Posted on 11/03/2004 7:12:36 AM PST by Hermann the Cherusker
Posted on Wed, Nov. 03, 2004
Rivals deadlocked in Pa. attorney general race
By Jeff Shields
Inquirer Staff Writer
Jim Eisenhower, seeking to become Pennsylvania's first elected Democratic attorney general, was deadlocked with Republican Tom Corbett early this morning in a race that could trigger the state's first mandatory recount.
The Associated Press declared Eisenhower the winner shortly before midnight, but Corbett refused to concede, with votes from rural Republican counties yet to be counted.
A Democratic victory could signal a shift in the way the Attorney General's Office is run. Eisenhower has promised to follow the lead of other activist Democratic attorneys general, such New York's Eliot Spitzer, and go after deception and fraud in the insurance, health-care and waste industries.
Corbett, 55, a former U.S. attorney from Allegheny County, hoped to regain the job he held for 15 months between 1995 and 1997. He replaced Attorney General Ernest Preate, who went to prison on federal fraud charges.
Corbett, of Allegheny County, had emphasized that experience, as well as his four years as a U.S. attorney and his eight years as chairman of the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency.
Eisenhower, 46, of Philadelphia, a former federal prosecutor, worked for a year for the National Security Council in the Clinton White House. He promised to use that experience to help the state fight domestic and international terrorism in Pennsylvania.
If elected, Eisenhower would be the only Democratic attorney general voted into office since it became an elected position in 1980. He lost to incumbent Republican Attorney General Mike Fisher in 2000.
Fisher left the post to become a federal appeals judge last year. His successor, Jerry Pappert, did not seek election.
Corbett's platform was conservative. He promised to fight crime against families, and to stress education and prevention. He relied on his resume, which included cases against organized crime, drug rings and environmental polluters.
The environment was a central theme of the campaign, because Corbett spent four years working for the trash giant Waste Management. Eisenhower portrayed Corbett as an ally of the trash industry in a state that imports more garbage than any other. To convince voters otherwise, Corbett detailed a plan to get tough on polluters.
Eisenhower is a close ally of Gov. Rendell's, having served as criminal justice adviser to Rendell's gubernatorial campaign. As governor, Rendell appointed Eisenhower chair of the state Commission on Crime and Delinquency, and chose his wife, Nora Dowd Eisenhower, to be secretary of the Department of Aging.
Corbett had questioned whether Eisenhower's connections would allow him to effectively investigate any suspected wrongdoing in the administration.
The election's end is not expected to end the fight over contributions made by business interests to Corbett's campaign.
Lawyers for both candidates were among the first to show up at Election Court in Philadelphia yesterday to continue a fight over a nearly half-million-dollar contribution to the Corbett campaign.
On Friday, a judge ordered Corbett to disclose the "original sources" of the contribution from the Republican State Leadership Committee, a national "527" political organization - so named for the section of the tax code governing such groups - dedicated to electing Republican attorneys general and other state officials.
Most of its donors are corporations, which are not allowed to contribute to Pennsylvania political races. But the organization also receives money from individuals and political action committees, whose contributions are legal here.
Officials from the group refused to document the exact sources that went into the $480,000 - money that Corbett used to fund a blitz of negative advertising in Southeastern Pennsylvania in the last four days.
Eisenhower's attorneys, in a 9:30 a.m. appearance before Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Matthew Carrafiello yesterday, said that irreparable harm had already been done but that any resolution was not likely to change the election result. They agreed, with Corbett's lawyers, to seek a hearing next week.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contact staff writer Jeff Shields at 610-313-8173 or jshields@phillynews.com. Inquirer staff writer Thomas Ginsberg contributed to this article.
Corbett leads Eisenhower by 126,186, yet the media has declared that he lost.
No bias here!
Ping.
Dewey Defeats Truman Alert, Part 1:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1268165/posts
"Eisenhower wins Pa. attorney general's race (Dewey Defeats Truman Alert!)"
By democrat standards, there is no winner in Pennsylvania until all provisional and absentee ballots have been counted. The President's margin of victory in Ohio is greater than Kerry's in Penn., yet the press called it for Kerry.
ping
Just wait, Rendell and Street will find a box-o-votes in the basement...........
LOL
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