All the brouhaha over South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's unscheduled trip to Argentina for a rendezvous with a girlfriend has gotten people wondering what their governor's up to - even during working hours.

Fact is, most of the time we don't know.

So the Associated Press dispatched reporters in 40 states to try to find out what the governor was doing at a certain moment and ran into roadblocks in almost every one of them, including Pennsylvania. Reporters were routinely told that the governor's private schedules was off limits, citing privacy and security concerns, and that they would have to file open records requests to receive them.

The staff of Gov. Rendell, who was just leaving Harrisburg after a state budget meeting, did not provide AP with a schedule. (While Rendell's staff puts out daily calendar of public events, it never publishes information about non-public events and only rarely provides information about national media appearances.)

We did learn that Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley - at the time his office was contacted - was in New York fishing with his son, Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe was at the dentist and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was visiting troops in Kosovo.

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Dear XXXX,

Breaking news yesterday!!  57% and 28%!!

Pennsylvania's respected Franklin & Marshall College, the leading polling organization in the state, released its latest poll that finds a strong majority - 57% - of Pennsylvanians now believe Arlen Specter does not deserve to be re-elected to the U.S. Senate; that "it's time for a change"!

And, that only 28% of Pennsylvanians believe that Arlen deserves to be re-elected. (That's down from 40% since the last poll and falling ... a downward trend that Franklin & Marshall found "startling".)

We've got a race!! (An incumbent under 50% is considered vulnerable and in danger of losing).

We've got 5 days left to reach our goal of $70,000 in 7 days; help us get there ... we are almost half-way there.  Every $5, $10, $15, $50, $100, or $250 donation makes a difference at this point in time!

Please contribute now: Contribute.

Franklin & Marshall may have found these results "startling". Not us ... we've been listening to Pennsylvanians - the voters - who really matter!

Pennsylvanians don't like their electoral process being interfered with, nor do they like the Washington, DC "establishment"  telling them, and "anointing", who the next U.S. Senator from the great state of Pennsylvania will be. They want a choice ... and they will have one!  Help me give them one!

Don Cunningham, the Lehigh County executive, announced today in an email to supporters that he was dropping his bid for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2010.

He is running for re-election this year and was struggling to raise funds. He said he had neither "the time nor the circumstances" were right for him to do the all-consuming job of running for governor while also fulfilling his duties in Lehigh County and raising his family.

"The timetable of politics is earlier and earlier," Cunningham said in a statement. "Now is the time for anyone that wants to run for governor to go live on the road and, frankly, to focus almost exclusively on raising money. We have come to know that money is the only real prerequisite for the media, the punditry and the insider community to assess candidates. Personal wealth and/or access to wealthy donors are more important than a textbook full of ideas in the insider world. Those are simply the ground rules of the game."
 

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U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak (D.,Pa.) has said he has to talk to his family before deciding to run for Senate next year. Apparently is dad is on board with it. Sestak is distributing a fundraising email that quotes his father telling him: "Why not?"

Here's the email:

• four weeks before switching parties emphatically told Pennsylvanians that "to eliminate any doubt, I am a Republican, and I am running for reelection in 2010 as Republican on the Republican ticket";

• who four weeks after making that express commitment, then breached it and switched parties ... not to help Pennsylvanians ... but rather to help himself personally because, as he said, his internal polling showed he could not beat his Republican challenger; and,

• who, after breaking his commitment, then announced to the nation "I did not say that I would be a loyal Democrat ... I did not say that I am a loyal Democrat"!

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Pennsylvania again ranks among the bottom of states when it comes to what personal financial information it makes its legislators publicly disclose.

So judges the Center for Public Integrity in a just-released survey of states and their transparency when it comes to public access to legislators’ employment, investments, personal finances and property holdings.

Pennsylvania received an “F” grade – one of 20 states to flunk the survey, the Washington, D.C.-based group found.

It ranked 35th among the states, dropping two notches since 2006 when the group last conducted such a survey.

Hurting the Keystone State was the fact that it has no requirements for lawmakers to disclose their spouses’ employment information. It was one of nine states with either no such requirement or a weak one.

Louisiana topped the overall list and was one of three states, along with Washington and Hawaii, to receive an A
Idaho, Michigan and Vermont tied for last place.
 

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Think political consultant and you think, at best, rumpled khakis a wrinkled blue shirt, three-day beard stubble and eyes red from lack of sleep. Maybe a frayed blazer. And don't forget coffee stains.

(Sorry for the stereotype, guys. I also just described a lot of reporters.)

Now comes pa2010.com - Dan Hirschhorn's new Web site - with a fun top-ten list of the best dressed political consultants in Pennsylvania. Enjoy. And - congrats MoFlo! You are #1 by a mile.

When it comes to government operations, no state wants to rank below Mississippi. But Pennsylvania does, at least when it comes to financial disclosure.

The Center for Public Integrity released its latest financial disclosure rankings yesterday, praising Mississippi for its progress (No. 24) and slamming Pennsylvania (No. 35) for its failing grade.

The Center has been reporting on disclosure requirements in state legislatures since 1999, and bases its rankings on a 43-question survey that measures public access to information on legislators’ employment, investments, personal finances, property holdings, or other activities outside the legislature.

At least Pennsylvania requires elected officials to disclose basic financial information. Idaho, Vermont and Michigan have no such requirement.

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Good news for former Club for Growth President Pat Toomey: U.S. Rep. Jim Gerlach told the Morning Call's Josh Drobnyk today that a 2010 Senate run is "pretty much off the table."

Gerlach was the last name-brand viable candidate standing in Toomey's way for the Republican nomination to face the party-switching Sen. Arlen Specter (D.,Pa.). Many Republicans urged Gerlach to think about the Senate, but he has his sights set on governor and has been busy with an exploratory effort.

He could run to keep his House seat for a fifth term or run for governor. The suburban Philadelphia congressional district, centered in Montgomery and Chester counties, is competitive and is at the top of the Democrats' early targeting list for 2010. Doug Pike, a former Inquirer editorial board member is running for the Democratic nomination, and has said he will spend up to $1 million of his own money.

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