PARTIES LOOK TO '08 WITH AN EYE ON '07

Pennsyltucky Politics
By Brett Lieberman

Last week's elections didn't produce the pitchfork rebellion some predicted
would shake the foundations of Pennsylvania politics again, much the way it
led to the turnover in the General Assembly and Congress last year.

Looking ahead to 2008, the Election Day results paint a potentially ominous
picture for Republicans trying to compete in Pennsylvania, according to GOP
lawmakers, consultants and Democrats.

Democrats have reasons to be encouraged, most notably by capturing both open
seats on the state Supreme court, but they also fell short in some key
races.

"While I don't think it was a Democratic revolution, there are important
hints that the national picture played a role in the outcome of Tuesday's
elections in some places," said G. Terry Madonna, a political analyst at
Franklin & Marshall College.

"It continues to show a political environment favorable to Democrats."

Republicans held on to the Philadelphia suburbs, thwarting Democrats' hopes
of cracking that firewall of moderate Republicans in Bucks, Montgomery,
Delaware and Chester counties that has proved so critical for statewide GOP
candidates. Republicans won two of three vacant Superior Court seats and
picked up the Berks County courthouse.

State GOP Chairman Robert Gleason Jr. said those victories "show that the
Republican Party is back!"

Nonetheless, Democrats won the two Supreme Court seats, one seat on the
Superior Court and 13 county courthouses. They won the commissioners' race
in Schuylkill County, they also picked up several row offices there as well
as other counties.

"They got schlumped," Gov. Ed Rendell said of the GOP. "No doubt about it
... it was a major schlumping."

Democrats continue to surge in the state despite falling short of their goal
of winning some of the suburban Philadelphia counties, said Rendell.

While falling short in Montgomery County, the results were razor thin. The
difference between GOP Commissioner Jim Matthews' re-election and Democrat
Ruth Damsker's defeat was about 6,000 votes out of nearly 315,000 votes
cast.

The race was closer than might have been imaginable a decade ago in a
notoriously Republican area. Republican Bruce Castor received 27 percent of
the vote, Democrat Joe Hoeffel had 25.05 percent, Matthews followed with
24.94 and Damsker finished with 23 percent.

"It won't be long before Democrats win those elections," the governor
predicted in his own election spin. "We're just starting to dominate
statewide elections."

The additional courthouses bode well for Democrats and likely will prove
helpful for the 2008 elections, but many Republicans and independent
analysts said Rendell's gloating may be premature.

State Sen. John Eichelberger, R-Blair, was dismayed by his party's showing.

"The Republican Party lost more courthouses and did not do well in the
Supreme Court race," said Eichelberger.

Despite calls for change, the GOP leadership has not evolved, said
Eichelberger, adding that the party continues to be a top-down run
organization that hasn't embraced reform. He cited commercials that featured
former Gov. Tom Ridge and Attorney General Tom Corbett asking voters to
support the GOP ticket.

"People do not care to see these same people out there telling them how to
vote .. it is the same thing happening in Washington with congressional
races," he said.

"The Republican Party has work to do at giving people a reason to campaign
at the precinct levels," said GOP consultant Jeff Coleman of Hershey.

"A lot of these campaigns come down to the strength of the precinct
campaigns and campaigning door-to-door, what we don't have right now is a
reason for rank-and-file republicans to get involved," he said.

To be successful, Coleman predicts, candidates or parties will have to move
beyond proposals to reform the process in Harrisburg or Washington and
develop an overarching agenda that offer solutions to problems including
health care or revitalizing downtowns that affect real people's lives.

"Those are substantive things that go far beyond the process," he said.

The presidential nominees could dramatically alter the landscape for next
year's General Assembly, and congressional and state row office elections
with many Republicans and Democrats agreeing that Pennsylvania will be
competitive if former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is the GOP nominee.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday shows U.S. Sen. Hillary
Clinton, D-N.Y., in a statistical dead heat in the state.