Bill Clinton stumps for Onorato; Corbett stresses fiscal discipline

NANTICOKE, Pa. - While Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Corbett pumped up his supporters at a pair of modest-sized events in Wilkes-Barre and Allentown on Tuesday, former President Bill Clinton showed up in this old Northeastern Pennsylvania coal town to lead a get-out-the-vote rally for Dan Onorato and other Democratic candidates.

Clinton's flight from Chicago was delayed by the storms tormenting the nation's Midwest, but a crowd of about 1,000 people packed Greater Nanticoke Area High School to greet the former president with cheers.

Many stood throughout a 45-minute speech in which Clinton extolled the job that Onorato has done for the last seven years as the Allegheny County executive in Pittsburgh.

Before Onorato took office, Clinton said, "Pittsburgh was in terrible trouble, the budget was in trouble, the economy was in trouble."

"Without raising taxes, he turned it around," Clinton said. "Pittsburgh was one of the least-affected urban areas by the terrible economic crisis and has a lower unemployment rate then the state or nation."

Onorato, in his campaign for governor, has emphasized that he has not raised Allegheny County's property taxes and that he prevented any backdoor tax increases on real estate by freezing property assessments.

What he seldom mentions is that he imposed a 10 percent county tax - since reduced to 7 percent - on alcoholic drinks poured in bars. The aim was to provide a reliable source of funding for mass transit.

Corbett, who has promised to raise no taxes or state fees if elected governor, is happy to remind voters of Onorato's drink tax. He hardly ever fails to mention the drink levy in his campaign appearances. And his two public events Tuesday were no exception.

"We need to bring fiscal discipline, we need to bring limited government," Corbett said at a rally with about 80 Luzerne County Republicans at the GOP's storefront headquarters in downtown Wilkes-Barre. "We need the private sector to grow the jobs."

Speaking of the current Democratic governor, Corbett pledged to be "totally different" and to end what he called Gov. Rendell's "tax-and-spend policies."

Later, at a GOP headquarters in a shopping center on the fringe of Allentown, several Pennsylvania business leaders reiterated their groups' endorsements of Corbett, saying he would eliminate the state inheritance taxes, create a pro-business climate, and restrain state spending.

The candidate, beaming as the leaders spoke at a business-for-Corbett rally, agreed on all points.

"You are the job creators, not government," Corbett, who is state attorney general, told a crowd of several score people.

Pat Conway, president of the Pennsylvania Restaurant Association, said Onorato's imposition of the tax on alcoholic drinks had cost Allegheny County businesses "tens of millions of dollars."

Corbett, he said, would "foster a positive business climate that will allow job creators to create jobs."

Gene Barr, vice president of the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, echoed the message: "Tom Corbett knows that government doesn't create jobs or wealth."

On a warm autumn day, with pumpkins in the yards and leaves on the sidewalks, the candidates crisscrossed the state just a week before the vote for governor.

In Philadelphia, Onorato addressed a raucous crowd of 200 to 300 retired AFSCME union members, warning that Corbett would take away the hard-earned benefits of government workers and jeopardize progress in public education with his vows to cut state aid to schools.

He also criticized the Republican for, in his view, whining about one of the Onorato campaign's television ads. The ad said Corbett's vow of no tax increases and no levy on natural gas extracted from the Marcellus Shale would force him, as governor, to slash state services for the aged, including Alzheimer's patients.

That ad "only ran for six days and he went ballistic," Onorato said, as the union crowd hooted and booed. "Welcome to the big leagues, Tom. If he doesn't like the truth, maybe he should step aside."

But Onorato has been in an ad-induced funk of his own this week - about Corbett commercials that portray the Democrat as costing Allegheny County residents thousands of jobs.

He accused Corbett on Monday of "lying every week" via those ads, in which actors portray jobless Pittsburghers walking zombielike toward the camera.

Corbett, in Wilkes-Barre, retorted Tuesday: "We are not lying in our ads. He doesn't like them. He resorts to name-calling. I didn't call him despicable; I called his ads despicable."

at 610-313-8205 or tinfield@phillynews.com.