Fisher, Rendell preparing for tight race [PA Governor]

After spending the summer studying and preparing, the four candidates for governor face an autumn of tests and a Nov. 5 final exam.

They'll endure 18-hour days when they'll be quizzed by voters, reporters and interest groups. During at least a dozen joint forums and debates all over the state, they'll face each other.

Their wallets and supporters will be tested severely. After a $33 million Democratic primary, which broke the state record for election spending, the candidates expect to combine to double that record by election day.

And the top issue for voters is a test that Pennsylvania government has failed for the last three decades: finding a way to replace property taxes as the main funding for K-12 education without causing a revolt by those who will pay the replacement taxes.

Democrat Ed Rendell, the former Philadelphia mayor, holds a double-digit lead in most polls over Republican Mike Fisher, the state attorney general. Green Party nominee Mike Morrill, a union and community organizer, and Libertarian nominee Ken Krawchuk, a computer services consultant, round out the ballot.

Pennsylvania voters, after watching more than $20 million worth of TV commercials, will choose the next governor on Nov. 5 after reviewing the candidates' leadership credentials, proposals and records.

Peg Krum of Benton, Columbia County, was serving lunch at the Sullivan County Fair last week when she was confronted by Rendell, who has likely appeared on her TV screen more than 1,000 times since February.

"And you're who?" she asked. After Rendell identified himself, disappointed her with the news that he was a Democrat, and squiggled ketchup into his ham-and-bean soup, Krum didn't seem impressed. "I haven't paid much attention yet," she said. "There's plenty of time for that."

More than half of 50 voters interviewed in the center, south and north of the state echoed that answer over the last two weeks.

"We've spent the summer among the loyalists, firming up our bases," Rendell said. "Now, in the next month, Joe and Mary Jane Voter are going to start to pay attention."

While Democrats gleefully hail Rendell's lead in the polls, Rendell and Fisher agree the exam period hasn't even started yet.

"Right now, because I have been campaigning and been on TV and had a contested primary, I have higher name-recognition than Mike does," Rendell said.

"Mike has been on TV all over the state for weeks now, so that will change. Then his home area will give him a few points, and in a few weeks, the polls will show this as a 6-point race. And this will be a close race."

Fisher said, "Up in rural Northeast Pennsylvania, a guy came up to me and asked me where I stand on gun control. I told him my position -- we don't need more laws. He said, 'I'm for you, because I am not for Rendell because of his position on guns.'

"The people backing Ed on those issues are already with him. Now the people who agree with me are finding out about my stands, and supporting me."

Millersville University political scientist and pollster G. Terry Madonna said single-issue voters will soon line up behind the candidate they agree with.

"Then the candidates will fight for the last 10, 15, 20 percent of swing voters, the ones who care about leadership, and want to see these guys, hear them, evaluate them," Madonna said.

Krawchuk and Morrill had to amass more than 30,000 voter signatures to get on the ballot. Morrill, the least wealthy of the four, took August off from campaigning and led a unionization drive out of state. That paid his bills and will allow him to wage a fall campaign.

Since neither Morrill nor Krawchuk has ever cracked the 2 percent line in any poll, Madonna said, they will have little impact on the outcome of the race. But both predict they will draw new voters and create a new force in state politics.

This summer, Fisher had to answer critics who said Rendell's fund-raising would leave him in the dust.

Both major party candidates have raised money so well that they will spend more than $1 million per week the rest of the way, which diminishes what many pundits thought would be a considerable fund-raising edge for Rendell.

Fisher said he hopes conservative working-class Democrats in the western Pennsylvania "L," from Altoona to Beaver County to Erie, will remain angry at Rendell for defeating Auditor General Bob Casey Jr. in the primary. Fisher also said he believes his western background and "pro-gun, pro-life" record will appeal to those traditional Democratic voters.

But one Democrat who helped Casey wallop Rendell in Fayette County, Commissioner Vince Vicites, said he'll do the same to Fisher.

Fisher has to win 60 percent or more in the "Western L," hold Rendell to 60 percent in the Philadelphia region and the Lehigh Valley, and get two-thirds of the midstate vote to win.

Voters will get to watch the candidates joust verbally at dozens of forums throughout the fall, including televised debates in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, State College, Wilkes-Barre and Easton.

Nontelevised forums will also enable voters to see the two candidates, and sometimes Morrill and Krawchuk, face to face, arguing the issues.

"Rendell and Fisher both are proposing to lower property taxes, increase senior citizen prescriptions, keep business taxes low and grow jobs, but that just means they have the same goals," Madonna said. "They propose very different ways to get there.

"Rendell is a governmental activist who will borrow more money, use the state government as an agent to run the economy, invest enormous state resources in economic development. Fisher is much more a fiscal conservative, a private-market supply-sider. He will be much more reluctant to make the state government the economic engine. Their approaches are very different."

Fisher opposes any gambling expansion other than allowing slots at race tracks. Rendell would dedicate race-track slot revenues to increasing state K-12 education funding so local school districts can lower residential property taxes, while Fisher would send the money to the state's senior citizen prescription drug program.

Rendell has broached the idea of allowing keno, a computer-screen version of bingo, at restaurants and bars, a proposal Fisher opposes. Krawchuk and Morrill oppose any gambling expansion.

Fisher would sign a bill banning abortion if it passed the Legislature. Rendell, Morrill and Krawchuk all say they would veto a bill banning abortion.

Rendell supports limiting state residents to one handgun purchase per month, saying it would slow the flow of firearms to criminals, juveniles and mentally ill people. Fisher disagrees.

Fisher's cornerstone economic proposal is a $350 million annual business tax cut, while Rendell pledges to increase gambling revenues and find up to $1 billion in state government waste and overspending, then re-apply the funding to state education while cutting local property taxes.

All four candidates have vowed to call a special session of the Legislature to reduce the K-12 education burden on property taxes, the hottest issue among voters, candidates' polls revealed.

Rendell is asked more about the property tax than any other issue, and usually in words like that used by Barney Chubbuck of Laceyville:

"Come on, can you really do anything about it, or is it just impossible, and are you just talking to get elected?" the Bradford County man asked after a speech.

Fisher has said Rendell's gambling and state-spending reform-driven funding program won't work without big income tax increases, but has declined to say how he would pay for his proposed property tax reductions.

Sen. Jane Earll, R-Erie, Fisher's running mate and designated "point person" on property tax and education issues, said she favors replacing property tax revenues with state or local income taxes, sales taxes or earned income taxes.

Krawchuk and Morrill, who each would virtually abolish property taxes, widen the choices for voters in this race even further.

Morrill favors universal health care, abolishing the death penalty and nearly doubling the minimum wage. Krawchuk supports ending state support and regulation of local schools, and pardoning all nonviolent drug purchasers currently imprisoned.

Fisher and Rendell both say the campaign will not take on the nasty tone of the Democratic primary election.

Rendell must win Allegheny, Washington and Beaver counties in the west, tie or lose narrowly in Centre and Clearfield counties, get above the 40 percent mark in the "Western L" and bring in about 70 percent of the vote in the Philadelphia region.

Given the fact that voter turnout in Phila will be about 107% for Fast Eddie, he's looking like a shoe in. For Fischer to win, he'll need to:

1.) Portray Ed Rendell as a corrupt, big-city, back-room, sleazy politician. Not too hard, as it's the truth. If Ed Rendell can be linked very closely with the fiscal black hole that is Philadelphia, the rest of the state will line up behind Fischer.

2.) Play up Eddie's tax-and-spend philosophy and his claims that he will spend the PA rainy day fund.

3.) Play up Eddie's virulently unconstitutional anti-gun positions in central and western PA.

4.) For heaven's sake, have election monitors in every single precinct in Philadelphia. Otherwise, you can kiss the governor's mansion goodbye. Ed Rendell is not above cheating to win. Not by a long shot.

I pray that Ed Rendell is defeated. He would be an absolute disaster as governor of Pennsylvania.

Yeah, some folks have already written this race off because of Rendell's early lead in the polls. I personally think it's going to be competitive, giving a slight edge to Rendell. I'm glad to hear that the money issue is basically a wash, as opposed to favoring Rendell.

BTW, my highly scientific yard sign survey from two weeks ago showed Fisher leading Rendell 100%-0% (5% confidence, 95% margin of error).

The left-wing, liberal Philadelphia dailies portray Rendell as a successful mayor. However, they never mention that Philadelphia has lost almost 150,000 people since 1990—more than any other city.

While downtown is thriving, the rest of the city remains a crime- and highly taxed municipality of failing schools and continued middle-class flight. It is still in the throes of economic decline. Black and white middle-class families with children continue to spill out out of the city, always giving the same reasons: schools, crime, and taxes.

The city doesn't attract the kinds of start-up businesses flourishing elsewhere. In 1997, Philadelphia had one new business started for every 275 residents, compared with one in 97 in San Francisco and one in 66 in Houston. Meanwhile, the surrounding counties experienced such a boom that a city resident is now more likely to commute to the suburbs than a suburbanite is likely to commute into the city. Though why city residents would want to stay remains a puzzle: a family of four paid 15 percent more in local tax than it would in high-tax New York or Chicago, and twice what it would pay in L.A.

Fisher has a lot of ammunition but he has to start shooting. His main attacks should focus on failing schools, Rendell's fanatical pro-abortion stance, he opposition to the Second Amendment and the fact that his sexual escapades, while not up there with our former National Role Model are worth a mention. Fisher can win, but he has to start campaigning.

We can help by urging all our conservative friends to talk up the election and be sure to vote.

No mention of the recent endorsement of Rendell by Republican State Tresurer Barbara Hafer. This is kind of inside baseball stuff in PA politics, but Hafer thinks she's been repeatedly snubbed by the old boy network in the state Republican party (in 1990 against Casey, and again this year in the primary). Now, this is her revenge. Bad news for Fisher. Hafer can sway some votes in the western part of the state, and that's where Fisher has to clean up.

IMHO, Fisher is toast.

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