Corbett lost his political narrative, then his bid for a 2nd term

TOM WOLF, a millionaire from York who distributes kitchen cabinets, did not win the race for governor of Pennsylvania yesterday.

Gov. Corbett lost it.

In 77 days, Wolf will be sworn in as the state's 47th governor, mostly because of political and policy decisions that Corbett made.

Corbett last night conceded the race in Pittsburgh, saying that he stood by all those decisions even though they proved unpopular.

"I said I may be a one-term governor. And I am," Corbett said. "But I am proud of what I did, what we all did."

Wolf, speaking at the York County Fairgrounds, said the state owes Corbett "a debt of gratitude" for his years of service.

Corbett became the first Pennsylvania governor to lose a bid for a second term by violating a fundamental law of politics: Define yourself before your enemies do it for you.

Corbett lost control of his own story and then moved too slowly to counteract the damaging narrative spread by Democrats who saw him as too conservative and some Republicans who saw him as not conservative enough.

That lack of messaging may have come from Corbett's public-sector career as a prosecutor - as an assistant district attorney, U.S. attorney and state attorney general - accustomed to playing his cards very close to his chest.

The biggest hit that Corbett took was on funding for public education, which he desperately tried to recast as Wolf's "$1 billion lie."

Wolf and other Democrats hit Corbett for slashing $1 billion in education funding from his first state budget by not replacing expiring federal stimulus money.

Corbett insisted that the state is spending more now on public education than ever before - true, if you count legislatively mandated funding for teacher pensions.

Dovetailing with the education funding was Corbett's refusal to push for a severance tax on natural-gas drillers in the Marcellus Shale region.

Corbett instead went with a smaller impact fee for drillers - which opened him up to accusations that he was acting like a company man for an industry that helped to fund his 2010 campaign.

On the other side, Wolf jumped out to a broad lead in a crowded Democratic primary by dumping $10 million into his campaign, with a big focus on well-made biographical TV ads.

Wolf maintained a double-digit lead in the polling as he entered the general-election cycle. And he steadfastly refused to answer some questions, frustrating Corbett's lines of attack.

Corbett suggested that Wolf was using the "Delaware loophole" - an accounting trick that allows companies with Delaware charters to move profits - avoiding the state corporate-net-income tax.

Wolf flatly denied that, but then repeatedly refused to release tax information that would prove if his company's profits stayed in Pennsylvania.

And Wolf suggested that he would push for a change to how the state taxes personal income, with a greater share coming from those who earn more each year.

But Wolf resisted being nailed down with specifics, often saying he needed to see Department of Revenue numbers before he could draw up a plan for public view.