Nevertheless, many of us hoped that in a state with 1.2 million more registered Democrats than Republicans, voters would remember that given our choices, Democrats have done more for the state than have Republicans. 

 The ad campaigns for the senatorial and gubernatorial candidates signaled the message problems. The only ads from the Sestak campaign were attacks on Toomey. Voters seeking information on what Sestak was going to do–albeit in a sound bite–couldn’t find it in one of his ads. Conversely, Toomey gave succinct descriptions of his plans for economic growth and fiscal responsibility, his main focus.

Democrat Dan Onorato’s ads put him in a kitchen, not an office, with a Sesame Street placard with his name on it, which he explained how to pronounce, while Tom Corbett promoted his work as attorney general, prosecuting corruption on both sides of the aisle.

 Is it any wonder the Democrats lost? 

 This state isn’t called Pennsyltucky for nothing–the blue tips of Philadelphia and, before this election, Pittsburgh, are not always enough to override the fact that in the center of the state lies rural Alabama, circa 1950. On election night, the red spread.
  

All but three of 69 counties went red.

So what does this mean for those of us still hanging on to the remaining blue tip?

Nothing good.
 

To Harrisburg, Philadelphia has always been the unwanted stepchild. As the poorest of the ten largest cities in America, Philadelphia has issues that Harrisburg would prefer to ignore because our issues cost money. Since both Corbett and Toomey have made fiscal responsibility a primary focus of their candidacies, expect the purse strings on Philadelphia’s needs to pull shut–tight.

Corbett says he wants to keep the always problematic state budget under control, wants to end wasteful spending, cut the legislature and create more jobs to keep the brain drain under control so that young Pennsylvanians don’t seek jobs in other states. How both cutbacks and job creation will impact the city remains to be seen.

 Worrisome, however, is Corbett’s relationship to the biggest business the state may ever see: plumbing of the Marcellus Shale and the multi-billion dollar natural gas bonanza that lies imbedded within.

 To be fair, no one has addressed the Marcellus Shale questions well. But Corbett thinks a severance tax would impede business in the state and hurt competition with other states engaging in natural gas drilling. Yet the money that would accrue to the state from even a base five percent tax–which most legislators agree is reasonable–would be monumental.

 This signal question bodes ill for the entire state–and any money issues will impact Philadelphia hardest. As Mayor Nutter has made clear since the recession hit the city full force, there are no more places to cut and the city needs state help.

Also problematic:  Corbett has been a signatory to the Republican efforts to dismantle the health care reform bill. With a significant percentage of Philadelphians impacted by some of the stipulations of the bill, such as abolishing prohibitions against pre-existing conditions and keeping children on parents’ health insurance through age 26, efforts by Corbett to eviscerate the reform could mean trouble for many Philadelphians, especially given the poverty demographic.

In his six years as a congressperson from 1999 to 2005, Toomey was a strict fiscal conservative, leading the fight to end earmarks and refusing to sign onto any.  He was also a proponent of accessing America’s oil reserves. No doubt, Toomey will support Corbett’s stance on no severance tax. In addition, Toomey wants to roll back other taxes that would bring significant revenue to the state.

The new Republican majority impacts Philadelphia in other ways, too. It means a shift in who heads what committees in the House and likely the Senate as well, like the Appropriations Committee where Arlen Specter–one of the most powerful Democrats in the Congress–was a fixture.

 So although Sen. Bob Casey will now be the senior senator from Pennsylvania, he’s still a junior in the senatorial panoply. Plus, he’s up for re-election in 2012. And with a weak record in the Senate and his inability to secure the 2008 Democratic primary for Barack Obama (the state went to Hillary Clinton by ten points), Casey hasn’t made much of a name for himself within the party elite, which means the next two years are critical for him in the Senate where he will be dogged by Toomey, a rising star in the Republican Party.

 The impact of last week’s election leads directly to the 2012 presidential bid. Most pollsters agree that without Pennsylvania, Obama could not win in 2012–and with a Republican governor, Republicans now in 12 House seats as well as Toomey’s Senate seat—that prospect becomes all the more grim. The only Democratic president to win a second term since FDR was Bill Clinton–the others were all one-term presidents.
Of course Toomey could turn out to be as lackluster and ineffectual a senator as Casey has been, but that seems unlikely given his previous record in the House. 
 

Corbett, who won the governor’s seat largely on the basis of his work as Attorney General, has hardly been a slacker. His talking points were many and focused and even a quick glance at his website shows a long list of concerns Corbett has with creating change in Pennsylvania.
 

So the post-election hand-wringing is hardly without merit. Pennsylvania is going to facing a great deal of change come January. The question is, how welcome will it be? 
    

In the Republican race there are two candidates: State Attorney General Tom Corbett, who is polling at 58 percent and State Rep. Sam Rohrer, polling at 7 percent.

In the Democratic race there are four candidates: Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato, Montgomery County Commissioner and former U.S. Representative Joe Hoeffel, Auditor General Jack Wagner and State Rep. Anthony Williams. 

 The most recent polls put Onorato in the lead with 20 percent, Hoeffel with 15 percent, Wagner with 13 percent and Williams with five percent.

 There are 4.5 million registered Democrats in Pennsylvania (51.2 percent), 3.3 million registered Republicans (37 percent) and 1.1 million (11.8 percent) voters registered with other party affiliations, such as the Green, Libertarian and Socialist parties or simply as Independents. 
 

Philadelphia and Allegheny counties are both Democratic strongholds (Philadelphia: 75 percent Democrat, Allegheny: 60 percent Democrat), while the central and northern parts of the state, often referred to as the “Pennsyltucky” portion of the state, are very conservative and vote almost exclusively Republican.

 The highly concentrated and populous counties of the Philadelphia suburbs–Chester, Montgomery, Delaware and Bucks–have been traditional Republican strongholds. In the past several national elections, however, many of these suburban areas have been trending independent or Democrat.

 A key factor in the gubernatorial (and Senate) race, though, will be the usual wild card of Pennsylvania politics: The Pennsltuckians tend to vote more regularly than do Philadelphians. Which may be why in every poll taken, Tom Corbett beats any Democrat by a commanding 20 percent.

 One of the issues for Philadelphians with regard to gubernatorial races is the hate-hate relationship Harrisburg has with Philly. For generations the attitude of Harrisburg toward the state’s most populous urban center has been extremely negative. Therefore it is not a Philadelphian’s political paranoia to presume that after eight years with a Democratic governor from Philadelphia, the rest of the state might rebel and vote Republican just to take back the office.
 Rendell has spent much of his eight years in Harrisburg fighting with the Republican-led and utterly controlled State legislature–never more definingly than during last summer’s three-month budget impasse which devastated Philadelphia social service agencies.

 For Pennsylvania progressives, Hoeffel is the clear and really only choice, but with the top three Democrats so close in the polls, the vote will likely come down to region and ad money–Onorato has Allegheny county sewn up and he also has the most money in the election till. Williams has local support (and for all the wrong patronage implied reasons), but is the weakest of the four candidates. 
 

Without a solid Democratic contender, Tom Corbett will likely win come November. And Republican governors have not been good for Philadelphia. Thus how–and how many–Philadelphians vote May 18 is pivotal to the November election.
 

Until recently, Corbett seemed innocuous enough. Unlike fellow Republican candidate Sam Rohrer, who is running mostly on an anti-abortion, anti-gay platform, Corbett has projected a “moderate” Republican image. He supports the death penalty for capital cases. He’s been strong on statewide corruption and secured a personal victory at the end of March with the conviction of former Democratic House Leader Mike Veon.
 But then Corbett went Tea Party and signed onto lawsuits being filed by 21 other states calling the new national health care reform bill unconstitutional. With that move–in a state with the one of the top ten poorest big cities in the country and the second largest percentage of people over 60–Corbett took a giant step to the extreme right, which sets him as far off the political grid as Rohrer. 
 Among the Democrats, Joe Hoeffel is by far the most progressive–he is the only Democrat running who is pro-choice and supports same-sex marriage. His platform is solid on jobs, health care, education, the environment (the Marcellus Shale drilling will be a pivotal environmental issue in PA in the next two years), affordable housing and the elderly. He is also the only Democratic candidate who understands Washington, which is essential for PA’s governor. Ed Rendell is a Washington insider and it has definitely helped Pennsylvania.

 Jack Wagner is the most conservative entrant, with a platform that looks a lot like Sam Rohrer’s, which for a Democrat is not good. Dan Onorato and Anthony Williams have conservative problems as well, and Williams has some seriously bewildering views on education that have made my hair stand on end. (Someone needs to educate gubernatorial candidates about education. School vouchers are an extremist Republican idea that have garnered traction among conservative Democrats for reasons that are pretty inexplicable.) School vouchers equal two things: segregation and bad education. Williams is focusing a lot of his attention on vouchers. Which tells me he knows nothing about the educational needs of either Philadelphia or the state.

 Dan Onorato is not the worst candidate we could end up with of the four contenders, but as an Allegheny county standard bearer, his concern for Philadelphia would be slim and none. He has a good record with regard to jobs, housing and education, but on social issues–and this would impact Philadelphia–he is highly conservative.
 Getting out the vote come May 18 is pivotal for all Pennsylvanians. Even though he’s from Montgomery county, of all the candidates in either party, Hoeffle has the most to offer Philadelphians. Each candidate has a website, however, so be sure to go to the polls informed about your candidate before you press those buttons.