Pa. governor's race a match of equals

When he ran for governor in 2002, Ed Rendell often noted that Pennsylvania had a history of electing safe middle-of-the-roaders - people who were competent but not apt to shake up Harrisburg.

The seven white men now lining up for the chance to succeed Rendell, who is barred from running for a third term, all seem to fit that mold at the outset. The challenge for each of them might be to show that he's a high-performance Lexus, not just a sensible Camry.

Seven months before the party primaries in May - and with 13 months to go before the November 2010 general election - the race for governor is well under way and wide open.

"It's a handful of candidates of equal caliber; the field is very similar," said former Lt. Gov. Mark Singel, who was the Democratic nominee for governor in 1994.

Singel was referring to the five Democrats ready to enter the contest, but he could have been talking about the two Republicans as well.

"You have quality on both sides," said Ray Zaborney, campaign manager for Lynn Swann, the GOP gubernatorial nominee in 2006.

The group has begun raising money, commissioning polls, hiring campaign advisers, and launching Web sites. Three of them formally have announced their candidacies, and the rest are likely to do so in coming weeks.

At this stage, two things can be said of the race:

The general election is likely to be close; it almost always is when an incumbent governor is not running. Pennsylvania's history of switching the governor's party every eight years suggests it might be the Republicans' turn. But Democrats have made big gains in voter registration that have changed the playing field.

It's all going to cost an enormous amount of cash - well more than the $71 million spent on the 2002 race, the last time the seat was open. Pennsylvania is one of few states with no limits on what individual donors can contribute. Hank Sheinkopf, a campaign consultant from New York, notes: "It is a big-money state."

Among Democrats, Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato - with the support of many top money men from Rendell's old campaign team - is perceived as the early front-runner. But his advantage, if any, is slight. Onorato, 48, casts himself in the Rendell mode as expert in using tax incentives and other tools of government to foster economic development.

Onorato must split his turf - Pittsburgh - with state Auditor General Jack Wagner. Only U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr. has gotten more votes in Pennsylvania than Wagner. Wagner, 61, ran almost 60,000 votes ahead of President Obama last year. But he will have to prove he can keep pace in the money race.

Three hundred miles to the east, in Philadelphia, businessman Tom Knox has no money worries. Knox, 68, spent $11 million of his own money in a failed 2007 bid for Philadelphia mayor. He says he's prepared to spend millions more for governor. His obstacle will be his origin. Pennsylvania often seems to distrust its largest city, and Rendell was the first Philadelphian elected governor in more than a century.

In Montgomery County, former U.S. Rep. Joe Hoeffel took a poll and found that no Democrat had a real leg up. So last week he jumped in. Now a county commissioner, Hoeffel, 59, sees himself as the true liberal, the only Democrat with a support base in the growing suburbs. He will appeal for money to the abortion-rights and women's groups that have supported him.

Since 1962, two governors have come from Scranton. Chris Doherty, the mayor of that hard-pressed city, hopes to be the third. He will argue that he has done for Scranton what Rendell was said to have done for Philadelphia: Turn it around. Doherty, 51, is unopposed on the ballot this fall for a third term as mayor.

Unlike the Democrats, the Republicans might have a clear favorite: Attorney General Tom Corbett, who won more votes last year than any other Pennsylvania Republican in history.

Corbett and his rival, U.S. Rep. Jim Gerlach, threw receptions over the weekend for members of the Republican State Committee meeting at the Harrisburg Hilton. But Corbett, 60, of the Pittsburgh suburbs, already had corralled support from many party leaders. Former Gov. Tom Ridge endorsed him Thursday. Former Gov. Richard L. Thornburgh did so Friday.

For Gerlach, the argument for support goes like this: A Republican who wins statewide must attract votes from moderate Democrats and independents. Gerlach, 54, of Chester County, has proved he can do that. He is one of just six GOP members of the House who represent districts that voted Democratic in each of the last two presidential elections.

Each candidate in each party can make a plausible argument that he can win. For now, that's all it takes to stay in the race.

"I think everybody's looking at it on paper, but you don't run races on paper," said Philadelphia Democratic strategist David Dunphy. "They all have a story to tell; the question is: Can they get the money they need to tell it? . . . It's a poker game and the buy-in is high."

To Singel, the contest appears to shape up much like the '94 governor's race, which he lost to Ridge.

That year, another Democratic governor was leaving office after two terms. And there was a strong field on both sides in the primaries.

It was two years into President Bill Clinton's first term, just as 2010 will mark two years into Obama's presidency. History suggests that the party in the White House is at risk of losing ground in such a cycle. It happened in 1994. Singel said that whether it happens next year might depend on Obama's success with health-care reform.

"If health care crashes and burns, the Democrats are going to get their butts kicked," he said.

That could have greater influence on the state's U.S. Senate race, in which Arlen Specter's bid for a sixth term has overshadowed the governor's race. But it could also be a factor in the battle for Harrisburg.

Rendell's approval rating is at its lowest ebb, and his ability to shape the outcome is limited, said pollster G. Terry Madonna of Franklin and Marshall College.

"What are [the Democrats] going to do, run on the legacy of Rendell or as a change agent?" Madonna asked. "Every modern governor's race has been won by a change agent, and the electoral climate is change-oriented."

But all of that is months in the future. If Democrats didn't think it could be their year, they wouldn't have so many top-drawer candidates in the contest.

If there is one rule in politics, it's that everything is subject to change.