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Max Myers bails out of Democratic primary for governor

With new polling expected this week to show how the Democratic candidates for governor are faring, one has decided to call it quits. Mechanicsburg minister Max Myers just announced via e-mail that the "logistical and financial challenges of moving my campaign forward have become too great to overcome."

With new polling expected this week to show how the Democratic candidates for governor are faring, one has decided to call it quits.  Mechanicsburg minister Max Myers just announced via e-mail that the "logistical and financial challenges of moving my campaign forward have become too great to overcome."

Myers, who was unable to break into the top tier of candidates in the crowded field, had just $1,047 in the bank and $12,052 in debt as of Dec. 31, according to his 2013 annual campaign finance report.

That left Myers unable to keep pace with well-funded  top-tier candidates like former state Revenue Secretary Tom Wolf, who gave his own campaign $10 million last year and has been running television ads for three weeks.

A Daily News/Franklin & Marshall College Poll, due to be released later this week, is expected to demonstrate how well known to voters the other seven candidates in the primary are.  Those ranks now include former state Auditor General Jack Wagner, who has run statewide before and just entered the race last week.

Myers ran on imposing a moratorium on the use of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," to extract natural gas, creating a "People's Commission" to study state government and imposing a financial transaction tax to replace some property taxes used by local school districts.

"I hope that these ideas, now planted in the soil of political discourse, will grow among the remaining candidates," Myers said.