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By Alex Roarty
PoliticsPA
roarty@politicspa.com

HARRISBURG – Did Tom Corbett commit the governor’s race first gaffe last week? He did if you listen to Dan Onorato.

Days after the GOP gubernatorial nominee said some people would rather receive unemployment benefits than find a job, his Democratic rival Monday used the remarks to call Corbett “out-of-touch” with voters anxious about the state’s near-10-percent unemployment rate.

“I know that the 591,000 thousand unemployed Pennsylvanians would like to know, ‘Where are all these jobs?’ Onorato asked during a press conference in the Capitol. “Tom Corbett is insulting the hardworking men and women of Pennsylvania who are looking for work in these tough economic times. Tom Corbett has proven he doesn’t have what it takes to be governor.”

It’s an opportunity for the underdog Onorato to exploit Corbett on the campaign’s most important issue, the economy, and reinforce his message that the attorney general lacks the necessary experience to run government during an economic crisis.

But his zeal to come to the defense of the unemployed was tempered later in the press conference, when he said he wouldn’t oppose extending unemployment benefits, an issue Congress is considering, but didn’t definitively support an extension, either. A spokesman for Corbett, on the other hand, said the Republican does support continued benefits, as long as the federal government pays for them up front.

Corbett made the controversial remarks Friday while touring businesses in Lancaster County. Business owners, he said, had told him many of the people they are trying to hire are choosing to stay unemployed, and receive their entitled benefits, instead.

“One of the issues, and I hear it repeatedly – one of the individuals said, ‘I can’t get workers. People don’t want to come back to work while they still have unemployment,’” the Republican attorney general told PA Public Radio’s Scott Detrow.  “They’re literally telling him, ‘I’ll come back to work when unemployment runs out.’ That’s becoming a problem.”

Kevin Harley, Corbett’s spokesman, partially walked back the comments Monday, saying the gubernatorial candidate “anecdotally was relaying some information from various business owners who were probably referring to a very small percentage of unemployed.”

“The attorney general knows first-hand people who have lost their jobs are working diligently to find one,” said Harley, who added that Corbett spent part of Monday visiting with unemployed workers.

Corbett does not think, as some conservatives do, that unemployment benefits increases the unemployment rate, the spokesman said, and supports a Republican bill in Congress that would extend employment benefits if they are paid for up front.

But Onorato declined to unequivocally endorse extending benefits, saying only that he wouldn’t oppose such an extension. The governor and Congress should focus instead of creating jobs that makes widespread use of the benefits unnecessary, he said.

Harley said Onorato’s stance on the benefits shows he “wants it both ways.”

“He won’t take a position on a pretty simple issue of helping the unemployed,” he said.

Still, Corbett’s comments aren’t likely to disappear from the still sleepy campaign trail anytime soon. The Onorato campaign, which received help from the DNC later in the day pushing the remarks to reporters, already tried to link them to a now-infamous speech made by John McCain in 2008, when the presidential nominee called the economy’s fundamentals “strong” as the country’s financial system collapsed.

“Tom Corbett: The fundamentals of our economy are strong,” read the headline of Onorato’s press release.

Onorato also folded Corbett’s comments into an already familiar campaign theme: The attorney general doesn’t have enough experience in government, economic policy in particular, to take over the job next year. He contrasted his portrayal of Corbett with his own experience as Allegheny County’s chief executive, saying there’s a “clear difference” between the two men.

“These are tough times. There’s no time for learning on the job. My experience of running a government, reforming a government and producing good results I believe is going to be the difference when it comes to November 2.

Harley shot back that Corbett has more experience than former governor Dick Thornburgh when he took office in 1978 and added that Onorato’s history in Allegheny County proves he isn’t a good candidate for governor.

“He has a lot of experience raising taxes and increase unemployment rolls in Allegheny County,” he said.

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