Not on ballot, but atop political drama: Ed Rendell

The man can't help it.

A month before the election to choose his successor as governor, Ed Rendell continues to dominate the Pennsylvania political landscape in ways that might hurt his party's nominee, Dan Onorato.

Ever larger than life, sensitive as always to criticism, the two-term Democrat again made himself a focus of the governor's race Monday by complaining that GOP candidate Tom Corbett should stop campaigning against him and concentrate on his real opponent.

"Tom Corbett should start trying to run against Dan Onorato, not against me," Rendell said at a Harrisburg news conference, citing a Corbett TV ad that lambastes what it calls the Rendell administration's "wasteful spending."

Corbett, the state attorney general, could only have smiled. An hour or so after Rendell's comments, he sent an e-mail to supporters eagerly calling attention to the governor's irritation.

The way Republicans figure it, the more the debate is focused on Rendell - whose popularity is so low, you'd need sonar to detect it in wide pools of the state - the harder it becomes for Onorato to establish his own identity before Election Day, Nov. 2.

Corbett over the weekend began airing a new TV ad that proclaims, "You want four more years of Rendell's higher taxes and job losses, then Dan Onorato is your man."

Every day he holds the stage, Rendell does no favors for his party's nominee, said pollster Berwood A. Yost, director of the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin and Marshall College.

"Rendell would have made life hard for Onorato just given his eight years in office and his record and how people are feeling about his job performance," Yost said.

"That's exacerbated by the fact that Rendell continues to stay in the spotlight," Yost said, "and we don't hear that much about Dan Onorato. . . . Onorato has got to separate himself and tell people why he's different."

A Franklin and Marshall poll last week showed that 35 percent of Pennsylvanians approve of the job Rendell is doing as governor.

Only in his home region does Rendell remain popular. The poll showed him with 52 percent approval in Philadelphia; 56 percent in the suburbs.

His rating was 23 percent in central Pennsylvania, 26 percent in the southwest, 29 percent in the northwest, 30 percent in the northeast.

On Monday, speaking about state spending from the ornate Governor's Reception Room on the second floor of the Capitol, Rendell brought up a Corbett ad that has been running for several weeks.

As examples of supposed wasteful spending by the Rendell administration, the ad mentions $40,000 to move a statue from the governor's residence; $45 million to renovate Capitol offices; and $10 million for a new library on the campus of Philadelphia University named after U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter.

Onorato previously disputed the claims in the ad, noting for instance that only $4 million was appropriated for the library.

Rendell offered his own view of the ad as "100 percent incorrect" and said: "I'm not on the ballot. In some ways, I wish I was, but I'm not on the ballot. And the choice for people is Tom Corbett vs. Dan Onorato, and he should base whatever charges he's going to make on Dan's record."

Corbett has upped the ante with a new ad that mentions Rendell's name four times and shows two photos of Rendell and Onorato together.

The ad claims, "Dan Onorato cites Ed Rendell as his role model."

As proof, it cites a Washington Post article saying of Onorato, "He said Rendell has been his role model." But the article has no direct quote to that effect.

The ad also says that "just like Rendell, Onorato loves raising taxes. . . . Onorato is now joined with Rendell in calling for a massive Pennsylvania energy tax that will kill jobs and drive up utility bills."

The truth is more complex. Onorato and Rendell agree that the state should enact a tax on natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale. But Onorato has not said how large - or small - a tax he favors. And he disagrees with Rendell that revenue should go into the general state budget. He wants to use a tax solely for environmental protection.

The ad is not running in the Philadelphia area. But it was captured from Pittsburgh TV by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and is posted on that newspaper's website.

It makes one further claim: that Onorato, as Allegheny County executive, handed "county families the largest tax increase in history."

Onorato, as he often boasts, has never raised property taxes. The ad refers to a tax he imposed on alcoholic beverages. But that tax would hit "county families" only if they drank in bars.

Rendell, to be sure, has done much to benefit Onorato. He has helped him raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for his campaign.

And to be fair to Rendell, his business as governor is not finished. That is mostly why he has held nine news conferences since Sept. 13.

Though on the way out in January, he and state legislators are trying to wrap up a long list of unfinished business in a few months' time.

At the top of the list is a Marcellus Shale tax. Also lurking in the background: creating an Independent Fiscal Office to act as the General Assembly's outside check on the governor's revenue projections and spending reports; reaching a compromise on a bill to lower pension costs by reducing benefits for future employers; and mapping out a solution to closing a $472 million gap for funding roads and bridges, although all sides agree that this issue will likely get pushed off until next year - and a new governor.

Rendell's elected predecessor, Republican Tom Ridge, had already exited the stage by the time of the 2002 race for governor.

Ridge had resigned to become the first U.S. secretary of homeland security, turning the office over to his lieutenant governor, Mark Schweiker.