During debate, Corbett hits on a new strategy

"Where's the beef?"

That was the question underdog candidate Walter Mondale borrowed from a Wendy's ad to skewer front-runner Gary Hart and his airy "new ideas" in a 1984 presidential debate.

In the same vein, underdog Tom Corbett paced the stage in last week's first debate of the Pennsylvania governor's race, demanding that Democrat Tom Wolf provide details of his promises to make the state's personal income tax fairer to the middle class and to increase state funding on education.

The tactic, analysts say, seeks to exploit the best opening the beleaguered Republican governor may have for keeping his job. Wolf, far ahead in the polls, has mostly avoided specifics on the campaign trail, confining himself to stating his goals and attacking Corbett's record - a traditional front-runner's approach.

"I think it's time for Mr. Wolf to give us his plan," Corbett said in Monday's debate, televised statewide on PCN. "It's not enough to say, 'Well, we'll figure it out' or, 'I'll sit down with the legislature.' "

Wolf has said he wants to levy a higher income tax targeting the wealthy, in part to reduce reliance on the school property tax, which tends to hit lower-income homeowners hardest. But he has said he can't specify who would pay more income tax under his plan, or give an estimate of the rate.

"I don't have the figures," Wolf replied in the debate, adding that he would need to see state revenue numbers not available to him at this point. "What I am talking about is a tax system that is fair," Wolf said. "I believe there are people who are paying too much. If we're going to create a fairer tax system, some people will have to pay more."

The governor sought to plant the idea that Wolf inevitably would draw up an income-tax plan that would hit households making as little as $70,000, which many would consider a middle-class income. That number comes from a news interview in which Wolf said he was using a hypothetical example to illustrate the principles of his goal.

Elsewhere in the debate, when asked how much more the state should spend on schools - a central issue in the campaign - Wolf said he wasn't sure.

"How much money is that going to take? I don't know. But it's not enough to say we're going to spend more or we're going to spend less. What we need to do is say we need to have a public education system that delivers."

For all his attributes and nice-guy appeal, Wolf has gone as far as he has in large measure by simply being the Not-Corbett, polling suggests. He has spent millions of dollars building his image as an unassuming businessman from mid-state Pennsylvania who drives a regular-guy Jeep, projecting an air of softspoken confidence.

In a Sept. 11 Quinnipiac University Poll of likely voters, for instance, 51 percent of Wolf backers said they were motivated more by opposition to Corbett than enthusiasm for Wolf.

Though he had his own stumbles during the debate - for instance, appearing to soften the layoffs of 27,000 school employees by noting that "not all of them were teachers" - Corbett may have hit on his best strategy with less than six weeks until the Nov. 4 election.

"The only way you can drive down support for the challenger is to give voters a sense of uncertainty about him," said Joseph Morris, a political scientist and pollster at Mercyhurst University in Erie.

The debate was likely viewed by a "tiny fraction" of voters, Morris said, so it remains to be seen whether Corbett and the GOP can stoke enough questions about Wolf's plans to bring him down in the polls with time in the campaign dwindling. Corbett still has a historically large amount of ground to make up, Republican strategists said - though two recent polls, including one Morris directed, suggest the gap is closing a bit.

A Sept. 15-24 survey of 479 registered voters by Mercyhurst's Center for Applied Politics had Wolf up 43 percent to 28 for Corbett, with 22 percent still undecided.

"The way I see this election, it is a referendum on Corbett," Morris said. "For his entire term as governor, he has suffered relatively low approval ratings, and this is the first chance voters get to give voice to the disappointment they've been feeling for three years."

Republicans were cheered at Corbett's debate performance and hope he can climb back into the race by following through. Wolf erred in using a "prevent-defense" approach, said Harrisburg GOP strategist Charlie Gerow, whose firm has advised Corbett. "He allowed Corbett to seize the initiative and pick up some badly needed momentum."

But the audience for the debate was relatively small, and Corbett will need to keep hounding Wolf for specifics, Gerow said. "His job is to peel away the layers of fluff around Tom Wolf, to show he's not just a nice guy who drives a Jeep, but to unmask him as a tax-and-spend liberal."

Wolf and his campaign have argued he has been specific enough that voters know what he would do in office, such as imposing a 5 percent tax on the value of natural gas extracted from shale.

After a rally Tuesday with Latino leaders in Reading, Wolf said the burden was on the incumbent to defend his record and to tell voters how a second term would be different.

"I think the specificity is on his shoulders," Wolf said. "Where's Pennsylvania actually going?" He pointed to job growth lagging other states, to program cuts, layoffs, and increased class sizes in schools, saying, "Those are the realities that we can see - you can't really spin that away."

Jobany Bedoya, who heads a nonprofit that aids Colombian immigrants, said he was sold on Wolf's priorities and his business background. "I don't think we've seen sharp specifics yet, mostly general ideas," said Bedoya, of Ephrata. "But the leadership we have now is not working. We need to change before things get worse."

T.J. Rooney, former chairman of the state Democratic Party and a Wolf supporter, said the challenger did what he had to do in the debate: Hold his own.

"I think he can put some meat on the bones to satisfy the critics or concerns, but in the end, this election is about Tom Corbett," Rooney said. "He has some explaining to do."

Corbett also needs to keep exploiting what a Republican activist called a "contrast" created by Wolf's lack of specifics.

Alan Nowak, a former state GOP chairman, said in a chat with Rooney for The Inquirer's Currents section: "If Corbett is going to make a horse race out of this contest, he needs to draw severe and stark contrasts."

Perhaps the embattled governor can draw hope from history. The "Where's the beef?" message did help former Vice President Mondale win the 1984 Democratic nomination - before Ronald Reagan clobbered him that fall.

Here are addresses of campaign websites where Gov. Corbett and Democratic challenger Tom Wolf have posted policy proposals.

Corbett

http://www.tomcorbettforgovernor.com/promiseskept

Wolf

http://www.scribd.com/doc/206744023/Tom-Wolf-s-Plan-to-Give-Pennsylvania-a-Fresh-Start

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