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Wagner Seeks Makeup After Zany Chamber Debate, Wolf Says No

Do-over for $200?

Monday’s gubernatorial debate at the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business & Industry’s annual dinner in the Hershey Lodge moderated by ‘Jeopardy!’ host Alex Trebek was widely criticized as a meandering failure by observers on both sides of the aisle.

On Tuesday, GOP hopeful Scott Wagner took the opportunity to renew his call for more debates.

“The people of Pennsylvania deserve to know that they have a choice when they go to the polls on November 6th, and last night’s debate did not profile enough of the serious problems that are facing Pennsylvania,” said Wagner in a release.  

“Nothing has changed. We’re not doing any more debates,” said Karissa Hand, Wolf’s campaign Deputy Communications Director.

Wolf’s running mate John Fetterman was harsher. “Lol u lost,” he responded to Wagner’s call, followed by tweet thread teasing Wagner.

Trebek faced more than just boos from the audience and arguments from attendee, Speaker Mike Turzai (Trebek seemed to endorse a severance tax on natural gas in front of the business-friendly crowd).

Observers of all political stripes, as well as journalists, seemed to agree that Trebek injected his opinion too often in the debate and impeded the back and forth between the candidates for Pennsylvania governor.

Andrew Ritter of Range Resources, formerly a GOP staffer, ran the numbers.


“It’s official: The only ‘debate’ of the 2018 gubernatorial campaign season was a bomb,” writes John Micek of PennLive. “It stunk.”

The Wagner campaign originally proposed for 67 debates a couple months back, then scaled back to pushing for three, but the Wolf campaign only agreed to the one hosted by the Chamber.

Those on the Democratic side who criticized Trebek’s performance include Max Steele, campaign spokesman for Bob Casey.

Although the majority of the reviews are that Trebek was the loser of the debate, also seen here from the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Chris Brennan, there is still one debate confirmed to be had regarding the race for Governor. 


The lone lt. Governor debate is set to take place this weekend between Fetterman and Republican lt. Gov. candidate, Jeff Bartos.  

8 Responses

  1. Maybe Wolf should make another debate contingent on Wagner releasing his tax returns. Now that we know the real reason Trump didn’t release his tax returns is because of his decades of fraud and theft from soldiers, veterans, school children, and all of the patriotic, American taxpayers, perhaps that’s the real reason Wagner is hiding his.

  2. Rule number one of being a moderator is to try to not interject any influence into the conversation, just to separate the two sides and keep them between the lines. Worst Moderator Ever for 200 please?

    Who is Alex Trebek?

  3. Trebek was a bit over-studied and awkward ….. but that didn’t really change the candidates presentation all that much from what we already know….

    Wolf is the ultimate mediocre governor who has flashes of common sense mixed with some pretty liberal ideas.

    Wagner is a very lame GOP candidate who doesn’t really seem all that interested in reaching out to centrist voters. To his credit, he’s tried ….. but it all gets wrecked when he talks about racoons and national issues like Trump and Kavanaugh.

    Both have a long way to earn my vote.

  4. Scott Wagner has no one but himself to blame for his horrible campaign these past few months. He’s been unfocused, insulted a young person questioning him at a town meeting, confronted a tracker at his country club, made statements about taxing the elderly and it goes on and on and on. I think his gross political inexperience by winning one campaign for State Senate due to a write-in effort coupled by a bombastic overblown sense of self has placed his campaign in a meandering mess. Scott Wagner cannot blame the media, Alex Trebek, Tom Wolf, the internet and anyone or anything else for what has transpired. He can only blame himself for being a really really really bad candidate for Governor. One of the worst that has ever come down the road.

    1. John Quincy Adams I was one of the conservative grass roots activist stalwarts who worked hard to help Wagner get elected to the PA senate, only to then watch in horror and disgust as he spent four years bullying people, lying to people, throwing his weight around unnecessarily, demeaning people, and basically self destructing. All that hard work, for what? Some self-adulating bombast? I will vote for Wagner not because I’m enamored, or because I think he would be a good governor (he wouldn’t, he would be awful), but because I will be protesting Wolf’s lame four-year history as governor and his anti-America socialist running mate, Fetterman.

      1. Josh-

        So you’ll vote for an awful gov, over a competent (though lame) gov, because of the Lt Gov who has no actual power (and will be sidelined by Wolf even further) ? ? ?

        That makes even less sense than the sh*t Wagner says

      2. Josh…You seem like a good dude and I have no problem with your conservative passion. Go for it. But you just picked the wrong horse to bet on so to speak. Wagner is a sorrowful excuse for a gubernatorial candidate if there ever was one. He lacks experience in that he cannot effectively handle the modern day media, he lacks experience in understanding how to run a campaign and, simply put, he’s a disaster. The Republicans should look at the Tom Ridge playbook to see how a real politician runs a race for Governor or Bill Scranton III or Gov Scranton. Scott Wagner is heading toward political oblivion. The Republican Party can and will do better.

      3. It’s funny that the actual socialists are on record as saying the Fetterman is not a socialist and they actively campaigned against him in the primary.

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