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More thoughts on Corbett

Very interesting posts by Laura Vecsey and Terry Madonna/Michael Young describing—much more eloquently than I did—some of the problems faced by Tom Corbett in “leveraging” the attorney general position into the governorship, especially after the recent Perzel indictment(s).

I can’t explain it, but I just have a very mixed reaction to Corbett. He seems decent enough, and I suppose that locking people up is pretty much his job. Certainly you can’t accuse him of being too narrowly partisan.

The problem is that locking people up seems to be the only reason to vote for him. It isn’t yet wedded to a broader vision of the state, like with Chris Christie in New Jersey, or of society, like Rudy Giuliani in New York, and others who have made the transition. Sure, people care about corruption—but do they care about it more than jobs, infrastructure, and the perception of a state in decline? If Corbett has clear answers to these questions, they haven’t come across yet.

The race also has to be seen in the context of what is happening in the Republican Party more generally. One way to look at the Tea Parties is that they are a bunch of crazy right-wingers that can’t shoot straight. But another is that they are a genuine revolt against the type of non-ideological, blue-suit candidates that the GOP regularly puts up. Candidates, frankly, a lot like Tom Corbett.

How will he respond to this challenge, and (if he survives) take the battle to the Democrats next November?

November 17, 2009 at 2:25 pm

--Michael Livingston

Tags: Tom Corbett

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