Corbett, Onorato score big primary wins

Democrat Dan Onorato and Republican Tom Corbett won convincing victories in Tuesday's gubernatorial primary and will face off in what promises to be a hard-fought November election battle between two Pittsburghers generally seen as pragmatists.

Onorato, 49, the Allegheny County executive, easily beat back a late charge by state Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams of Philadelphia, who received a $2 million cash infusion in the final days of the campaign and was able to dominate the local airwaves at the close of the campaign.

Williams, who ended up finishing third in a four-way race, said his late-starting campaign never had time to fully connect with voters.

"Pennsylvanians really want to get to know who they are voting for in an election," he said.

Williams was hurt by low voter turnout in Philadelphia, as was former city Controller Jonathan Saidel, the endorsed Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor.

With almost all votes counted, Saidel was slightly trailing state Rep. Scott Coklin of Centre County in a thre-way race for the No. 2 spot on the party ticket Nov. 2.

Corbett, 60, the Pennsylvania attorney general, will be joined on the fall GOP ticket by Bucks County Commissioner Jim Cawley, who won a nine-candidate scramble for his party's No. 2 spot. Running second was businessman Chet Beiler of Lancaster County, who had cast himself as the true-conservative choice over Cawley, the endorsed choice of party leaders.

The Republican battle for governor, in which Corbett had every advantage over state Rep. Sam Rohrer - money, name-recgnition and party support - never figured to be all that close.

Rohrer had a small but dedicated following of conservatives and anti-tax activists. He dominated Berks County, with 80 percent of the vote, but he was never able to make himself widely known across the state.

It was the Democratic primary, with four serious candidates, that attracted the greater attention, both in political circles and among the electorare.

An unknown to Eastern Pennsylvania voters when he entered the race in October, Onorato made himself known with millions of dollars in TV ads before any of his opponents were able to get on the air.

He jumped out to a lead of 20 points or more in the polls, and his opponents were never able to drag him back to the pack.

Onorato, in an interview around midnight, said he didn't know why Williams' ad campaign didn't have more bite with voters.

"Alls I kjnow is, we stayed focused on what we were doing," he said. "We talked about jobs, and we talked about reform.. . .People want somebody from the outside to go up there and change things in Harrisburg."

Wagner, who twice had won statewide office by large margins, was not projected to finish second in public polls.

He clearly had strength that didn't show up in voter surveys. Though he had far less money for ads than either Onorato or Wagner, he had spent many years building loyalty among party leaders and regular Democrats in cities, towns and hamlets across the state's 67 counties.

Although he wasn't domiant anywhere, not even in his home area of Pittsburgh, his pockets of strength added up to No. 2 finish.

Still, that was a blow for Wagner, a wounded Vietnman veteran who once beat Onorato in a race for a state senate seat and, at age 60, was seen the seniro of the two men.

Hoeffel, who had hoped to be the only Philadelphia region candidate, was undercut when Williams got into the race in February.

Substantial but incomplete returns showed Hoeffel getting only about half the vote even in his home county. That led to a dismal last-place finish in the state as a whole.

Williams' hopes had been almost entirely on Philadelphia and its large base of black voters. He had hoped to get at least 270,000 Philadelphia votes. But the enite vote for for governor - for all four candidates - was was short of that.

The leader of the Third Democratic Ward and the chairman of a bloc of African American ward leraders, Williams got a little more than half of all city votes. Onorato got about a quarter. Hoeffel ran third; Wagner, fourth.

Gov. Rendell, who remained officially neutral in the primary for governor, is expected to throw his political weight behind the Democratic ticket this fall in an effort to preserve his legacy. A win for his party will be perceived as a win, in part, for him.

But in a year of voter anger with the status quo in many places, Republicans feel good about their chances of winning the governorship for the first time since 1998.

History is on the GOP side. The two parties have taken turns holding the office every eight years since governors were first permitted by a revised state constitution to run for a second term in 1970. If that pattern holds, this would be the Republicans' turn.

The public's view of the battle differed from area to area across the state.

Onorato and Wagner, who shared a Pittsburgh base, dominated the view from Western Pennsylvania, where both are widely known and have been on the ballot many times.

Hoeffel's campaign, based in the Philadelphia suburbs, was most visible on the ground there.

But if a voter turned on a television or radio in Philadelphia, it almost seemed as if Williams were the only candidate in the race.

With a $2.1 million in cashs donations over the last 11 days of the campaign - largely from three Bala Cynwyd executives who like his stance on school vouchers - Williams continued throughout primary election day to pour money into his ads.

They were mainly aimed at dragging down Onorato, with a little help from Mayor Nutter and Rendell.

Rendell, whose top allies and biggest campaign donors mainly favored Onorato, had vowed to stay out of the primary - although Wagner last week complained that Rendell had clearly shown his favoritism toward Onorato.

But on Friday, at a meeting of the Black Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity, Rendell said some very nice things about Williams, including that some of his ideas were visionary and that he had earned people's support.

The Williams campaign quickly turned that into a radio ad suggesting Rendell had endorsed Williams. His forces pounded the airwaves with that commercial almost right up until the polls closed at 8 p.m. Tuesday.

The gubernatorial primary in each party was overshadowed by the intense U.S. Senate contest in which incumbent Democrat Arlen Specter lost to Rep. Joe Sestak.

A man who said he was working for Williams but would not answer further questions was handing out pieces of paper that read "Official Democratic Ballot" outside a polling place at 59th and Spruce Streets.

The sample ballot advised people to vote for Williams, Saidel, Specter, U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, and State Rep. Ronald Waters. It was paid for by the Democratic County Executive Committee of Philadelphia.

On 62d Street near Spruce, Jean Raines said she always votes but was especially pleased to push the button for Williams.

"I feel like it's my responsibility as a citizen, and I always have favorite people I want to vote for, and Anthony is one of them," Raines said. "I like what he stands for. He works for his community."

Williams, making the rounds of polling places, showed up at 11:30 a.m. at St. Mary Episcopal Church in Ardmore.

Looking spiffy in a gray pin-striped suit, he said the turnout looked good to him. He said that 20 people had already voted by the time he got to his polling place in West Philadelphia at 8:30 a.m. Typical turnout at that hour, he said, was around seven voters.

As far as turnout, he said, "We're not anywhere where we were with Obama, of course. But if I look at what happens, most people tend to vote later on in the day - so the turnout may be higher than normal in Philadelphia.

"People tend to look to a personality to get them out to vote," he said. "They don't realize we are privileged to get out and express ourselves."