Who had a good week, and who wishes it could have been nothing more than a bad dream? Check it out:

Pat Toomey. Our freshman Senator is spending his summer recess wisely, by touring the state and visiting small businesses and pushing legislation he cares about. Toomey isn’t up for reelection for some time, so he doesn’t need the good press. But he’s out doing the job we pay him for anyway, instead of taking a beach vacation (tempting as it may have been).
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PA-12. With all of Rep. Mark Critz’s (D-Cambria) attention turned toward his opponent Keith Rothfus, and whether or not he should hire workers as consultants, the district’s voters have lost out on a week of campaigning – serious, down-to-the-issues campaigning. While we don’t know whether Rothfus is dodging taxes, we do know we’d like to see less Twitter bickering and more productivity.

Eastern PA. The eastern half of the state got all the positive press this week. Both presidential campaigns made appearances yesterday with First Lady Michelle Obama and Mitt Romney’s former Lt. Gov. in Philadelphia and SEPA. And the day before that, listeners got to hear debate from the state party chairs Burn and Gleason. Any attention thrown western PA’s way was negative: the Turzai comments made a resurgence on The Daily Show, and, of course, there was Roddey’s joke (see below).

Jim Roddey. Who didn’t see this one coming a mile away? In the midst of a well-deserved victory party for state Senator-elect Randy Vulakovich, Allegheny County Committee Chair Roddey made a terrible judgment error by deciding to make a joke equating Obama supporters with the mentally retarded. Members of both parties were rightfully and deeply offended.

Shannon Alloway. We saw this story early in the week from the Greenlee Partners daily email and knew we had to share. Shannon is the wife of state Sen. Rich Alloway (R-Franklin) and a former veterinary technician. She saved the life of a drowning dog while on vacation by performing mouth-to-snout and chest compressions on the 8-pound Maltese. The dog spat out water and regained consciousness. Nice work!

Our Tweet of the Week comes from Colby Itkowitz of The Morning Call’s DC bureau. The tweet is a response to kudos Itkowitz received by making a fantastic pop culture reference in the opening of a pool report on the First Lady’s visit, which began: “West Philadelphia (born and raised…).”

🙂 Couldn’t help myself… RT @ajconwashington Props to @dcmorningcall for working Fresh Prince reference into First Lady pool report

— Colby Itkowitz (@DCMorningCall) August 9, 2012