PSoTD

For your weekend reading...

A municipal golf course is not economic revitalization. Please, don't use that guise. It's pathetic.

Good opinion piece in the Pocono Record today about possible priorities for the Pennsylvania General Assembly next year. The Record asks, and then points out:

Why can't Pennsylvanians have zoning laws that protect the quality of life? The uniqueness and charm of our small towns? The natural resources?

We don't, you know. Not only do our laws tilt toward the "right" of developers to make a profit, the laws actually make taxpayers subsidize those profits. We the taxpayers finance new infrastructure and services, including schools. Those who make the profits do not.

It's a great point. Why don't zoning laws reflect the will of the people who live in a community, rather than the will of the people who want to profit from a community or want to move to the community? Why can't there be a bit more democracy in zoning policy?

From the Philly Inquirer:

It's never a good thing for an incumbent senator to spend $27 million running for reelection and lose by 18 percentage points.

But for Rick Santorum, getting steamrolled on Tuesday by Democrat Bob Casey Jr. may prove to be liberating in a strange sort of way.

"I think Rick can write his own ticket," said his Senate colleague and fellow Republican Arlen Specter.

Among the available options: Becoming a spokesman for national conservative causes, taking a role in the Bush administration, positioning himself to run for statewide office in Pennsylvania in 2010, and maybe even mounting a candidacy for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.

Apparently everyone believes that Santorum's best chances are at wasting more campaign money. With the exception of taking a role in the Bush Administration, everything else seems to be pointed in that direction. Why do Pennsylvania's pundits think his political career can recover from this trouncing? He's not likeable enough of a public persona to accomplish that. He'll always start any future campaign with some serious negative voter attitude. And frankly, he was absolutely embarrassed in this election, final vote-wise. So... who wants to invest in that?

Are Pennsylvania's voters - and campaign contributors - going to forget than in 2 or 4 years? Not in the world I live in...

Ed Rendell gained 4 more years - the last four years - as this state's most prominent Democratic politician. That's fine. But Pennsylvania Democrats better start looking around themselves, and wonder - who will be in position for high profile political positions in 2010? Both the Governor and Specter's seat will be up by then, and there's not much out there on the Democratic Party front that says "obvious candidate". The Lt. Governor, Catherine Baker Knoll, is a nonstarter. Jack Wagner? Barbara Hafer? Bob Mellow?

Rendell now gets to pick the State Treasurer to replace Casey as he goes to the U.S. Senate, but strangely Rendell wants a lame duck, according to this article - someone who won't run in '08.

Why? Why not grab someone who can do the job AND have a future? I don't really understand this approach, when the Democrats have now lost their two biggest names for candidacy for the Governor's office or the U.S. Senate in 2010 - unless Rendell plans to run for U.S. Senate in 2010.

Now that I've thought about it a bit more, I wonder if the plan is to put Hafer in as State Treasurer for the short-term - she's had the job before and wouldn't need OTJ, and it keeps her name in the political media. And, if she's planning for a big run in 2010, she'd need to start really focusing on that in 2009.

Will they end up in Harrisburg as lobbyists now that they've lost?

Melissa Hart
Mike Veon
Mike Diven
Eugene McGill
Tom Gannon
and, of course, Dave Brightbill and Bob Jubelirer

This morning I went to the coffee shop, and on the way home I drove past a house who had two campaign signs in their yard.

One was for Rick Santorum. Now, Rick Santorum has spent so much effort over his time in Washington attacking various groups of people, that I have absolutely no respect for him. And there's a transfer of that lack of respect that now goes with anyone who publicly supports Santorum. Not total lack of respect - but a diminishing of respect, even for people I don't even know. Let's just assume that if I don't know you, there's a baseline level of respect for you as a person, regardless. If you put a Rick Santorum sign in your yard, there is a tiny, but perceptible to me, drop in that respect. Supporting Rick Santorum taints, because Santorum is quite poisonous in some of his attacks on political opponents.

Also in the lawn was a sign for Lynn Swann, Republican candidate for Governor in Pennsylvania. Swann has been criticized considerably in his campaign, and after the election, I wonder how his campaign will be viewed. I think it's clear he had an almost impossible task, running against a relatively popular Governor who has a lot of government "successes" to incorporate into his campaign, and a lot of political favors available for pulling. And running in a climate that is anti-Republican in general because of the mess in Washington, and running in the same election period with someone as divisive as Rick Santorum.

Lynn Swann could have tried to fight against the current, and gone poisonous in his campaign, and he didn't. Other candidates around the country did this (although the trend might be that most of them were incumbents). I can't say that Swann had any political platform that really stood out, but he didn't punt future opportunity away, either.

And he didn't generate any long-term opposition, either. It seems to me that Swann could run again in 4 years for Governor, or U.S. Senate, or other office in Pennsylvania, and if he had an easier opponent and a different election atmosphere, he could easily win, and he could get Democratic voter support. He hasn't poisoned the well, to this point. Will the Republican Party appreciate this, or see it as a negative in campaigning?

Political bridges begin with campaigns. Candidates as divisive as Santorum that become Senators as divisive as Santorum create so much negativity with their political opposition that bridge-building is damaged. It's not about positions - it is about approach, respect and personality. Lynn Swann can run again, and I'll listen to his positions. Rick Santorum can not. I hope the Republican Party considers the impact as it considers candidates in the future.

Peggy Noonan gives Rick Santorum's Senatorial career a eulogy.