Some guv candidates inviting selves to Tea Party

The Republican and Democratic primary elections for governor are 12 weeks away but a vast majority of state voters still don't know whom they will support.

And that could allow the so-called "Tea Party" movement to tilt those races in curious ways.

Those were some of the results of the latest Daily News/Franklin & Marshall College Poll.

Poll director G. Terry Madonna said 62 percent of the 1,143 people polled from Feb. 15-21 had heard about the Tea Party movement. Forty-five percent said they would vote for a candidate who supports Tea Party goals while 34 percent said they would not vote for such a candidate.

Tea Party groups stress fiscal conservatism mixed with libertarian rights. And the movement is growing, Madonna said.

"It's not just the base of support," Madonna said. "It's enthusiasm. It's the mojo. That's what they provide."

The poll found state Attorney General Tom Corbett leading state Rep. Sam Rohrer in the GOP primary 26 percent to 4 percent with 65 percent undecided.

Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato, state Auditor General Jack Wagner and Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Hoeffel were tied at 6 percent each in the Democratic primary with 72 percent undecided. State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams, who recently jumped into the race, barely registered at 1 percent.

Madonna noted that Republicans have been paying deference to Tea Party groups. The GOP has "got to be very careful here that it doesn't spin off into some independent or third-party movement," Madonna said.

The poll found that about one-third of those who have heard of the Tea Party movement consider its primary goals to be an emphasis on smaller government and fiscal responsibility. Another third said they don't know what the goals are. And the final third offered other ideas, such as a need for a more representative government and the need to block health-care reform, and lower taxes.

Rohrer, who concedes his 4 percent showing is slight, has been courting Tea Party support and says he is unconcerned.

"The numbers are moving," he said of the Tea Party groups. "It does include independents. And it definitely, absolutely includes some Democrats."

The poll found that seven out of 10 Republicans were very likely or somewhat likely to vote for a Tea Party candidate while half of independents and one in four Democrats felt the same way.

While Rohrer strives to position himself to the right of Corbett for Republicans, Hoeffel is branding himself as the most liberal Democrat in the race.

"One of the basic reasons I'm running is to push back against this idea that government is the enemy," said Hoeffel, who hopes a rising Tea Party movement will rally Democrats to respond.

"As they get more prominent, they drag the Republican Party to the right, to the lunatic fringe," Hoeffel said.