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2/8 Ups & Downs

As politicos head to state committee, see who had a good week and who didn’t.

Here are PoliticsPA’s previews of the Dem and GOP weekend meetings. Don’t miss PoliticsPA’s list of The Best County Party Chairs in PA!

Up ArrowPat Toomey. His name won’t appear on the ballot for nearly 4 years, but the freshman Senator isn’t easing up on fundraising. He brought in $470,000 in the final 3 months of 2012 and begins 2013 with $2.07 million cash on hand. That puts him well ahead of both Bob Casey and Arlen Specter at the same point in their respective re-election efforts – important because Toomey will be a top target for Dems in 2016.

Up ArrowLinda Thompson. The Harrisburg Mayor caught a big break this week when perennial candidate and bookstore owner Eric Papenfuse entered the mayoral primary. She faces a formidable opponent in City Controller Dan Miller, but Papenfuse’s entry will take votes from him and potentially deliver her re-election.

Up ArrowDown ArrowTom Corbett. Another week, another poll, another bad headline for the Guv. This time, he had the lowest approval rating of any Pa. Governor in F&M history (since 1994). Meanwhile, as legislators go through the typical budget season dance, Corbett’s budget has gotten pretty good reviews from editorial boards around the state. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote, for example, “Overall, though, there is much to like in this budget, a huge difference from his two earlier spending plans.”

Up ArrowAmes True Temper. The Cumberland County business is the world’s largest manufacturer of wheelbarrows. Over the past few weeks, they’ve run a social media campaign to prevent the game Monopoly from axing the wheelbarrow token (the company was allowing fan of the game voted to replace one). They won. Suck it, iron!

Up ArrowAllyson Schwartz, Pat Meehan, and more. PoliticsPA listed the congressional winners and losers based on the year end FEC reports they filed this week. Schwartz (D-Montco) and Meehan (R-Delaware) were far and away the best off financially. Check out the rest of the list here.
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Down ArrowThese bums.** Pa. campaign finance laws are already extremely lenient. To add insult to injury (both to Democracy), the penalty for filing reports are practically non-existant – a max of $250 after a 20 days. The DOS listed the losers who failed to file their year-end fundraising reports, in many cases the only time voters will have the chance to get a peek at fundraising info for the next 12 months. Most are failed primary candidates. Here are some names that stand out: Patrick Murphy (AG), Frank Pinto (Auditor), Sens. Vincent Hughes and Matt Smith; State Reps. John Lawrence, Dom Costa, Steve Santarsiero, Jesse White, Bill DeWeese, Bryan Barbin, Mark Rozzi, Tony Payton, Babette Josephs, Brian Sims, Jordan Harris, Vanessa Brown, Louise Bishop, JP Miranda, and Cherelle Parker. And the HDCC’s new Chair Tim Briggs!

**Several folks on the list have contacted PoliticsPA to say either that the DOS had already received their reports (albeit late), that they were already in the process of working through the problem before the list was published, or that DOS was flatly incorrect to list them (eg. Hughes and Smith). So, take the list with a grain of salt.

Tweet of the week: Melissa Daniels, PA Independent. If you haven’t checked this out yet, you should right now.

Corbett budget speech, in word cloud format: ow.ly/hsbZr #PAbudget

— Melissa Daniels (@melissamdaniels) February 6, 2013

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