John Baer, Daily News Political Columnist
Harrisburg residents are voting Tuesday in a contested Democratic primary for mayor that features an embattled incumbent and offers the winner a chance to preside over a Capital City deeply in debt and facing the prospect of bankruptcy.
The four-way race seems torn from the pages of a bad TV sitcom.
One candidate, Lewis Butts, was just charged with criminal mischief for defacing campaign signs of another candidate. That candidate's name is Eric Papenfuse. Butts is accused of using black spray paint to change the name on signs to "Papenpuss."
John Baer, Daily News Political Columnist
Here we go again.
Remember back in 2007 when then-candidate Michael Nutter broke through in the Democratic primary with a TV ad featuring his daughter Olivia?
The spot, in which Olivia, then in middle-school, spoke to camera about her dad, was widely credited with winning the nomination for Nutter.
John Baer, Daily News Political Columnist
Following Monday's Daily News column in which I recommended a 5-step plan for poll-challenged Gov. Corbett to get on a path to reelection, I got a bunch of reaction from both sides of the political spectrum and one great idea to add to the list from a reader.
The column, in short, suggested Corbett act quickly to stop the bleeding in popular opinion by, among other things, appointing a woman to the state Supreme Court vacancy sooner rather than later and by getting some Internet political ads up to counter his characterization as someone solely interested in big business.
You can read the 5 ideas here.
John Baer, Daily News Political Columnist
The United Food and Commercial Workers union, a staunch opponent of privatizing Pennsylvania's booze system, claims that a main proponent of privatization, the Commonwealth Foundation, pulled an online poll on the issue after poll numbers started showing opposition to the change.
"According to a screen shot taken taken before the Foundation `disappeared' the poll, 53 percent of respondents said they opposed privatization. Only 45 percent supported it," the union's statement issued Monday says.
Union chief Wendell Young IV added, “We’re happy that a majority of the Foundation’s web users agree with us and with a majority of Pennsylvanians...it‘s taken awhile for the Foundation to understand it, but, as I’ve said many times, the more people learn about privatization, they less they like it.”
John Baer, Daily News Political Columnist
And now a little tale about using social media to make one's case.
Last week, in a "Baer Growls" blogpost about our esteemed Legislature, I suggested it is "hunting for progress" in the wrong places. I noted that while it appears unwilling to act on tough issues such as curtailing the costs of public pensions -- costs that are eating tax dollars at escalating rates, impacting all citizens -- it seems perfectly content to push lesser issues impacting a few.
As one example, I cited scheduled votes on a measure to allow leashed dogs to track and recover wounded white-tail deer.
John Baer, Daily News Political Columnist
With the death of former PA Gov. George Leader, a York County Democrat revered during his time in office in the 1950's and until his death Thursday at the age of 95, the Pennsylvania Cable Network (PCN) is offering a fitting tribute.
It's Website -- pcntv.com -- includes a film of Leader's inauguration day, January 18, 1955, that PA history buffs will enjoy.
It was sponsored by a union, the Glass Bottle Blowers Association of United States and Canada, and is striking for a number of reasons.
John Baer, Daily News Political Columnist
More than a week after Gov. Corbett suggested that one reason for the state's high unemployment rate is that some of the unemployed are high, both sides of the argument continue to beat the drum.
The campaign of Allyson Schwartz released a cleverly-concocted YouTube video titled "Excuses" making fun of Corbett's comments. It includes an MSNBC clip of Chris Matthews weighing in, and ends saying "we're not high" but under Corbett job creation is "low."
You can see it here.
John Baer, Daily News Political Columnist
Couple, three things (okay maybe more) on the sentencing Tuesday of former state Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin.
If you missed it, the former jurist (she resigned May 1) was convicted of the same type of felonies that sent a bunch of other state officials, including her sister, former state Sen. Jane Orie, to prison.
Those crimes involved public corruption connected to the use of public dollars and other resources to run political campaigns. Currently, eight former lawmakers who held leadership positions, including Orie, are in jail.
John Baer, Daily News Political Columnist
And so it begins.
The annual dance of dollars in which policy, spending and taxes are set for a new fiscal year (and in many cases beyond) is underway in the state capitol.
Monday, a week after Senate President Joe Scarnati publicly complained there had been not one meeting of subtance on a new, roughly $28 billion state budget to take effect July 1, he and other GOP leaders met with Gov. Corbett in what House Leader Mike Turzai called "a positive" meeting, a prelude to introducing the governor's budget next week.
John Baer, Daily News Political Columnist
The online news service capitolwire.com offers an interesting take on the state's still-growing pension problem, a fiscal nightmare that the Legislature continues to kick down the road.
The news service's Monday piece says even as the Corbett administration offers reform plans to reduce long-term costs of pensions for state workers and teachers, it appears such plans are going nowhere.
With a June 30 state budget deadline in sight and issues such as transportation funding and liquor privatization getting more push and attention -- in a legislature not known for doing more than one major thing at a time -- pension reform could be left in the dust.
John is the author of the book "On The Front Lines of Pennsylvania Politics: Twenty-Five Years of Keystone Reporting" (The History Press, 2012). Reach John at baerj@phillynews.com.
