So far, after a year and a half, Swann has run exactly no campaign. There is no evidence that I've seen that Swann will significantly cut into Rendell's majority in Philadelphia which is what carried him (and John Kerry in 2004), which is supposedly what has the Republican leadership salivating. I understand that after Mike Fisher, running a corpse would look like an improvement, but let's try to be at least a little realistic. Additionally, even in the unlikely event that his candidacy would increase black turnout, that would translate into a big negative for Santorum. Given the choice between losing the Senate seat and Rendell keeping the Governorship, I'll take the latter choice.
The one thing that could catapult either Swann or Scranton (and Santorum as well, even though it is a statewide issue and not federal), in my opinion, would be for them to endorse and actively campaign on the proposals of the Commonwealth Caucus in the Republican party. For those unfamiliar with this, it would entail the complete elimination of both personal and business property taxes (imagine the effect the latter could have to regions like Scranton/Reading/Pittsburg that have been hit by the collapse of steel and manufacturing in the state), reduction of the sales tax to 5% (6% in Philly and Pittsburg because of the stadiums), elimination of any portion of wage tax that is designated for school funding. The tradeoff is that the sales tax would include services as well as goods, instead of just goods. All school funding in the state would come from the sales tax.
"Given the choice between losing the Senate seat and Rendell keeping the Governorship, I'll take the latter choice."
i totally disagree. id much rather have a republican such as swann as governor and lose santorum in the senate. a governor has much more power directly over pennsylvanians than a u.s. senator being 1 out of 100.