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Jacobson: PA AG Race is a Toss-Up

Kathleen-Kane-portrait1There are ten Attorney General seats up for election in 2016. Only one, however, is occupied by an incumbent under indictment.

Unsurprisingly, when Louis Jacobson of Governing Magazine analyzed the AG races over the next two years Pennsylvania received a significant amount of attention.

“Kane’s first term has been disastrous. The state suspended Kane’s law license due to criminal charges against her,” Jacobson wrote. “She can’t run if she doesn’t get the license back. Even if the suspension is somehow lifted before the election and she ends up seeking a second term, she’s damaged goods.”

Jacobson then went on to list all those that have jumped into the race or are thinking about such a move.

“The most talked-about Democrat is Montgomery County Commissioner Josh Shapiro; other possible Democratic contenders include John Morganelli, the Northampton County District Attorney who lost the 2008 general election for attorney general; Stephen A. Zappala, Jr., the Allegheny County District Attorney; and Jack Stollsteimer, a former Delaware County and federal prosecutor who served as deputy chief counsel to the state Treasury Department.”

“The GOP field could include state Sen. John Rafferty and state Rep. Todd Stephens, both from Montgomery County. Another candidate could be former Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice and former Philadelphia District Attorney Ron Castille,” he concluded. “The race is completely open.”

The 2016 primary is scheduled for April 26th. The 2016 general election is scheduled for November 8th.

43 Responses

  1. This has ALWAYS been about e-mails …. specifically the 20,000,000 that Corbett and Ryan tried to destroy. Unfortunately for them … and their racist buddies … Corbett failed at that too.

    Once AG Kane recovered those e-mails, the pervert racist pig creeps responsible for them went on the attack.

    Nice try, though.

  2. H3, we’ll just bookmark this for tomorrow, k? And you’re girl is throwing her “bombs” from a corner where she is pinned down and desperate. You too are desperate for defending her. She broke actual criminal laws and promoted an actual groping perv and you want to talk about emails because you’re a Democrat shill!

  3. Oh, kanesdriver … aka “jessica myers” … aka Agent in AG’s Office … it’s always “wait til Friday” for you …

    In the meantime – AG Kane is still standing. And still DROPPING BOMBS on your team.

  4. Fake aaron/HaHaHa, Kane won’t have to resign if the Senate and Governor remove her. Do you expect them to just let her flail? I don’t. Get some FRIDAY POPCORN ready.

  5. @ Guzzardi & Isaac L.:

    Guzzardi, you incorrectly asserted [inter alia]: “There are no ‘extremist Muslims.’ There are only Islam and Muslims, and they are extreme by definition. And they are bent on eliminating us–all of us.”

    Isaac L. correctly asserted: “[Y]our apology shouldn’t have been for your comment’s relevance so much as its utter bigotry and ignorance. Seems like you have more in common with the Nazis than any Muslim I know. The Muslims I know are hard working, proud Americans looking for a better life for themselves and their children. The ones I know got here with nothing and built up businesses from scratch instead of growing up with a silver spoon in their entitled Main Line mouth, thinking their pompous prep school upbringing made them some kind of authority on who is and isn’t an American.”

    Guzzardi, recall the catch-phrase of Daniel Pipes [“The proper intervention against extreme-Islam is to encourage development of moderate-Islam”]…and then recognize/acknowledge your error. {The reader should know that, per Wikipedia, you “served on the boards of Middle East Forum…” and, if memory serves, once functioned as the Prez of its Philly-entity; the reader should also know that Daniel Pipes runs the MEF.}

    Guzzardi, wherever else you posted that error, please so-inform so that a comparable posting [vide supra] can be dutifully uploaded.

  6. only mental patients use “thusly”

    bottom line is — AG Kane is NOT RESIGNING. See you suckers in Court. Bring me some POPCORN too.

  7. @ d2:

    You incorrectly write a “mindread” thusly, to deflect from your faulty assumption: “The ‘don’t cares’ are important too. Let’s say that it was 2% in favor of her resigning, 1% saying she should say and 97% not giving two f*cks about it. You’d be here whining about how voters want her to resign by a 2-1 margin, and ignoring the 97% who are not calling for her resignation, by using a denominator of 3%.”

    If ANY of the “undecided”-vote is adverse to your assumption, your aggregate-claim falls-flat…and, sadly, you know it.

  8. MTG – At some point, you are going to have to realize that the attempts of racists and perverts to remove the duly elected Attorney General of PA are doomed to fail.

    Pretty soon, the shills will be yelling “But her sister” again.

    Hope everyone has seen just how many high-powered people are involved in this scandal. They breathed a collective sigh of relief when they thought Corbett and Ryan had destroyed all the evidence. And they have been on the attack ever since finding out that Kane had found it.

    This is great. POPCORN in hand now.

  9. rsklaroff-

    The “don’t cares” are important too. Let’s say that it was 2% in favor of her resigning, 1% saying she should say and 97% not giving two f*cks about it. You’d be here whining about how voters want her to resign by a 2-1 margin, and ignoring the 97% who are not calling for her resignation, by using a denominator of 3%.

  10. Wow, Bob Guzzardi, perhaps your apology shouldn’t have been for your comment’s relevance so much as its utter bigotry and ignorance. Seems like you have more in common with the Nazis than any Muslim I know. The Muslims I know are hard working, proud Americans looking for a better life for themselves and their children. The ones I know got here with nothing and built up businesses from scratch instead of growing up with a silver spoon in their entitled Main Line mouth, thinking their pompous prep school upbringing made them some kind of authority on who is and isn’t an American.

  11. H3, I strongly suspect that sklaroff is on to something about this being the end of her arsenal. Everyone knows this is a desperate attempt to divert attention from her own situation (even if Eakin is the textbook example of one of your “Repervlicans”). Look for the Senate to begin the process of removing Kane. I’m betting it starts tomorrow. It has bipartisan support.

  12. @ d2:

    You wrote: ““55% were not in favor of her resigning.” It a proper response your implications that a majority is clamoring for her resignation.”

    I wrote: “Of those expressing an opinion regarding resignation, 45% were in favor and 25% were not in favor. Recalculating [based upon a new denominator of 70%], 45/70 = 9/14 favored resignation while 5/14 opposed it; this is almost a 2:1 ratio to her detriment.”

    Again, “You [unjustifiably] assumed that all of the unsure people opposed resignation.”

  13. The Republican candidates are both party hacks with little grassroots support. Stephen Zappala and John Morganelli have records of success in the courtroom and, actually, managing a prosecutor”s office. Stephen Zappala seems politically skillful as well.

  14. Stephen Zappala has a successful record in prosecuting political corruption. Let us see if he is willing to prosecute Democrats.

  15. Muslims are far worse than the Nazis. The Nazis did not number 1.8 billion and they were defeatable and defeated. And we united to do it. We are only united in welcoming more and more Muslims to our shores.

    And Kurt Schilling was wrong. There are no “extremist Muslims.” There are only Islam and Muslims, and they are extreme by definition. And they are bent on eliminating us–all of us.

  16. LOL …. Now the mental patient thinks he knows what Kane has left in her arsenal of weapons agains Repervlicans. LOL …. The Eakin stuff is just the tip of the iceberg.

    Speaking of Eakin … has he resigned yet?

    Has a grand jury been sworn in to look at what these creeps used their State computers to do? It’s stealing from the taxpayers.

  17. Castille !!

    LOL … I told you he wants AG Kane’s job!!! That’s why he authorized the witch-hunt. He probably promised Fina another chance at a high-level job (he is a low-level ADA in Philadelphia now).

    That would also explain why he leaked grand jury information during the Clown-Car’s smear campaign … and why he made public comments critical of Kane … while still on the Bench …

    He made his bed. He got rid of his enemy (McCaffery) and temporarily saved his buddy (Eakin). The AG’s Office just isn’t in the cards.

  18. Castille should stay out. Democrats need to get Kane out of the picture ASAP. It is highly likely the Republicans pick the AG office back up by default. It is going to take a lot of mouthwash to get rid of the foul taste of Kane.

  19. rsklaroff-

    “55% were not in favor of her resigning.” It a proper response your implications that a majority is clamoring for her resignation.

  20. marie , your theory makes zero sense: ‘ The biggest mistake the Attorney General made was to keep the hold-o0vers. They worked so long with a male, republican dominated office, they couldn’t handle taking orders from a women, Democrat.’ there are many dedicated career prosecutors in the AG’s office ; they don’t flip jobs because a new AG comes in . Ags bring in 1 or 2 top assistant but DO NOT get rid of very ‘holdover ; that would be ludicrous. (and in addition i point out that firing any g government employee because one disagrees with his/her politics is a violation of the 1st and 14th amendments — so the idea of firing all holdovers isn’t just stuid. it’s illegal. i’d all like to hear what evidence you have for people who ‘won’t take orders from a woman. about 40% of the supervisory AG staff across the state are female. ..

  21. Nick Field has a way of manipulating info. By limiting to one election year in the future, the sample is skewed. Other states do have and have had AG under indictment, just not up for re-election in 2016. TX comes to mind.
    This is not a defense of Kane, who has made some blunders. But then I see the hack politicians wanting to replace her and wonder why PA cannot do better than re-tread judges who had questionable ethics and another hereditary politician.

  22. I heard Kane just secured the services of NEPA based political strategist Richard Maopolski. She’s a lock for re elect now.

  23. @ d2:

    Recall that “The latest PPP survey found 45% think the AG should step down; 25% are against her resignation while 30% are unsure.”

    Contrast that with your “paraphrase”: “55% were not in favor of her resigning.”

    You assumed that all of the unsure people opposed resignation, transcending your tendency to “massage” the data by totally corrupting its import.

    The proper way to present the data is to state that, of those expressing an opinion regarding resignation, 45% were in favor and 25% were not in favor. Recalculating [based upon a new denominator of 70%], 45/70 = 9/14 favored resignation while 5/14 opposed it; this is almost a 2:1 ratio to her detriment.

    If you were inform your infamous boss [whom you quote unfavorably in these postings, so often] of this level of sloppiness, you would risk being summarily fired.

    https://www.politicspa.com/ppp-poll-45-believe-kathleen-kane-should-resign/70038/#comments

  24. @ d2:

    Rationalize-away to your heart’s content, but know that her judgment is at-issue…even when she ignored her colleagues and advisors.

  25. Marie, that’s nonsense. 99% of the 800+ employees in the OAG are apolitical. They never interacted with any Attorney General. They never interacted with Kane. If Kane were to get rid of anyone on Day One, it should have been the prosecutors and agents whom she criticized during her campaign with regard to Sandusky. But that’s a pretty small number of people in the entire agency.

  26. In reverse order, Duecker groped more than one woman. You are right that the one happened in a bar, but it wasn’t her leg. It was above the waist. In any event, you seem to be blaming the female victim for getting groped in a bar, which is a decidedly un-Democrat position to take. War on Women, and all that.

    Adrian King is as ‘inside’ as Democrat operatives come. He knows state government inside out and was a cabinet official for Rendell. As First Deputy, he testified that he explicitly told Kane not to release confidential grand jury materials, but Kane preferred to take the advice of her driver/lover. King never opened the package, but testified about delivering what Kane told him to deliver to Morrow. Morrow testified about what was inside. There has not been anything published about King having an immunity deal. King has no incentive to lie. King, like several other Democrats in Kane’s office, fled the OAG when they saw what a disaster she was becoming. Morrow, who is the only one (and not an OAG employee) who helped her release the confidential materials, may or may not have an immunity deal. But, your speculation that they “could” be lying is silly.

    Bottom line: Kane has put her foot in her mouth, spied on her employees, instilled an atmosphere of paranoia among apolitical career employees, and politicized the civil defense of cases against the Commonwealth. Her impending criminal conviction is just icing on the cake.

  27. The biggest mistake the Attorney General made was to keep the hold-o0vers. They worked so long with a male, republican dominated office, they couldn’t handle taking orders from a women, Democrat. I fear that the Governor is making the same mistake.

  28. MTG-

    Didn’t her “two closest advisers” cut an immunity deal? Didn’t one of them claim to deliver an envelope without even looking inside or knowing the contents? How credible is that? Sounds to me like they could be lying to match the prosecution’s expectations.

    It’s hardly “evidence” that Kane has a different perception. My own boss CONSTANTLY believes that he’s convinced his subordinates of his position even when they repeatedly tell him they disagree. Kane may well believed she had the correct arguments and won over her these advisers. Let’s be CLEAR, if they really claiming she was leaking material they advised her not to, and they went along helping her, rather than say “No”, then they are full of sh*t.

    The “groper” of women is a guy who put his hand on the leg of a girl at a bar where they had been drinking after work. I didn’t hear that he made any further advances after she said she wasn’t interested. It sounded like a few too many drinks and misreading the signs in an isolated incident. There doesn’t seem to be much to the story.

  29. Diano, you’re something else. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, since you are from the party of “it’s never your fault.” But, seriously, you excuse her gross mismanagement of the OAG? Her promotion of Duecker after he groped two female subordinates? You guys want to talk about porn emails and misogyny while Kane is promoting a groper of women in the OAG? Then, when the career HR director voiced an objection to that based on common sense and what gets any employer sued, Kane fires the HR director?!

    Then her own closest advisors, who have nothing personally to gain from it, testify one after the other about how Kane was advised not to release confidential material and she did it anyway (and lied under oath about it). You can dismiss this all you want by saying it “shouldn’t be a crime,” but it clearly is a crime. And she’s guilty.

    Her misreading of the media has been historic. Her penchant for blurting out things that she wants to be true, but which have no basis in reality, is well established. She personally created one problem after another for herself. And it all started from day one when she refused help or advice from far more experienced people. Her ego has been her downfall. Any objective reading of the polls indicates that she has voter support in the teens. That’s atrocious, and you know it. What you don’t seem to accept is that IT IS HER FAULT.

  30. Multi Tasker General-

    “Most voters are biased against Kane” umm…. 55% were not in favor of her resigning. That doesn’t indicate a bias against her, as you stated.

    I do agree that she is has been so badly damaged by the false, irresponsible, partisan GOP, and self-serving Dem attacks, that she could not win re-election, even with a full acquittal on all charges. But, that says more about her attackers, the media and the corrupt judicial system than it does about her.

  31. Are you conflating the “should she resign” poll with her favorability ratings or any other indication about he likely success if she were to run again? First, you’re assuming an awful lot about the “unsure” responses in the resignation poll (which you and Diano are wont to do). Second, her approval rating is in the teens. So, it’s incredibly safe to say that most voters do not have any faith in her. Bottom line, H3: would you vote for Kane if she ran again?

  32. Not “most.”

    According to the most recent poll, most DO NOT believe AG Kane should resign. That’s because they feel she has been the victim of a smear campaign. And they are correct.

  33. Diano, of course he’s biased against Kane, just as, when he was a DA, he was biased against criminals for breaking the law. Most voters are biased against Kane, because she’s both incompetent and vindictive. So what? Castille has not been involved in any decision that affects Kane. No decisions on her charges or her license. The only thing Castille was involved with was the review of Eakin’s emails, and that doesn’t affect Kane one bit.

  34. Castille? If that pr*ck runs, it’s just further proof of his bias against Kane and his political aspirations.

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