One little 'no' draws big reaction

WASHINGTON - A sleepy candidate forum sparked a fire in Pennsylvania's U.S. Senate race last week.

It came when a moderator posed what seemed a simple "yes" or "no" question to the three Democratic contenders: Had any accepted endorsements or donations from the National Rifle Association, a Pennsylvania political group that opposes abortion, or the oil and gas industries?

After a winding response at the Jan. 31 event, candidate Katie McGinty finally said no.

What happened next left no doubt that campaign season has arrived in full in Pennsylvania.

In less than a day, a Republican super PAC blistered McGinty's response. By midweek, one of her Democratic rivals released a video blasting her. And by Thursday, campaign aides to Sen. Pat Toomey, the Republican incumbent, pointed to a newly disclosed donation to McGinty from an official at an oil and gas company as proof that she lied.

Aides to McGinty, who has years of government experience but is in only her second run as a candidate, fired back, saying she accurately answered the question.

The pace of the attacks illustrated how words are parsed, every utterance watched, and errors magnified in the high-stakes race - not just by the campaigns in Pennsylvania, but by operatives and super PACs in Washington.

The Pennsylvania contest is considered one of the country's most crucial: Unseating Toomey would inch Democrats closer to control of the Senate.

The dustup in Pittsburgh came during a forum at Carnegie Mellon University, the first with all three Democrats vying for the nomination: McGinty, former U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, and Braddock Mayor John Fetterman.

The question came about 43 minutes into the event, prefaced with: "Have you sought or received endorsement or campaign money from the following organizations . . . ?"

Sestak and Fetterman said they had taken no such donations or endorsements.

McGinty replied by first talking about groups that have backed her. When the moderator repeated the question, she answered no.

Fetterman gasped at her response - "From oil and gas? Really?" he said.

The debate moved on, but others didn't let go.

A Republican super PAC, America Rising, called McGinty's response "an outright lie" and quickly produced a list of 17 donations from energy-industry executives and employees totaling $19,850. (The figure represents about 1 percent of her $1.9 million in donations.)

By Wednesday, Fetterman, lagging in money and attention, was drawing headlines with an online video slamming McGinty for accepting what he said was $198,600 from oil and gas interests and lobbyists.

Toomey's camp then pointed to McGinty's latest finance reports, which show a $2,000 donation in October from the head of government affairs at Talisman Energy, an oil and gas company with international operations and natural gas wells in the Marcellus Shale.

Toomey's camp said the filing showed tens of thousands of dollars more from energy interests.

The forum question, though, left McGinty and her critics wiggle room.

Her campaign argued the moderator's phrasing referred to donations from PACs and businesses - not individuals at oil and gas companies. It also didn't specify what counts as the oil and gas industry - companies that explore and drill for fuels? Or those with any tie at all to the field?

Just one of the donations cited by her critics came from political action committees, and almost none came from donors who actually work at oil and gas exploration companies. Some were from people in related industries - such as executives at a pipeline company and Philadelphia Energy Solutions, a refinery that is a major buyer of oil and natural gas.

Others were farther afield: a consultant whose firm advises energy buyers; lawyers who work on energy projects; and officials at utilities, including two, NRG and Exelon, considered leaders in alternatives to fossil fuels.

Several donations under attack were from officials at Iberdrola, a utility and the country's second-largest wind company, where McGinty once worked.

Most recently the chief of staff to Gov. Wolf, McGinty has spent her private and public career - both in Pennsylvania and Washington - working on environmental issues and promoting green energy, leading to deep connections in the energy world.

"Katie McGinty has received contributions from individuals across the state because of her outstanding environmental record and her vision for Pennsylvania's future," her spokeswoman Sabrina Singh wrote in a statement, touting McGinty's endorsement from the League of Conservation Voters.

McGinty's camp also tried to return fire on her critics, at points using the same kind of broad definitions and tangential connections that had been aimed at her. It accused Fetterman of taking thousands from donors with links to oil and gas, and said Toomey had accepted hundreds of thousands from the industry.

"It's unfortunate that rather than uniting to defeat Toomey, some are instead peddling the misleading Republican talking points of groups trying to prop him up," Singh wrote.

Fetterman spokeswoman Leslie Wertheimer said, "All the sound and fury could have easily been avoided if Katie McGinty simply told the truth."

Sestak posted a video calling for a moratorium on fracking.

As the week ended, Toomey's team compiled all the headlines related to the McGinty comment, blasting them to reporters.

The race churned on.

jtamari@phillynews.com@JonathanTamari

www.philly.com/capitolinq

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly said none of McGinty's critics raised questions about contributions from political action committees tied to the energy industry. One did cite a donation from the political arm of Iberdrola, a utility and wind power company where McGinty once worked.