as well as the downdraft eminating from Ed Rendell

I think alot of Onorato's troubles are more because of Rendell than of the national climate. The man is pure poison is this state (honestly when I talk politics with people I know they can't think of one good think to say about the man and that includes Democrats). That and Onorato's going up againist a well known statewide officeholder has a lot to do with it. Plus Corbett tenure as AG haasn't been that bad as he's done alot of good such as cracking down on pedofiles and puppy mills. I probally would vote for him except I like Onorato alot and that Corbett want to repeal HCR.

As for the generic house ballot for PA. As I said time after time I wouldn't put too much stock as there fairly unreliable and there not specific enough. I mean take the national generic ballot. When the GOP controlled Congress, cycle after cycle had us in the lead but never took the House. There something to look at for maybe navigation but I would put all my stock into them. To be very blunt out of all the districts we control in PA I only see two flipping: PA-7 (Sestak, open seat) and PA-11 (Kanjorski) with PA-3 (Dahlkemper) and PA-8 (Patrick Murphy) to look at down the road but I don't see Dahlkemper and Murphy.

22, Male, Democrat, PA-18.

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by: Daylin Bradley-Byak @ Sun Aug 22, 2010 at 23:12:32 PM UTC

What do people dislike so much about Rendell?

I realize that this question could lead to a derail based on a debate on issues, but I have no interest in debate, only in understanding why Pennsylvanians dislike the guy.

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
--  Will Rogers  

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by: Pan @ Sun Aug 22, 2010 at 23:21:45 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Well it's a viriety of issues

They don't like him on the budget, on taxes and alt don't like his personality as he comes off as a real greasy machine pol (makes sense since he was Mayor of Philly).

I should be grateful for him because he legalized gambling in the state which saved the NHL Pittsburgh Penguins but my major beef with him came from two years ago during the primary saying PA wasn't ready to elect a black President. That really pissed me off. But Pan they pretty much dislike everything about him, hence his real shitty approval numbers.

22, Male, Democrat, PA-18.

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by: Daylin Bradley-Byak @ Sun Aug 22, 2010 at 23:28:24 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Wasn't he popular at one time?

Is a lot of his loss of popularity due to choices he's made under pressure of loss of tax dollars, due to the economic downturn? Mind you, I'm not suggesting he shouldn't be blamed for his choices. What I am saying is that it's easy to be popular if your treasury is rolling in dough than if you have to cut left and right or/and raise taxes in bad times. It takes a really good governor to deal well with tough times, and much of the country has discovered that their governor may not be up to the challenge.

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
--  Will Rogers  

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by: Pan @ Mon Aug 23, 2010 at 00:44:31 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

He was popular at one time

Alot of people liked him when he first started as Governor and praised him in his first budget and when he legalized gambling but his popularity seemed to dwindle when he was approaching 2006-2007 and it's been like that ever since.

22, Male, Democrat, PA-18.

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by: Daylin Bradley-Byak @ Mon Aug 23, 2010 at 00:56:17 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Rendell's Unpopularity

Rendell is suffering from a thousand paper cuts.  As one of the many Republicans that voted for him 4 years ago because Swann was that bad of a candidate, I really think his second term has been a disaster.  He has never been able to work with fellow Democrats and has always relied heavily on Republicans to pass budgets and pretty much everything else, but in the second term he seemed to not be able to even get their support.  His inability to work with fellow Democrats, who are actually economically to his left and socially to his right, make it very difficult for him to get anything done.

Rendell should have stayed to the right and tried to get as much Republican support as possible even if it met trimming some of his agenda because the support he has received from Pennsylvania Democrats has been non-existent.  Probably would have got more of his agenda through if he did that and just ignored the freak shows known as the PA House and Senate Democratic caucuses.  

23, male, center-right cynical Republican, PA-7

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by: Ryan_in_DelCo @ Mon Aug 23, 2010 at 02:46:13 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Wow you actually voted for Rendell over Swann?

Shit I hated both these guys I just wrote in my grandfather. Don't get me wrong as a Pittsburgh area native I love Lynn Swann THE PITTSBURGH STEELER, but not Lynn Swann THE POLITICAN. Basically because he offered nothing new to the state and relied too much on his celebrity popularity to win.

But regarding Rendell unpopularity, you pretty much nailed it. His inability to get much done because he couldn't get along with his own party in the legislature. Also his crappy image as a greasy pol hurt him as well.

But I would cast the Senate Dem caucus as a freak show. The House caucus that a freak show. I mean you had Bill DeWeese as Party Leader then in '06 the Dems took back the PA House and tried to become Speaker that failed because a Democrat from the Philadelphia area said he wouldn't support him (that's a big deal since at the time the Democrats had a one vote majority) so as a compromise Republican Dennis O' Brien became Speaker and DeWeese became Whip. I don't even know if he's evan that anymore. If that's not a freak show I don't know what is.

22, Male, Democrat, PA-18.

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by: Daylin Bradley-Byak @ Mon Aug 23, 2010 at 02:55:41 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Swann

I like Swann as a person.  Have met him and was very impressed, but he should have never ran for Governor.  He should have ran for Congress first, which I think would have been a better bet for him and would have given him the experience needed to run for higher office in the future.  

I was highly disappointed too how Bill Scranton was told to get out of the way by the party establishment for Lynn Swann.  Bill Scranton brought a lot to the table in my opinion with his experience in business and mix of fiscal conservatism and socially moderate policies.  Rick Santorum did not like Scranton because of his social issue stances and happily forced Swann down our throats.

I wish Swann would have never ran for Governor and waited to run for the US House.  He lives in PA-4 and would have been a decent candidate against Altmire.

23, male, center-right cynical Republican, PA-7

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by: Ryan_in_DelCo @ Mon Aug 23, 2010 at 03:16:00 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Swann is a decent person

Probally would of been better for him experence wise for him to run for Congress.

As for Bill Scranton, I liked the guy and would of voted for him because he was a moderate and a good alternative but the GOP establishment pushed him out. I guess they thought if Arnold could do it in CA so can Lynn Swann that and his moderation didn't gain him any favors with Santorum and the GOP establishment in PA.

22, Male, Democrat, PA-18.

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by: Daylin Bradley-Byak @ Mon Aug 23, 2010 at 03:25:52 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Correction

I WOULDN'T call the Democratic Senate caucus as a freak show.

22, Male, Democrat, PA-18.

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by: Daylin Bradley-Byak @ Mon Aug 23, 2010 at 02:57:32 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Understandable

The PA Senate Democratic Caucus is a freak show for the mere fact it lost a seat in 2008.  How in the hell the PA Senate Democratic Caucus failed to gain seats in 2006 or 2008 can only be explained by incompetence on their part and/or genius on the part of the PA Senate Republicans.  

The 30 to 20 Republican domination basically makes the Democrats irrelevant in the State Senate.

23, male, center-right cynical Republican, PA-7

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by: Ryan_in_DelCo @ Mon Aug 23, 2010 at 03:19:35 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I see where your going with this

And I have to agree. Two wave cycles and couldn't net gain one seat. I get your point.

22, Male, Democrat, PA-18.

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by: Daylin Bradley-Byak @ Mon Aug 23, 2010 at 03:23:00 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Are

the state senate districts in Pennsylvania gerrymandered to hell like here in California? If not, someone running the Democrats' senate campaign committee there should be fired.

19, Male, Independent, CA-12

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by: ehstronghold @ Mon Aug 23, 2010 at 03:25:38 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

They are

When the GOP controlled the entire legislature and Governor seat they gerrymandered the hell out of the Legislature and Congress. They had to eliminate two seats from Congress and three examples of how they do it is this.

PA-20 was respresented by Dem Frank Mascara. They turned this into a GOP seat by gerrymanding his town of Charleroi (Washington County) into PA-12. They did it in a weird way as his house was in PA-12 but the place where they parked his car was still in PA-12. Of course Murtha clobbered Mascara and threw much of the Dem friendly areas into Murtha's district and threw in more conservative areas of Allegheny and Westmoreland County into what is now PA-18

Another way is they packed alot of Dem area into PA-14 so they wouldn't interfer with PA-18.

They made PA-10 more conservative by taking Scranton out of the district into PA-11 making PA-11 more Democratic.

Also if you look at the map you'll see it's gerrymandered to hell and back with all the cracked and packed districts.

22, Male, Democrat, PA-18.

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by: Daylin Bradley-Byak @ Mon Aug 23, 2010 at 03:32:28 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

State Senate Gerrymandering

While some of that nonsense is going on with some of these districts, I think there is a lot of consistency between whom represents the districts and the ideology of the districts.  You have a lot of moderate Republicans and blue collar Democrats in the State Senate.

23, male, center-right cynical Republican, PA-7

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by: Ryan_in_DelCo @ Mon Aug 23, 2010 at 03:43:27 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I think there is a lot of consistency between whom represents the districts and the ideology of the districts. You have a lot of moderate Republicans and blue collar Democrats in the State Senate.

That's true. The moderate Republicans seem to be from the Philly area and the blue collar Dems for the most part are from Western PA and some of Central PA.

22, Male, Democrat, PA-18.

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by: Daylin Bradley-Byak @ Mon Aug 23, 2010 at 03:48:36 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Wow

that sorta reminds me of what's going on here in California with Schwarzenegger. These last few years how the budget is decided upon turns into a freak show itself. The 2/3rds requirement to pass a budget really makes a difficult task even harder. Schwarzenegger doesn't really have any political capital anymore with either party.  

19, Male, Independent, CA-12

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by: ehstronghold @ Mon Aug 23, 2010 at 03:23:36 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Breaking down the issues

To break down the problem for outsiders:

1)  Rendell is to the right of most Democrats in Pennsylvania on many economic issues.  Rendell has always been a big business DLC Democrat.  He was to the right of his party in Philadelphia and has been to the right of most Democrats in the legislature whom are very left wing on economic issues.

In addition, Rendell is to the left of most Democrats in Pennsylvania on many social issues.  This only fuels the disdain for him with many Democrats.  Basically it means he is called out of touch by many Democrats especially in the west.  I have heard many Democrats in western PA call Rendell a closet Republican, which most Republicans would disagree with.

2)  The Republicans in the State Senate are pretty moderate.  Rendell has relied heavily on them over the last 8 years.  Most of his budgets have passed with most Republicans voting for them and a few southeastern Democrats supporting them.

3)  The State House has really become a freak show.  The House Democrats are quite possibly the most corrupt legislative caucus in the country and really are broken into three factions that are at war with each other as much as the Republicans.  The House Republicans have largely been purged of their most corrupt elements and seem to be more functional these days.  The infighting has actually dropped even though the iron fist of indicted former Speaker Perzel is gone.

23, male, center-right cynical Republican, PA-7

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by: Ryan_in_DelCo @ Mon Aug 23, 2010 at 04:43:09 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

That's a very good assessment regarding the Governor

To someone that dosen't live in PA.

Regarding the GOP State Senators, I can agree that alot of them are moderate (espically the ones from Eastern PA) I mean before losing in the primary to John Erichlerberger, Senate Pro Tem Bob Juberlier was pro-choice, something that caused him being voted out of office as his district comprised of very conservative areas of Central PA like Blair County.

But to say the GOP has clean up their shit in the House is beyond laughable. There just as bad as the Democrats in the House and they had had their share of corruption as well.

22, Male, Democrat, PA-18.

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by: Daylin Bradley-Byak @ Mon Aug 23, 2010 at 04:52:36 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Plenty of corruption

There is plenty of corruption in the other caucuses, but the House Dems in Pennsylvania seem to take it to another level.

23, male, center-right cynical Republican, PA-7

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by: Ryan_in_DelCo @ Mon Aug 23, 2010 at 12:32:39 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

That will probally stay

Until DeWeese either retires or gets kicked out. I mean it's been four years since he got the boot and people are still talking about Mike Veon.

22, Male, Democrat, PA-18.

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by: Daylin Bradley-Byak @ Mon Aug 23, 2010 at 12:37:23 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

PA House Total Votes

I had some spare time this weekend and threw all the US House results from Pennsylvania from 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008 into a spreadsheet to see what was the total votes each party received statewide for Congress each election.  Here are the results and third party votes are excluded because they do not matter (seats won):

2002
Republican (12): 56.03%
Democratic (7):  42.47%

2004
Republican (12): 49.79%
Democratic (7):  48.62%

2006
Republican (8):  43.18%
Democratic (11): 55.57%

2008
Republican (7):  43.96%
Democratic (12): 55.03%

Based off the PPP numbers and giving the Democrats a 2 to 1 advantage among undecided voters(13% / 3 = 4.3 GOP and 8.6 for Dems, I break down the race as follows:

Republican 48 + 4.3 = 52.3%

Democratic 39 + 8.6 = 47.6%

Based off these numbers, I would estimate the Democrats lose at least four seats (PA-7,PA-11,PA-3,PA-8).

23, male, center-right cynical Republican, PA-7

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by: Ryan_in_DelCo @ Mon Aug 23, 2010 at 03:02:36 AM UTC

That's good number crunching

Honestly. But still I only see us losing PA-7 and 11. PA-3 and 8 will be clse but I expect Dahlkemper and Murphy to hang on.

22, Male, Democrat, PA-18.

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by: Daylin Bradley-Byak @ Mon Aug 23, 2010 at 03:21:40 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

It comes down to strategy

What happens in November in Pennsylvania really depends on strategy and how the top of the ticket does.  Onorato and Sestak need to get the numbers up soon or the Republicans will come and take back the loot that the Democrats took in 2006.  Part of the reason the Republicans lost so many congressional and state house seats in 2006 was that the Democrats basically spent the last few weeks of the campaign using every asset on those races since Governor and Senate were in the bag.  

Onorato's numbers actually are the more troubling.  Seeing the lax Pennsylvania campaign finance laws favor people doing whatever they please with their campaign cash, the Republicans, with their cash advantage, could easily just start shifting assets out of the Governor's race if the numbers remain the same for Corbett and start focusing winning State House and the one State Senate seat that might be in play.

23, male, center-right cynical Republican, PA-7

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by: Ryan_in_DelCo @ Mon Aug 23, 2010 at 04:06:30 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I agree that it comes down strategy

That's how you win. That's what happened to the Dems in '06 they had a decent top ticket in Rendell and Casey and that trickled down to Dems like Patrick Murphy and Jason Altmire.

I don't know how Onorato gets his stuff together because I can't see how he can improve againist Corbett but Sestak what he needs to do to be Toomey is to raise more cash and hit Toomey on TV. If he can do that he'll be OK.

But regarding down ticket races, you do need good candidates to win. In PA-7 I see Meehan beating Lentz because Meehan is a moderate that suits the former GOPers in that area that were push out of the party. Mike Fitzpatrick in PA-8 is a good catch but Pat Murphy is a strong campaigner and can raise money and can beat Fitzpatrick. In PA-3 Dahlkemper is a good moderate for that district and her chsllenger although not a some dude by any means is not top tier and can see Dahlemper winning narrowly. Kanjorski, dosen't even need to be discuss because it dosen't take strategy to beat that guy. The guy should of realized that he be gone last cycle if it weren't for Joe Biden. We didn't get the hint, hence he'll be crushed by Lou Barletta.

22, Male, Democrat, PA-18.

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by: Daylin Bradley-Byak @ Mon Aug 23, 2010 at 04:19:37 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

It would be interesting to see raw vote totals too

PPP's data projects massive absenteeism, rather than people changing their minds from a Dem to a Rep.  I wonder how much the fluctuation was between 2002 and 2006, when the largest partisan change took place.  

I guess there is no solid conclusion to draw from that though, as their is no solid conclusion from the percentage data above since some districts were unopposed at different times (especially in 2002).

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by: tommypaine @ Mon Aug 23, 2010 at 07:18:32 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Data

I am in the process of posting all the data via a Google Spreadsheet.

23, male, center-right cynical Republican, PA-7

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by: Ryan_in_DelCo @ Mon Aug 23, 2010 at 12:34:27 PM UTC

[ Parent ]