A former gov candidate supports the legislation of a Lt. Gov. candidate, we’ve got two dropouts and a couple of endorsements. See who all made this week’s list.
Senator Mike Stack (D-Philadelphia). The state senator and lieutenant governor candidate introduced two marijuana reform bills this week, along with the support of former DEP Secretary John Hanger. Hanger is an outspoken advocate for marijuana legalization, and while the Stack bills are not quite so progressive, Hanger’s presence adds credibility to the legislation and won’t hurt Stack politically with Hanger’s former governor campaign supporters.
Jack Wagner. After a brief campaign with a lackluster announcement during petition period, former Auditor General Jack Wagner has left the race for governor with as much ennui as he entered it. This is Wagner’s third in a string of unsuccessful bids for public office. He lost the gubernatorial nomination in 2010 to Dan Onorato, and last year lost the nomination for Pittsburgh mayor to Bill Peduto.
Tom Wolf. Wolf earned an influential endorsement last weekend when the Pennsylvania Young Democrats voted to throw their support behind him. Each candidate completed a questionnaire and interview with the executive board, and in their endorsement they cited his high quality responses and “populist” campaign. Plus, today the Wolf campaign released a new web video with another endorsement.
Rep. Ron Miller (R-York). Apparently losing the special election for SD-28 to a write-in candidate was enough to dissuade Miller from running for Senate again. Miller dropped out of the Republican primary for the seat that he lost to Scott Wagner in last week’s special. He had previously filed petitions to be on the ballot and had been the party favorite in the special election, but was bested by 20 points.
Brad Koplinski. Like Wolf, Koplinski earned the endorsement of the Pennsylvania Young Democrats. As in the governor’s race, Lt. Gov. candidates completed a questionnaire and interview with the executive board and Koplinski had a resounding win in the vote. This is another case for the support Koplinski has with statewide party establishment. Though he came just shy of winning the Pennsylvania Democrats endorsement earlier this year, he did win about a majority of the votes.
Tweet of the week goes to the young mayor of Downingtown, Josh Maxwell, for disproving that all Millennials are hip to the Twitter thing.
The staff is teaching me to use hashtags. imgettingbetter# @rsimme26
— Josh Maxwell (@maxwelljosh) March 23, 2014
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9 Responses
I think Brad gets an up arrow for giving Paterno a nudge out of the race by challenging his petitions.
THUMBS DOWN: Bill Shuster
Factcheck.org declared this week that his negative advertisements attacking Art Halvorson for taking farm subsidies are “completely untrue”. Shuster & company have invested over $500,000 into throwing mud at Halvorson that has NO basis in fact behind it. That should be worth an article on PoliticsPA.
The attitude that 18-36 years have to produce for you, is exactly why it is a massive demographic that is not tapped by most campaigns. It is people who are not being reached by the existing political structures. They probably went with the campaigns that paid the most attention to them. Complain all you want about a lack of organization, but they reliably produce party leaders (count them in the state house). It just shows such the bad attitude and lack of foresight that comes out of retail politics – while we permit a massive untapped demographic to sit on the sideline.
Not sure that yd 18 votes is a thumbs up.
The Josh Maxwell tweet is laughable. He’s unemployed and certainly doesn’t have the campaign funds for a staff.
What’s on tap for this weekend, Josh? Getting evicted from another apartment, perhaps another DUI, or will you take it easy and just promote the masters degree that you don’t have?
What do you need to get a down arrow? Tom Corbett got less time with the Pontiff than an innocent First Grader, making her first Confession. Then the Corbett/Brabender team tried to politicize Corbett’s visit. What’s next? Will Corbett suddenly develop Padre Pio-like stigmata and bleed on demand to bilk campaign funds from donors?
http://www.keystonepolitics.com/2014/03/corbett-campaign-shamelessly-politicizes-pope/
Influential endorsement? Really? 18 people voted to endorse their friends. Hardly a game changer. Actually it’s quite laughable. The only thing the young dems proved is that they have no credibility.
Thumbs down: Kathleen Kane
The incompetent and/or corrupt AG dismissed charges against her confidential informant before forcing him to testify against the Democrats caught in the corruption scandal. Since she couldn’t compel the CI to testify, she felt obliged to dismiss the charges against her fellow Democrats.
http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/5837032-74/ali-kane-agreement#axzz2wyzJUjsL
That’s six individuals who got off scot-free because of her incompetence.
Further evidence that the quality of this website has continued to go downhill since the editorial transition. Giving both Tom Wolf and Brad Koplinski up arrows for the PA Young Dem endorsement reveals a stunning lack of political insight. In the Governor’s race, the PA Young Dem endorsement will have NO bearing. And Brad got endorsed by an organization whose board includes many old friends and former business partners.
PA Young Dems have a paltry member list and few financial resources to back candidates, not to mention one of the crappiest political websites I have seen (Google It). And yet you are suggesting that their endorsement will have an impact on statewide races. One more step down in the decline of what used to be an intelligent source of PA political news.