A new TV ad from Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Corbett talks up the attorney general’s pledge not to raise taxes—and waves off the bipartisan skepticism that he can keep the pledge.

The ad, unveiled by Corbett’s campaign in an e-mail to supporters Tuesday morning, is his first new TV spot since he cruised to his party’s nomination in the May primary. The size of the first ad buy was not immediately clear, but Corbett started the general election cycle with a substantial financial advantage over Democratic nominee Dan Onorato, who had to fight his way through a four-way primary.

The Republican leader in the state Senate is among those who have questioned how Corbett can handle Pennsylvania’s troublesome budget situation without raising taxes, and Onorato has has needled Corbett on the specifics of the pledge.

“The politicians were just as skeptical when I promised to fight corruption in Pennsylvania, and boy, were they wrong,” Corbett says in the ad. “So if any of them truly believe we can’t stop Harrisburg’s reckless spending and high taxes, just watch me.”

See the ad below.

Many Philadelphians have been developing a hate-hate relationship with a variety of government agencies over a long period of time. Some of these, for example, are the Delaware River Port Authority, Philadelphia Housing Authority and the School Reform Commission—or as some friends of mine over at Philadelphia Speaks coined it, The Axis of Arrogant Incompetence. All these agencies have been in the news a lot recently, and not for their redeeming qualities.

But there’s another aggravating acronym that has been flying under the radar, one that needs to be brought to the forefront for this election cycle: the PLCB.

The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board was formed when Prohibition was repealed by the 21st Amendment. The goal, as stated by Governor Gifford Pinchot, was to “discourage the purchase of alcoholic beverages by making it as inconvenient and expensive as possible.” It’s always nice to hear a government success story, because it has been succeeding at that goal for over 75 years.

It’s time for the PLCB to finally be privatized, and in this election cycle, who we elect as governor could either enshrine the existence of the PLCB for the next eight years or make pushes to change it.

Democratic nominee Dan Onorato’s campaign has told The Post-Gazette that he “is against the privatization of liquor stores.” This is a firm and unacceptable stance for this issue. Any elected official that believes the appropriate role for Harrisburg is to run a monopoly business gives me cause for concern and should concern everyone else as well.

On the other side, GOP nominee Tom Corbett hasn’t been exactly championing the privatization cause, but he isn’t against it either. The Times Leader reported earlier this summer that Corbett said he’d look into the matter.

Now, I will agree that is a very light stance to make a significant wedge out of an issue, but something rather more interesting developed recently that throws a lot of weight behind the idea of Corbett being more aggressive on this front.

In his August newsletter, Keith Wallace of the Wine School of Philadelphia made a pitch for Tom Corbett. As he says, “… I have gained assurances that Gubernatorial candidate Tom Corbett will make reforming the PLCB an element of his administration.”

This is significant because, besides being a well respected person amongst the wine circles in the Philadelphia area, he also isn’t your expected Corbett supporter. “After all,” he says, “I am a former NPR journalist and Democratic operative [originally] from Massachusetts.”

This shows two very important things. First, the PLCB is a significant enough of an issue to get people to be a one issue voter across party lines. Second, while there is the debate between both sides on where the line is drawn on the appropriate role of government, the PLCB crosses that line for many people.

Whether you are for the PLCB remaining as is or you want someone to push for more significant changes, there are clear choices that can be made in November.

Breaking his TV silence more than three months after a wildly successful primary advertising blitz, Democrat Senate candidate Joe Sestak is up with his campaign’s first commercial of the general election cycle.

The 30-second spot, coming just over two months before Election Day, strikes a stridently populist tone, juxtaposing Republican nominee Pat Toomey’s previous statements about corporate taxes with news clips about falling tax payments by corporations. The ad uses a 2007 CNBC appearance by Toomey, who at the time headed the conservative Club for Growth.

“I think the solution is to eliminate corporate taxes altogether,” Toomey said at the time.

The ad buy comes after Toomey and his conservative allies have been pummeling Sestak on the airwaves with negative spots for months. Democrats only began to insert themselves into the air wars a couple weeks ago, when the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee launched a spot hitting Toomey on his past as a derivatives trader. The ad buy is also somewhat unusual for Sestak’s TV consulting firm, The Campaign Group, which is more often known for saving all advertising money for the closing weeks of a race.

But the ad buy is relatively small, according to The Inquirer, which first reported the new spot. Reflecting Toomey’s considerable financial advantage and the fact that Sestak is still rebuilding a war chest depleted by his competitive primary against Arlen Specter, no TV time has been booked in the expensive Philadelphia media market. The campaign has so far reserved limited time in the Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Erie, Johnstown and Wilkes-Barre media markets.

Noting that Toomey was called “Wall Street’s Congressman” by the magazine Derivatives Strategy, the ad says “he’s for them, not for us.”

See the ad below.

Democrat Joe Sestak found himself under new scrutiny on that pesky subject of earmarks Monday, after The Morning Call reported that money Sestak earmarked for a non-profit foundation could instead end up benefiting a for-profit wind energy company.

At issue is $350,000 requested for the Thomas Paine Foundation, money to develop a new prototype, offshore wind turbine. The money was never actually appropriated, but long story short, the head of the nonprofit head who requested the money also runs New Way Energy LLC, which is developing the same type of turbines. New House rules prohibit earmarks from going to for-profit companies. And after Sestak’s opponent got some favorable ink when it raised hay over Sestak’s earmarking policy earlier this summer, Republicans were once again quick to pounce Monday. GOP Senate nominee Pat Toomey’s campaign was on offense, and the state party held a conference call for reporters.

“It’s bad enough that Joe Sestak repeatedly wastes Pennsylvanians’ tax dollars on outrageous earmarks like a Mule and Packers Museum in California,” Toomey campaign spokeswoman Nachama Soloveichik said. “It got worse when Sestak trotted out a phony ethics pledge against taking campaign contributions from people he funneled earmarks to, only to flunk his own ethics test. Now, Sestak is violating House rules by using a non-profit as cover for doling out tax dollars to his pet project. Joe Sestak and the Washington wasteful earmark game are so out of control that you can’t make this stuff up.”

Sestak’s campaign said the two-term congressman’s office had done its due diligence in scrutinizing the earmark request, and argued that nonprofit organizations headed by executives of for-profit companies should not be exuded from receiving earmarks.

“The fact is Joe Sestak has led the way to transparency and earmark reform,” spokeswoman April Mellody told PoliticsPA. “If we’re going to talk about earmark reform, then quite frankly Congressman Toomey should stop hiding his own earmark requests.”

Meanwhile, Senator Bob Casey rolled through southeast Pennsylvania Monday to stump for two of his party’s congressional candidates. First, Casey joined Democrat Bryan Lentz at a small business roundtable in Brookhaven. Lentz is running against Republican Pat Meehan in the 7th Congressional District. “Small businesses are the engines of our economy and job growth,” Casey said in a statement later. “Representative Lentz understands the imperative to listen to and then advocate for small businesses.”

A few hours later, Casey was in Ardmore, headlining the Montgomery County office opening for Manan Trivedi, the party’s candidate against Congressman Jim Gerlach (R-6). “Manan Trivedi will bring unique qualities to Washington,” Casey said. “As a doctor and a veteran, his experience will be helpful to Pennsylvania and the nation as the health care law is implemented and as we work to protect our troops and keep our promises to our veterans.”

And it seems like the impolitic comments from Republican Tom Marino just keep on coming. After basically saying his generation has to skip cashing in on that whole Social Security thing, Marino, the GOP hopeful in the 10th District, apparently shouted down some voters and asked if they were on welfare. The video embedded below, apparently from a Democratic tracker, clearly could lack some important context. But at least at first glance, it doesn’t look good.

Check it out.

Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-11) has taken his reelection bid to local TV screens in northeast Pennsylvania, using his campaign’s first 30-second spot to pointedly attack Republican challenger Lou Barletta’s legacy as mayor of Hazleton.

Kanjorski’s started airing the ad late last week, and his campaign said media buys of both cable and broadcast would continue through Election Day. Reflecting the bitter rivalry between the two candidates and the reality that Kanjorski faces a daunting anti-incumbent, anti-Democratic climate, the ad focuses squarely and entirely on Barletta.

The ad criticizes income and property tax hikes that were enacted in the city’s most recent budget. It also noted that Hazleton recently had the highest unemployment rate in the state, although that number of 15.6 percent is not seasonally adjusted. The ad charges that Barletta’s city is the “worst run in the state.”

Kanjorski’s campaign has already made Hazleton a focal point of its argument against Barletta. Kanjorski has dispatched Barletta twice before, in 2002 and again more narrowly in 2008. Barletta began his advertising campaign earlier this summer.

See the ad below.

The folks from Republican Senate candidate Pat Toomey’s old stomping grounds are going to bat against his opponent, using a new TV ad to call Democrat Joe Sestak “very liberal.”

The conservative Club for Growth, which Toomey led until shortly before he entered the Senate race, unveiled the 30-second spot Friday, which it says will air statewide on both cable and broadcast TV. The precise size of the ad buy was not immediately clear—an independent expenditure report had not yet been published online—but the group called the buy “substantial.”

The ad hits Sestak for supporting the $300 billion mortgage bailout that passed with bipartisan support in 2008 and was signed by President Bush; for supporting cap-and-trade energy legislation that passed the House but stalled in the Senate; and for saying President Obama’s economic stimulus package should have been bigger.

“That’s Joe Sestak’s record, very liberal,” the ad says. “We can’t afford Joe Sestak’s liberal schemes in the Senate.”

There is some dispute as to the impact cap-and-trade legislation could have on jobs, but the ad remains factually in-bounds by saying the measure “could” cost jobs. The mortgage bailout bill was intended to help homeowners stuck with subprime loans to refinance at lower rates.

The Club for Growth is at least the fifth outside group to air a TV ad against Sestak in recent months. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee was quick to strike back Friday, saying Toomey had received a “Wall Street bailout” from the group, which was founded by Wall Street investors.

“Wall Street derivatives pioneer Pat Toomey said he stopped working on Wall Street two decades ago, but that hasn’t stopped his Wall Street buddies from rushing to bailout him out today,” DSCC spokesperson Deirdre Murphy said. “Already on the defense in all corners of Pennsylvania for his deep ties to Wall Street and over his history of pushing for Social Security privatization, it’s fitting that Toomey would turn to those closest to him for a bailout.”

See the ad below.

A simple campaign press release had never made my jaw literally drop—until I saw what Democrat Bryan Lentz’s campaign laid on my table recently.

“Lentz Campaign Calls For Meehan to Try and Win Votes with Ideas, Not Courts,” the headline screamed.

This is, of course, a reference to the fact that Republican Pat Meehan’s campaign in the 7th Congressional District has spearheaded a ballot challenge against Jim Schneller, the conservative independent candidate who got on the ballot thanks to help from Lentz allies. The controversy has made the contentious race between Lentz and Meehan even more heated.

“It is a shame how difficult it is for someone who’s demonstrated a sincere interest in being part of the democratic process to actually be on the ballot,” Lentz campaign manager Kevin McTigue said in the release. “Pat Meehan and his cohorts should be ashamed at the efforts they are going to to knock someone off the ballot who’s actually willing to say what he believes.”

Now, if you’ve been closely following this race, there’s really only one reasonable reaction to this statement: Whaa??

This is coming from the same campaign that brought ballot challenges of its own against all three of its opponents in both parties earlier this year, successfully knocking both primary challengers out of the race and unsuccessfully taking Meehan’s campaign to court over petition fraud.

Put your party affiliations and ideology aside for a second: This, my friends, is what we call hypocrisy.

Incredulous, I called up the Lentz camp, thinking maybe it was a (very) late April Fool’s joke or something. What I found out was even more confusing.

It turns out that aforementioned quote from McTigue was uttered verbatim in 2006 by one Virginia Davis, who was then a spokeswoman for Senator Rick Santorum’s campaign and is now Meehan’s spokeswoman. At the time, Davis was commenting on the fact that Democrats were challenging Green Party candidate Carl Romanelli’s spot on the ballot. The Lentz campaign quickly sent over a fact sheet full of the things Davis said about the Romanelli challenge back then, documentation it apparently had at the ready for when we Fourth Estaters called.

So, if I understand this correctly, this was some cute attempt to the bait the Meehan people into some kind of hypocrisy trap, using us unsuspecting reporters as the fishing rod. If that’s the case, they lost me on this particular one, and also left me feeling just a bit jerked around in the process.

Look, I know traps like this are set up frequently. Usually, they’re not so confusing.

But let’s look at the merits.

By throwing Davis’ 2006 quotes back at Meehan, the Lentz camp is making things more difficult for itself. If you want to call hypocrisy on the Meehan campaign for challenging Schneller (a fair point to make), just note that the very same campaign earlier this year decried ballot challenges as a waste of taxpayer money. I actually did that for them in this story. If you want to make the point that getting third-party candidates on the ballot to split the other side’s vote is standard fare for both parties (a very valid point to make), just say so. I did that for them, too.

But saying that Virginia Davis in 2006 = Pat Meehan in 2010 doesn’t hold water. In the public sphere, political spokespeople don’t actually have their own views. They speak for the candidates they represent. I know plenty PR pros who have had to forcefully advocate policies with which they don’t personally agree. If we journalists started holding these folks accountable for contradictions that arise from representing different candidates, we’d never be able to get of LexisNexis to report actually news.

More than anything else, though, going after Meehan on this subject when you’ve challenged everyone yourself and quietly helped another guy get on the ballot just seems like unnecessary rhetorical jumping jacks, an exercise that leaves the subject hanging by a substantive thread.

Next time, I hope they just say whatever they want to say.

Trekking through the state on his bus tour this week, Republican Senate candidate Pat Toomey offered up a playful remark on his thoughts about gun policy. “My idea of gun control is steady aim,” Toomey said Tuesday in York County.

A prominent Pennsylvania gun control group didn’t appreciate that.

CeaseFirePA hammered Toomey for the comment, which it called “disrespectful and disappointing for a candidate who seeks to represent Pennsylvania in the Senate.” The group also noted that 22 law enforcement officers have been killed in the state over the last decade, and that 46 municipalities have passed lost or stolen handgun reporting laws in the last year-and-a-half.

“Pat Toomey’s remark show he doesn’t get it—gun violence affects us all,” CeaseFirePA executive director Joe Grace said in a statement Thursday. “His remark is insensitive to victims of gun violence in Pennsylvania—and to family members, friends and colleagues of persons who’ve been shot and killed. Given the gun violence directed at our police officers in Pennsylvania, it also seems like Mr. Toomey isn’t paying attention to this important public safety issue. That’s not acceptable.”

Toomey’s campaign didn’t immediately comment Thursday evening.

Do you remember where you were the day U.S. politics hung a wild, tire-screeching turn, spinning conservatives to a euphoric frenzy and sending liberals into a tailspin of self-immolating doubt?

It’s been almost exactly two years since John McCain announced on Aug. 29, 2008, that mid-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was his pick for vice president.

“Brilliant!” cried Republicans, who feared McCain’s campaign had no juice left.

“Insane!” cried Democrats, who flew off the hinges over an unknown former small-town Alaska mayor with insta-rock star appeal.

McCain called Palin, “The running mate who can best help me shake up Washington,” sounding like he half-believed it.

“She’s got the grit, integrity, good sense and fierce devotion to the common good that is exactly what we need in Washington today.”

It seems appropriate to relive that moment in history. Two years later, Sarah Palin returns to Pennsylvania Friday, the state John McCain needed to win to have any chance at the White House.

Two years after helping Barack Obama become president, Pennsylvania is back in the swing-state column. This year, Republicans are hotly cobbling together voters eager to prove they’re on the right side of the enthusiasm gap.

What kind of reception does Palin get here?

What, if anything, would she mean to candidates like Tom Corbett or Pat Toomey, the gubernatorial and Senate candidates at the top of the GOP ticket this fall?

It’s an interesting question, even given the solid leads Corbett and Toomey have in the polls over their Democratic opponents. In the spring of 2009, Pennsylvania Republican Party officials tried to enlist moderates like former Gov. Tom Ridge to run for Senate, believing Toomey was too conservative. Corbett’s swing to the right has not been lost on any political observers.

Now GOP officials are courting Tea Party support, signing no-tax pledges in hopes of riding a Constitutionalist wave back to power.

Now comes Palin, scheduled to arrive today in Hershey to speak at in front of the conservative values Pennsylvania Family Institute. She’ll then participate in the Glenn Beck rally in Washington.

Indeed, Mama Grizzly arrives in Pennsylvania at a most interesting time. On Tuesday, Palin went five-for-five with her endorsement of primary candidates across the country.

That includes her support in Alaska of conservative Joe Miller, the Yale-educated attorney who appears to have upset incumbent U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

Palin, in an appearance on Fox News Wednesday, was beaming about the results. She compared the victory to the 1980 U.S. Olympic ice hockey team’s upset of the Soviets, calling Miller’s win a “Miracle on Ice.”

Yet for the week’s victory spoils, there remain so many questions about what Palin wants.

And while the mad scramble of August 2008 to assimilate the meaning of Sarah Palin’s presence in national politics has calmed, there’s hardly a campaign or issue or political equation that somehow does not get bounced through the Sarah Palin prism.

She has weighed in on the Islamic cultural center proposed for two blocks from Ground Zero. She has supported Dr. Laura, the conservative radio host who machine-gun uttered the N-word 11 times on the air and then decided to not renew her contact.

Politically, Palin has not ruled out a run in 2012. However, polls last month out of early primary state Iowa found Palin running fourth among four potential Republican candidates.

“What she’s become is a celebrity among Republicans and a turnoff to Democrats,” said Tom Jensen, political analyst at Public Policy Polling.

Jensen said his group conducted an interesting poll in Pennsylvania last month, asking people if they would be more or less likely to vote for a Palin-endorsed candidate.

“Republicans said they would be 47 percent more likely and 18 percent less likely to vote for her endorsed candidate,” he said.

“Democrats said they would be 75 percent less likely and 11 percent more likely to vote for a Palin-endorsed candidate, which shows the huge difference between parties,” he said.

Jensen said that presents an issue going forward: How to utilize Palin’s party-splitting credentials?

“The Republican base in Pennsylvania is already fired up, so if I’m a Republican strategist, I would wonder if her visit would fire up Democrats who might remember why they went out and voted in 2008,” he said.

After two years in the spotlight, Mama Grizzly is still the mother of political polarization.

Conventional wisdom should have Republican Mike Kelly’s campaign at least a little panicked that Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper (D-3) is already on the air in the 3rd District. If that’s the case, Team Kelly isn’t showing it.

Dahlkemper’s campaign started airing its first 60-second spot this week, and has the money to stay on TV through Election Day in the northwest Pennsylvania district thanks to a health financial advantage over Kelly, a Butler car dealer. Kelly campaign spokesman Brad Moore played down Dahlkemper’s first ad buy, but declined to say when the campaign will air TV spots of its own. Kelly has mostly stayed in the game thanks to loans written out of his own checkbook, but has struggled to raise cash elsewhere.

“I caught it briefly this morning,” Moore said Thursday about the ad. “I didn’t really pay too much attention to what she said and here’s why. The economy is in shambles; this Congress has vastly overextended itself to the point where it’s bankrupting our country. And she has a 94 percent voting record with Nancy Pelosi.”

The first ad buy is contained to the Erie media market, Dahlkemper’s home base and the district’s population center.

“This is going to be the answer most times you approach a campaign, but I’m not going to disclose our media buying strategy,” Moore said. “We have a plan that will counter Dahlkemper. I think she has a long row to hoe before she convinces voters that she deserves another term. We’re not very concerned.”

ALLENTOWN— Joined by 40 teachers representing area school districts, Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan unveiled his education plan and accepted the endorsement of a major teachers’ union Wednesday, as his congressional campaign continued to hit incumbent Congressman Charlie Dent (R-15) for his votes in Washington.

“[Callahan] is proof of what a good public school education and a good early education program like Head Start can do for a kid that comes from a less than ideal situation,” Kevin Deely, local union president for the Easton Area School District, told reporters outside Trexler Middle School here. “He won’t turn his back on our children like Charlie Dent did.”

Deely and the American Federation of Teachers, which typically backs Democrats, hammered Dent for voting against the so-called FMAP funding legislation that provided states $26 million in federal aid and averted layoffs of teachers. Some Republicans tried to frame the bill as a bailout of states that mismanaged their finances, and House Minority Leader John Boehner at the time called it a measure for “special interests”—prompting outrage from teachers.

“Not once has [Dent] helped or made good on the promises he made to look out for our kids and their education,” Deely said. “Instead, he voted to fire 5,900 teachers in Pennsylvania.”

In past election cycles, Dent has received the endorsement of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union, but the NEA has yet to make an endorsement in the Lehigh Valley race this year.

Callahan, the White House recruit for the race, called for putting more teachers in high-risk schools and pointedly criticized the Obama administration’s so-called Race to the Top contest, which awarded states federal education funding for enacting certain reforms. Pennsylvania recently failed to win during the second round of funding awards.

“While I agree with some of the goals laid out in the ‘Race to the Top’ program, I fundamentally disagree with President Obama’s ‘Race to the Top’ policy.” Callahan said. “It is a flawed program that does not treat all of our kids equally.”

Callahan spoke out against using standardized test scores as the sole metric in measuring teacher performance but also advocated for merit-based pay.

“Teachers should be rewarded for their successes,” he said, “but we must not punish them for taking on difficult assignments.”

In 1994, Republicans took over Congress. People look at that election and assume voters just pulled the lever for Republicans, but they forget a key qualifier to that election, this election, and every election. To win, you need a candidate, and in 1994, the Republicans had candidates.

The Republican Party had spent years prior to 1994 harvesting candidates for offices from state Representative down to school board. Those candidates for local offices ended up becoming members of Congress. The fact is elections matter, all of them.

We are frequently told that local candidates are the ones who most affect our lives on a daily basis. Whether it is in the state legislature, the city council, or the school board, they are the ones who make decisions with an immediate effect on our community and generally have a better understanding on local needs than a U.S. Representative or Senator. However, what is also true is that the local candidates today are the Senators and Governors of tomorrow.

Either Dan Onorato or Tom Corbett will be elected Governor this year. Neither of them became statewide names out of thin air. They both have careers that started with local government as evidenced by this week’s story on pa2010.com about Dan Onorato pointing out Corbett’s votes for higher property taxes a whopping 22 years ago. Onorato himself likes to tout his experience as the Allegheny County executive, but even that only came after he made a name for himself on Pittsburgh City Council.

My point is that while we give attention to the races for Senate and Governor, the battle for the future is really fought on the local level.

This summer, I volunteered for Mary Lou Readinger’s campaign for state Representative in Montgomery County. I personally like her because she is smart and a nurse with a real understanding of how the laws in Harrisburg impact families in her district and across the state. In actuality, supporting Mary Lou and quality local candidates like her, in both parties, has an even greater impact than you know.

Firstly, it is my personal belief that political activism doesn’t trickle down, it percolates up. Sure Barack Obama got people to vote Democratic in 2008, but coattails don’t last and it is just as likely that local candidates helped to get more people to vote for the top of their ticket than Obama or McCain got new people to vote down ticket. Very often the marquee races cloud out the rest of the ticket so that when people vote, they know about the race for President or Senate, but, because they know little about the election for state representative, they leave that race blank. However, if a local candidate gets new voters to the polls, they will not only vote for that candidate, but they will likely vote up ticket as well.

This also shows why you get more bang for your buck donating your money and time to local candidates. Small campaigns, unlike the top races, really cannot afford to waste a dime. If you can give $100, the Senate candidate might put that towards a bigger chunk of money towards mail television ads, but that same $100 going to a state house candidate might make the difference in whether they can afford to send any more mail at all or if they can get pizza for volunteers to knock doors on a Saturday. Also, when volunteering for a top ticket race, you will undoubtedly only talk about that race when at the doors, but more local races are more than happy to mention other candidates so to create awareness, which doubles the impact of your volunteerism.

Secondly, local government is often a model for the national debate. The debate over gay marriage, for instance, is largely being waged because of the actions in states like California and Iowa and not over anything in Washington. Likewise, many state legislatures are making their voices heard on the new healthcare law. The examples set by state legislatures and cities and counties make a tremendous influence on national laws concerning the economy, labor, education, gun control, and civil rights.

Thirdly, the state legislature controls the battle for redistricting. Sure, you may care about your election for Congress in 2010, but if you don’t pay attention to your local elections, you might not have the same choice for Congress in 2012. While I wish that the redistricting process in Pennsylvania were nonpartisan, the fact remains that it is not, so your vote for the legislature will make a huge difference in 2010, and maybe more so than your votes for Congress as they will make more lasting decisions.

Lastly, while people love to criticize career politicians, the truth is that we judge candidates based on prior experience. It is also how we hire potential employees. Local experience helps to make better candidates for higher office. The better officials we get at the local level, the better options we will have in the years to come. No matter what your party, that helps everybody.

So this November, don’t just think about the present. Think about the future. Vote locally and think globally. Your vote for local office will have a ripple effect for years to come. After all, the person you elect for state Senate could be President in less than a decade.

Just ask Barack Obama.

The Franklin & Marshall College poll released Thursday didn’t just show Republicans leading in both of Pennsylvania’s statewide races. The survey also contained a litany of troubling data points for Democrats a couple months before Election Day.

Among the troublesome signs for Democrats:

•Almost 60 percent of Pennsylvanians say the state is heading in the wrong direction, while the 30 percent of residents who say things are moving in the right direction is the lowest in 15 years.

•A third of Pennsylvanians say their personal finances are worse off than a year ago.

•Only 37 percent of Pennsylvanians rate President Obama’s job performance as positive, and less than a third say the same about Gov. Ed Rendell.

Make no mistake, the winds are blowing against the Democratic Party. Now it’s up to them to just run better campaigns, all the way down to the wire.

Meanwhile, our friends at CQ-Roll Call have gone through the list of House races in play, and they’ve changed the forecast for a few Pennsylvania districts. The race in the 3rd District between incumbent Democrat Kathy Dahlkemper and Republican Mike Kelly has been moved from Leans Democratic to Tossup. The race in the 8th District between incumbent Democrat Patrick Murphy and Republican Mike Fitzpatrick has been moved from Likely Democratic to Leans Democratic. And the 6th District has been downgraded, with the race between incumbent Republican Jim Gerlach and Democrat Manan Trivedi moved from Leans Republican to Likely Republican.

And finally, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dan Onorato was still doing some tax-talk Thursday, after spending the previous two days hitting Republican rival Tom Corbett on the subject. In case you haven’t been paying attention, Corbett has signed a no-tax-pledge, which even some Republican leaders doubt he can uphold and which Onorato calls a “gimmick.” But appearing in Fox29 Thursday morning, Onorato did stress the importance of cutting spending before looking for opportunities to raise revenue.

This came after he verbally committed not to raise income taxes or sales taxes.

“The state’s broke, people are broke, this is no time talk about new revenues,” Onorato said (video embedded below). “Let’s get our expenditures under control.”

Even as he fights a legal challenge seeking to keep him off the ballot, independent Jim Schneller is letting it be known that he should have a chance to participate in campaign debates in the 7th Congressional District.

Democrat Bryan Lentz and Republican Pat Meehan already came together for their first debate last week, a half-hour affair that was broadcast Sunday evening on the Comcast Network. The two will debate several more times in the coming months, starting with a radio debate Thursday evening hosted by Dom Giordano on The Big Talker 1210AM.

In an open letter to Giordano and his two opponents, Schneller, a conservative who got on the ballot thanks to help from Lentz’s supporters, said he wants in.

“Please reconsider your undemocratic decision to exclude me,” Schneller wrote. “I demand little in the way of debate tailoring, and can participate within your format. There is abundant time within which to re-tool for any changes you think may be necessary due to my appearance.”

Less than 100 days before voters cast their ballots, Republican Senate candidate Pat Toomey leads Democrat Joe Sestak by nine points among likely voters, according to a new poll.

The Franklin & Marshall College survey released Thursday showed Toomey garnering 40 percent of likely voters, compared to 31 percent for Sestak. About one quarter of voters are still undecided, making for a wide open race, according to the poll.

Toomey’s edge is smaller among all registered voters: only three points, 31 percent to 28 percent. But at the moment, only 37 percent of the Keystone State’s Democrats are projected to vote this November, according to the poll, compared with 45 percent of Republicans.

The survey is generally in line with other public polls, which have shown Toomey, a former congressman, holding high single-digit or low double-digit leads over Sestak, a current two-term congressman.

About a third of voters still don’t know enough about either candidate to form an opinion, and both share similar similar favorability numbers.

The survey of 577 Keystone State adults, including 485 registered voters, was conducted Aug. 16 to 23, and had a margin of error of 5.4 percent when polling likely voters.

Click here to see the full poll.

A GOP-commissioned survey has found Republican Mike Fitzpatrick enjoying a seven-point lead ahead of his rematch against Congressman Patrick Murphy (D-8), according to a new poll memo.

The poll memo, released Thursday by the Fitzpatrick campaign, describes a survey conducted by the GOP firm Public Opinion Strategies on behalf of the challenger’s campaign and the National Republican Congressional Committee. The memo says Fitzpatrick is “well-positioned to retake” to Bucks County seat he lost to Murphy after one term in 2006.

In a survey of 400 likely voters conducted Aug. 22-23 with a margin of error of 4.9 percent, the poll memo says, Fitzpatrick garnered 48 percent of the vote, compared to 41 percent. That means just over 10 percent of respondents said they were still undecided, an unusually low number more than two months before Election Day.

The full survey questions and crosstabs were not released, making it impossible to independently assess the merits of the poll itself. Murphy holds a significant advantage in campaign cash that will allow him to blitz the airwaves in the weeks before Election Day.

The poll memo claims that Fitzpatrick is holding an important edge with independent voters, 59 percent of whom view him favorably, compared to 48 percent of whom view Murphy favorably. Both President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are suffering from low job approval ratings in the district, according to the poll memo.

“Patrick Murphy’s electoral victories in this district came during the two best election years for Democrats in decades,” pollster Neil Newhouse wrote. “Now that the political winds have shifted, Murphy is seeing this recently-friendly district slip away. Voters have soured on President Obama and Speaker Pelosi and they’re looking for a Republican to provide a check and balance in Congress.”

Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper (D-3) this week took her considerable financial advantage to the airwaves, launching a 60-second TV ad as her first reelection bid enters the homestretch.

Dahlkemper’s campaign said the ad started airing Monday in the Erie media market, but did not specify whether it was running on cable, broadcast or both. Erie is Dahlkemper’s home base, and the northwest Pennsylvania district is one of the cheaper House seats in which to advertise. Dahlkemper, considered at least on paper to be one of the most vulnerable Democrats in Congress, presumably has the resources to stay on TV through Election Day.

“The reason I come back home every weekend is that the solutions to the problems we face are found here,” Dahlkemper says in the ad, which is mostly a soft biographical spot focusing on her family and small business background.

“And Congress,” she adds, “I call it like I see it, because that’s how I was raised.”

Dahlkemper’s relatively early TV buy could put pressure on Republican Mike Kelly’s campaign to soon follow suit. Kelly, a Butler car dealer, has largely funded his campaign with loans from his own bank account, but has so far struggled to raise money elsewhere.

In the ad, embedded at bottom, Dahlkemper spotlights her vote against cap-and-trade energy legislation. She also says she voted “against a bailout that helped Wall Street.” It was not immediately clear to which bailout vote she was referring. The votes that authorized the financial bailout occurred in 2008, before Dahlkemper took office. It’s likely her campaign was spotlighting a symbolic House vote in early 2009. In that vote, the House opposed authorizing access to the second half of bailout funds. But the Senate had already voted down the same resolution, making the House vote moot, a symbolic action that provided an opportunity for political cover but had no actual impact at the time it was taken (both chambers had to explicitly oppose spending the rest of the money for the bailout funds to be cut short).

“Kathy Dahlkemper,” the ad concludes, “the courage to care, the values to do what’s right.”

Republican gubernatorial hopeful Tom Corbett continues to enjoy a double-digit lead among those Pennsylvanians most likely to go to the polls in November, according to a new survey.

The Franklin & Marshall College poll released Thursday found Corbett, the state attorney general, leading Democratic nominee Dan Onorato by 11 points among likely voters, 38 percent to 27 percent. Almost a third of voters remain undecided, according to the poll.

Corbett’s edge is much smaller among all registered voters: only one point, 29 percent to 28 percent. But at the moment, only 37 percent of the Keystone State’s Democrats are projected to vote this November, according to the poll, compared with 45 percent of Republicans.

The latest data indicates that both candidates still have plenty of room to see their numbers change with an effective paid media blitz. Forty percent of voters still don’t know enough about Corbett to form an opinion, and 53 percent don’t know enough about Onorato. Both candidates have similar favorability ratings.

The survey of 577 Keystone State adults, including 485 registered voters, was conducted Aug. 16 to 23, and had a margin of error of 5.4 percent when polling likely voters.

Click here to see the full poll.

ALLENTOWN—Congressman Charlie Dent (R-15) laced into his Democratic opponent’s mayoral record Wednesday, looking to draw attention to a budget deficit down the road in Bethlehem.

Holding court with reporters in front of his campaign headquarters here, Dent launched his most direct, sustained attack to date against Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan, the White House recruit challenging him in the Lehigh Valley district. Over the course of 35 minutes, he excoriated Callahan for what he called mismanagement of the city’s finances, and took the opportunity to criticize his opponent’s positions on national issues, too, calling for him to take clear stands on domestic and foreign policy questions.

Dent’s comments came as he has continued to look for opportunities to play the race on local issues, even in a year when Republicans are more often emphasizing national domestic policy.

“He is trying to hide from his own record, which is… disastrous,” Dent said of Callahan. “Under John Callahan, Bethlehem has had a growing deficit over the past three years that now amounts to at least $8.5 million.”

Congressional challengers in both parties who hold local elected office have found their records attacked, as the weak economy has hurt local government tax revenues across the country. Just miles north in the 11th District, Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-11) has tried to make Republican Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta’s stewardship of the northeast Pennsylvania town a defining issue in the race.

An independent audit of the city’s 2009 budget that Dent highlighted found a $5 million budget deficit at the end of 2009—a hefty shortfall in a total budget of $65 million. Callahan has attributed the deficit mostly to lower-than-expected tax revenues brought on by the economic downturn, an assertion echoed by a Morning Call analysis. But Dent alleged mismanagement Wednesday, noting that in a 2005 Morning Call article, Callahan said $10 million in host fees from a local casino would allow him to “immediately” lower taxes “and not have to raise them for a time.” It was the second time Dent’s campaign has hit Callahan on the property tax issue, following a roadside billboard in Bethlehem. Callahan has since made it clear several times that it would be irresponsible to immediately lower tax rates, and the city opted instead to pay down debt and increase public safety spending, not planning for a tax break until at least 2011 or 2012.

Dent rejected that premise. “I submit to you that I could actually hire some police officers,” he said, “I could lower some debt, and I could lower some taxes” using the casino host fees.

Callahan campaign manager Justin Schall took issue with Dent’s assertions.

“If Dent thinks he can increase spending while lowering taxes and cutting debt then he knows some special math,” Schall said. “Dent might think he can print more money in Washington and cripple this country with debt but that doesn’t work in the real world. Callahan helped create 5,000 jobs and cut debt by $60 million, while on Dent’s watch the national deficit tripled and debt has sky rocketed by $3 trillion.Callahan won’t be lectured to on budgetary priorities by Dent.  His math isn’t reality, it’s more double talk from Washington.”

Republican Senate hopeful Pat Toomey appeared to be trying a little revisionist history this week when he claimed he never called for privatizing Social Security.

Toomey made the statement at the end of his appearance at the Pennsylvania Press Club Monday, only to see a wave of critics calling him out. That included the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which dug up a 2003 headline from Toomey’s hometown newspaper, The Morning Call, which read: “Toomey: Privatize Social Security.”

The former Club for Growth president said he does favor allowing younger workers to deposit savings into private accounts, a position he has held since his first congressional term in 1999. He recently touted it in his book, “The Road to Prosperity,” which is now selling for $3.03 on Amazon.

The key to understanding this semantic subterfuge is, well, semantics. The word Toomey uses is “personalized” Social Security accounts.

The increasing volume on Social Security was escalated Wednesday, when former Senat0r Alan Simpson the GOP co-chair of President Obama’s deficit commission, was force to apologize for sending an e-mail to a female activist for seniors in which he described Social Security as “a milk cow with 310 million tits.”

The flap has prompted an outcry amongst groups like AARP, which are calling for Simpson to resign or for the president to fire him from the commission post.

Democrats have been charged with trying to gin up anxiety about the future of Social Security benefits, like when President Obama recently said some GOP leaders are “pushing to make privatizing Social Security a key part of their legislative agenda if they win a majority in Congress this fall.

The president called such privatization “an ill-conceived idea that would add trillions of dollars to our budget deficit while tying your benefits to the whims of Wall Street traders and the ups and downs of the stock market.”

The issue resurfaced in time for election year political football after Congressman Paul Ryan, the top Republican on the House Budget Committee, offered a proposal that would allow younger people to put Social Security money into personal accounts.

This pretty much mirrors the proposal pushed unsuccessfully by former President George W. Bush—which was supported by Toomey.