Corbett seeking to make mark in state elections
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Entering a pivotal year for his administration, with a state budget due soon and Pennsylvania swinging into campaign mode, Gov. Tom Corbett is tightening his grip on the state's Republican Party and trying to wrestle it into the direction he wants it to go.
Mr. Corbett's fingerprints are all over the state's elections this year. His budget due Feb. 7 will impact state legislators running for re-election. He pushed his own candidates in contested GOP primaries, all of whom were endorsed by the state's Republican committee Saturday. He tried to lure state House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, R-Bradford Woods, into entering a congressional race north of Pittsburgh even though there was another GOP candidate in the race.
The moves stand in contrast to the other major Republican elected statewide in 2010, U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, who stayed out of the endorsement squabbles at this weekend's winter GOP meetings and had refused to choose sides between Mr. Turzai and fellow Republican Keith Rothfus when the majority leader was looking at the race.
There is reason for that. Mr. Corbett will have to work alongside candidates for state attorney general, auditor general and treasurer. And Mr. Toomey, the Arlen Specter slayer, has always enjoyed the embrace of the right wing of the party, and to their eyes the governor's political moves helped more moderate candidates. Exhibit 1 by the former prosecutor is his pick for the party's U.S. Senate nod, Chester County businessman Steve Welch, a onetime Democrat who supported the candidacies of Barack Obama and former U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak.
Mr. Welch would presumably perform well in a race against U.S. Sen. Bob Casey in the vote-rich Philadelphia region, and his business acumen may be an advantage in a year when voters are consistently saying economic worries are their biggest concern. The governor's pick also helps to freeze out fellow Senate candidate Sam Rohrer, who was Mr. Corbett's rival for the GOP gubernatorial nod in 2010 and boxed him into a conservative corner on a no-tax pledge that spring.
"It's proper for the governor to be in charge of the party. He leads the state to the convention and has to be a force with the primary coming up," said political analyst William Green. "It's his proper role to get troops organized and to be a unifying force."
Unifying the GOP forces could be difficult, in the short term at least, after the bitter intraparty feuding among its seven U.S. Senate candidates. The governor's endorsements in that and three other statewide races ran roughshod over other Republican leaders and were a major source of angst going into the party's meetings.
His relationships with Democrats are worse.
Mr. Corbett "is trying to shape public perception and shape the political landscape 'round him. It's not an irrational thing to do," said state Sen. Daylin Leach, D-Montgomery, a frequent Corbett critic.
"He can go all around the state and hold fundraisers for any candidates he wants, and that's his obligation but not the entirety of the job," Mr. Leach said. "Once the election is over he has to govern all of the people, not just Republican people."
Mr. Corbett enjoyed decent poll numbers through his first year in office: by December's Quinnipiac University poll he had a 47 percent approval rating, to 34 percent who disapproved. But his numbers are slipping: in the Franklin & Marshall poll released Thursday, his popularity rating was 29 percent favorable to 32 percent unfavorable, with the latter figure jumping 9 percentage points since their last survey.
Pollster Terry Madonna of F&M said he could not pinpoint the popularity drop. "Who is the real Tom Corbett is a little elusive for some voters," he said.
Mr. Corbett's political adviser, Brian Nutt, could not be reached for this story.
The governor's office may be battening down the hatches in advance of his budget address Feb. 7. State revenues are down a half-billion dollars, and critics have been pounding him on issues such as transportation funding, Marcellus Shale fees, school vouchers and huge funding cuts to public and higher education.
Republican lawmakers have lately joined Democrats in criticizing the state's funding of the struggling Chester Upland school district in Delaware County. School districts statewide -- many of them run by school boards with grass-roots Republican party supporters -- are fretting over their budgets, and additionally every member of the state House and half the Senate will be facing voters this year.
Mr. Corbett's cuts to K-12 and higher education have "created a great deal of discomfort for the Republican legislators who voted for it, especially as they themselves enter election season," said Ronald Cowell, president of The Education Policy and Leadership Center, and a former Democratic legislator. "Does that translate into a difference [in the upcoming budget]? I have no way of knowing. It's a strong executive state, and even in difficult times he has a lot of leverage."
First Published January 29, 2012 12:00 am
