Two-term state Rep. Sean Ramaley, of Economy, is hoping to move across the hall to take the state Senate seat of Gerald LaValle, who is retiring.

Mr. Ramaley's primary election opponent in the Democratic primary is political newcomer Jason Petrella, of Monaca. The winner will face either Jeff Harris or Elder Vogel Jr., who both live in New Sewickley and are squaring off in the Republican primary.

The 47th Senate District includes the southern part of Lawrence County, almost all of Beaver County and one tiny township -- Crescent -- in Allegheny County. It's old-school, blue-collar Democratic territory, and the Republican nominee will face a 2-1 registration deficit as well as decades of history.

"I just hope I can get the message out and people hear what I have to say," Mr. Harris said of his general election hopes. Mr. Harris, 45, ran in 2006 for the state House seat then held by Mike Veon, but lost in the primary to Jim Marshall, who went on to beat Mr Veon.

"Regardless of party, I think people want someone honest, someone sincere, someone who's not a phony and will tell them how things are going to be," Mr. Vogel said, echoing the point.

Mr. Vogel, 51, believes his background is the perfect one to convey that sense of honesty: A lifelong farmer, he tills soil that has been in his family for 150 years. He is also president of the Beaver-Lawrence Farm Bureau, chairman of the Pennsylvania Beef Council and a New Sewickley supervisor.

"When people think of farmers, they think of them as honest, hard-working people," he said. "Those are attributes that people understand without it really needing to be said."

Mr. Vogel's primary goals for the office are property tax reform, spending cuts and economic development. He thinks tax reform should be possible with gambling revenue coming in, as long as politicians can keep their fingers out of the pot of gambling money.

"We need to keep that money and do with it what they say we were going to do with it," he said.

Mr. Vogel said the Legislature needs to start with its own staff as far as cost-cutting goes. "If everybody could get by with one less person, that would be a start," he said.

As for the job front, he thinks the problems are a lack of infrastructure and a lack of pad-ready building sites, both items the state can help with. "We've got a good workforce here," along with major highways and proximity to the airport, he said. "We just need to get people to recognize it."

Mr. Harris, an electrical designer for power systems, hit on similar themes, criticizing "ridiculous" state budgets of more than $28 billion and noting the importance of improved roads, bridges and other infrastructure to creating "family-sustaining jobs" for the district.

He said he couldn't offer specific spending cuts, however, until he got to Harrisburg and got a first-hand look at the numbers.

Mr. Harris said he has another issue that he holds particularly dear: the restoration of true property rights.

"I'd like to severely limit eminent domain, do away with inheritance taxes and do away with property taxes on primary residences," he said.

Mr. Harris said too many people are losing their homes not because they can't pay their mortgages but because they can't pay their taxes, and that ownership of property should be essentially forever.

He granted that replacing the revenue property taxes generate to run schools and local municipalities would be "a tough nut to crack," but said by cutting spending, consolidating local services and increasing sales and income taxes, it could be done.

"Our primary residence should be ours once we pay off the bank loan," he said.

Whoever wins that race will be facing a 32-year-old Democrat; both Mr. Ramaley and Mr. Petrella are squarely in Generation X.

Mr. Ramaley brings to the table the experience gleaned through four years representing the 16th House District, which includes southeastern Beaver County and a long, thin stretch of Allegheny County, reaching as far as Bellevue and Ross.

He said it was hard to leave his district, but "I looked at it as an opportunity to help four times as many people, and decided to try," he said.

In Harrisburg, Mr. Ramaley said he was involved behind the scenes in efforts to raise the minimum wage, expand property tax rebate programs and expand health care efforts for the elderly and for children.

In his district, he mentioned helping the Northern Ambridge Redevelopment Project, helping bring $4.5 million in state funding for the mixed commercial/residential project on reclaimed industrial sites in that struggling town.

He also pointed to ongoing efforts to redevelop mill sites along the Ohio River in Aliquippa, including the possibility of an ethanol plant locating there, and mentioned the construction of the Ferry Street overpass in Leetsdale.

The overpass eliminates a dangerous left turn into Leetsdale's industrial section, and also takes traffic above the railroad tracks, eliminating "one of the most dangerous at-grade railroad crossings in the state," Mr. Ramaley said.

He said he also got involved in some bio-tech and life science issues in the House, and hopes to capitalize on that experience in the Senate. He said he's spoken to U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire, D-McCandless, who together with an Ohio congressman, is pushing the idea of a Pittsburgh-Cleveland high-tech corridor.

"This district is perfectly situated where we could be a significant player," he said. "Those jobs are good-paying jobs, $60-, $70-, $80,000-a-year jobs."

He said he'd also like to push the idea of the district as a center for alternative fuels, with a biodiesel plant already operating in Koppel and an ethanol plant in consideration for Aliquippa.

In some ways, Mr. Ramaley sees his job more than anything else as being a catalyst, "bringing people together in the same room and getting everyone working together, whatever it might be that they are doing."

Mr. Petrella, meanwhile, believes Mr. Ramaley has spent too much time working with the wrong people; he views his opponent as a product of the party machine, a man who "owes too many favors to too many people" to ever be a truly independent voice.

And he believes that political machine has failed the district.

"If you drive through downtown New Castle or downtown Monaca, it's the same thing," he said: empty businesses, crumbling infrastructure and declining population.

Mr. Petrella, who formerly worked in financial services and is just finishing a master's degree in public policy, has some far-reaching ideas. For one, he thinks the state should equalize property taxes so counties are not competing with each other. For another, he thinks Pennsylvania should step up and provide universal health care to its residents.

Mr. Petrella sees that as a great draw to business.

"If we had universal health care and I was a business owner, I would be running to get here," he said. "That's better than a business tax cut."

He also sees a variety of other ways Pennsylvania -- and the 47th District -- can make themselves more attractive to business, through rebate plans and other incentives. Bringing business back will bring improvements in everything else, he said.

But Mr. Petrella is not entirely sold on the idea of Pittsburgh becoming "the next Seattle" with high-tech development. The way he sees it, every city has a niche -- government in Washington, D.C., financial services in New York -- and manufacturing is in Pittsburgh's DNA. The trick is to attract modern manufacturing.

"The catchall for this area is that people love it, but they can't make a living here," he said. "We need to change that."