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Edited on Wed Apr-21-04 10:55 AM by happyslug
South Western Rural Pennsylvania has been Democratic since the Days of President Jackson. Now the City of Pittsburgh was a Republican hotbed but only from the Civil War till 1920(When even the City turned Democratic, removing our last GOP mayor in 1928 and last GOP Councilmen in 1934).
Now the Suburbs can be Republican, but even the Older suburbs are more Democratic than Republican (For Example Mt Lebanon Township), it is only the highest income suburbs that are solidly Republican (Upper St Clair for example).
When the Democrats gets the base aroused, we tend to drive every Republican from the few County Offices they hold (and the GOP only wins in the County when the Democratic base is NOT aroused AND the GOP divides the Democrats against each other). When the GOP wins it is always a close race and than with a lot of money and some divisive issue.
For example when Allegheny County elected its first GOP majority to be county Commissioners since the Great Depression, it was because the Democrats had had coup replacing its old time Commissioners with some young Turks. The problem with the Young Turks was they made a statement that they could win without the help of anyone. The GOP exploited this in the Black community by saying the Democrats said they could win without Black support. This technique worked, the blacks with voted GOP or did not vote and the GOP barely won election.)
The same in the next election, the County had dropped the County Commission form of Government and had adopted a County Executive with Council form of Government. In that first election for County Executive the GOP kept hammering home the Democratic Candidate (Cyril Wrecht) having been found to have "Defrauded" the county. The "Fraud" was technical in nature, Wrecht was the County Coroner and as such had done work for other County Coroners in his office. The proceeds went back into the County Corner's office. This was found to be "Fraud" under Pennsylvania law for the money should have gone to the Commissioners not to the Coroner who did the work. No one ever accused Wrecht of being a crook, but he had to pay back the $330,000 he received and gave to the Coroner's office but this time to the County. The GOP kept saying how "Fraudulent" this was instead of this being a technical fraud, emphasized the "Fraud" part of the charge (This was a civil action not a Criminal Action, no criminal intent was even suggested on the part of Wrecht but that did not stop the GOP from attacking him for being a "criminal"). In addition to that problem Wrecht had another problem, while a good vote getter in Allegheny County, he has one of the highest "dislike" factor in Allegheny County, which the GOP used against him to get they man in. In the subsequent election when the Democrats ran a "regular" politician against the GOP incumbent, the GOP lost. The Divide and Conquer could not work for the Politician had no serious negatives for the the GOP to exploit.
Thus in Western Pennsylvania we tend to vote Democratic, and when out base is up we get the Vote out. We are also provincial, we tend to vote for people who live near us, thus Sanatorium's support in Western Pennsylvania for Sanatorium keeps saying he is a "native" Western Pennsylvanian when he is an import from the East, which I wish would take him back.
This leads to my concern with the Democratic Candidate for Senate, he is unknown in the West and viewed as being from "Philadelphia" (and by Western Pa definition that is everything east of Blue Mountain i.e Harrisburg and east). We prefer Candidates from the West, second choice is the Mountains (including Scranton), Philadelphia is our third choice. Randall only won last year for the GOP just gave up on this state. I do not know why they was NO support for Mike Fisher's campaign, could it be the GOP did NOT want the Governor's office do to the existing and upcoming economic problems??? That is how Shapp became Governor in 1970, the GOP did not want to address the Economic problems of the state and left a Montgomery County Democrat win the Office so he could take the heat for imposing an Income Tax (Which he pushed through twice, for his first one was declared invalid under the State Constitution).
I Believe the same thing happened with Randall's election, the GOP wanted Randall to raise the Income Tax so the GOP could run on the platform it always cut the Income tax rate, while the Democrats not only imposed it, but the only party to increase the income tax rate (I have also heard a Rumor that Mike Fisher as attorney General has just looked into the death of Robert Duggan. Robert Duggan was the Brother in law of Mellon Scaife and died in a hunting accident with Mellon Scaife in 1970. Robert Duggan died just before Duggan was to be indicted for accepting bribes as Allegheny's County's District Attorney. That may explain the lack of support for Mike Fisher, you can not run a campaign if the chief GOP pay master refuses to pay.)
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