week — three female judicial candidates vying for Superior Court seats, each Republican, also emerged victorious. Perhaps most telling, the lone Democrat who might win, Anne Lazarus, is also a woman. She leads Democrat Robert Colville and Republicans Temp Smith and Kevin McCarthy in a race now in a recount.

Mary Isenhour, executive director for the state Democratic Party, said if a woman votes without knowing anything about the judicial candidates, she might vote for the female judge based solely on her sex.

“That’s gotta happen,” she said. “And vice-versa.”

The executive director said the history of female candidates in Pennsylvania, which she’s studied, shows they receive about a one percentage point bump, on average.

G. Terry Madonna, a pollster for Franklin & Marshall College, said he wouldn’t be surprised if the cadre of educated, independent-minded women in the southeast, who helped Governor Ed Rendell and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey to victory, voted for Orie Melvin in 2009.

The Republican managed to take three of the four Philadelphia collar counties, a region that has shifted dramatically to the left in the last decade. Panella won only Montgomery County.

Any discussion about female candidacies in the Keystone State inevitably turns to talk about Pennsylvania’s dearth of high-profile women in public office. U.S. Reps. Kathy Dahlkemper and Allyson Schwartz are the most notable female Democrats; state Senate Majority Whip Jane Orie Melvin (R-Allegheny), Joan Orie Melvin’s sister, is the Republicans’ most high-profile woman.

The last woman to hold a non-judicial statewide office in Pennsylvania was the late Lieutenant Governor Catherine Baker Knoll. The state has never had a female governor or U.S. senator.

“We do a terrible job, both parties really, of identifying and supporting women candidates,” said Dan Fee, a Democratic strategist who worked on Panella’s campaign.

Next year won’t be different. The 2010 campaigns offer only one female candidate — Peg Luksik, who faces an uphill battle against Pat Toomey for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination.

The Democratic Senate battle features two men, incumbent Arlen Specter and U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak. The five Democratic gubernatorial hopefuls — Chris Doherty, Dan Onorato, Tom Knox, Joe Hoeffel and Jack Wagner — are all men, as are the three candidates seeking the GOP nomination, Tom Corbett, Jim Gerlach and Sam Rohrer.

Of the 12 candidates, only one is a women. It raises the question: If a female candidate had emerged in next year’s field, would they have a leg up on everyone else?

Isenhour said voters are likely to know much more about the candidates in 2010, making their sex much less relevant.

“As voters start paying attention to that, it’s going to have less an affect,” she said.

Galko said other factors, such as the candidate’s capability, electability and fundraising, remain much more important. But he didn’t dismiss it’s relevance.

“All things being equal, you have to look at it,” the GOP consultant said.

Madonna said he expects the drought of females in public office will soon be over.

“I think that we’re emerging, albeit slowly, out of this culture that has made it difficult for women to run,” he said. “And I think that we will have a breathrough moment for a female candidate.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at 2:32 am and is filed under PA Reports, PoliticsPA Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.