The official part of the program, organized locally by Keystone Progress, started right around noon. State Rep. Eugene DePasquale (D-York) pulled no punches against Republicans while addressing the crowd. He called the actions of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and the GOP majority in the state house an attempt to undermine the Democratic Party.

He also went after those who “believe that it is best to concentrate the wealth among the nation’s top two percent.”

“It’s an assault on the middle class,” he added.

Wisconsin’s Budget Repair Bill would strip most of the public service union’s right to collectively
bargain, force members to reauthorize the unions every year and end automatic deduction of union dues from paychecks. The bill passed the state House early Friday morning, but state Senate Democrats have fled to Illinois to deny the chamber a quorum needed to pass the bill.

Unions and liberal groups accuse Walker and his allies in the state legislature of using the state’s budget
deficit to break the public unions through those provisions. The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein adds that a series of tax breaks and not the unions are largely to blame for that state’s budget situation.

The Pittsburgh Post Gazette reported last week that Pennsylvania’s public sector unions are not expecting a repeat of the Wisconsin fight here. Instead, they are gearing up for a string of smaller battles including privatizing liquor stores and public transit systems as well as renewed talk of school tuition vouchers. The paper also noted that the contracts for 17 of the state’s 19 unions expire this year.

DePasquale said that, in the past, unions have not necessarily been unified on many issues.

“Hopefully this is a wake-up call for all of us,” he said. The crowd replied with chants of “We are one.”

Keystone Progress board chair Eileen Connolly, indirectly addressing a counter protest of maybe four
dozen people across Third Street, said that the unions’ victories are victories for all workers.

“If they can take away from a union member, they can take more from a non-union member,” she said.

The crowd was particularly receptive to 92 year old Marge Holitick who was a union member in
Wisconsin. The unions, she said, allowed workers to fight back against management and win decent pay
and safe working conditions.

“We knew the union had our best interests at heart,” she said.

Michelle Heh, a school teacher in the Cumberland Valley School District, recalled her days working in

Nevada, “a right to work for less state.” She said teachers often had upwards of 40 students in a class and the teachers had to buy pencils for the students. She does not want to go back to “collective begging.”

Nathan Sooy, representing Clean Water Action tied the attacks on labor to the attacks on the environment, pointing out that it is often the same people fighting against unions and against regulations to protect the environment. He said that Gov. Tom Corbett took nearly $1 million from the companies drilling in the Marcellus Shale during his campaign.

“This is the same Tom Corbett who said he will sign right to work legislation if it gets to his desk,” Sooy
said.

The counter-protesters across the street largely dispersed as the rally on the steps wound down, but two men stayed for a while and talked about their opposition to the rally. Earlier one of the speakers on the union side chided the counter-protesters for standing next to a historical marker honoring public sector unionism in the state.

Jim Delinger of Ephrata held an American Flag and a Gadsden Flag as he chatted with another man who
declined to give his name for an interview. Delinger said that unions “have a history of bankrupting
companies” with demands for every higher wages and benefits. The result, he noted, is large volumes of
imported goods. The two men agreed that higher tariffs could be part of the answer.

The man who wished to remain anonymous most directly opposes public sector unions, but was not
particularly opposed to private sector unionization. He noted that wages for local government employees and teachers largely come from property taxes. If Pennsylvanians don’t pay property taxes, they lose their homes, he pointed out. He also discussed school boards who ultimately make personnel decisions – and typically assess the most in property taxes – saying that school boards can increase taxes to pay employees more any time.

“We’ll pay a fair wage,” he said. “But it’s got to end somewhere.”

- Chris McGann

With 99.30 percent of Pennsylvania precincts reporting at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, Toomey led 1,991,351 to 1,915,113, a margin of 51.0 to 49.0 percent. Sestak, known for closing strong, did narrow the gap in polling in those last few weeks, but fell just short of victory.

Sestak did have an early lead when following reporting from the Democratic bases of Philadelphia and Allegheny County. In the critical suburban Philadelphia counties, Sestak won Montgomery and Delaware counties, while Toomey took Bucks and Chester counties. Toomey narrowed the gap in votes steadily throughout the night as the rural parts of the state reported and took the lead around 11 p.m.

The bad news for Sestak is that Toomey’s margin of victory will probably be too large to trigger an automatic recount. Earlier this year, Gov. Ed Rendell signed a law that triggers a mandatory recount for an election decided by 0.5 percent.

In the governor’s race, state Attorney General Tom Corbett (R) defeated Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato (D). With 98.28 percent reporting, Corbet led 2,088,700 to 1,756,891 votes and 54.3 percent to 45.7 percent. Bucks County Commissioner Jim Cawley will be the Lieutenant governor. He will replace Joe Scarnati (R), the state Senate Pro Tem representing the 25^th district, who assumed the position after Catherine Baker Knoll passed away in 2008.

The party switch from Democrat Ed Rendell continues a Keystone State tradition dating back to the 1950s of electing a governor from the opposite party every eight years.

In the U.S. House seats, Pennsylvania Republicans added to the national GOP’s new majority in Congress. In all, the Democrats lost five seats in Pennsylvania to exactly flip the balance of power in the commonwealth’s delegation. According to the nearly final tallies, Republicans will hold 12 seats to the Democrats’ seven. Currently, Democrats hold 12 seats to the GOP’s seven. Incumbent Democrats Paul Kanjorski, Chris Carney, Kathy Dahlkemper and Patrick Murphy all lost and Patrick Meehan (R) beat Bryan Lentz to fill Seskak’s House seat representing the 7^th district.

The Murphy-Michael Fitzpatrick race that we discussed Monday may end up being a non-issue. At issue are about 8,000 absentee votes with Republicans alleging voter fraud and Democrats alleging voter suppression. However, with nearly all of the districts reporting, Fitzpatrick led by almost 27,000 votes.

Will Barack Obama’s properties from 2008 (Twitter, Facebook friends, email list) impact the 2010 midterm race?

update: 4:18 FWIW …

FLOTUS apparently travels with a fashion
assistant, who was originally from Chicago. The assistant forgot the make
up case on the plane and had to run back and get it.

Update: 3:14

Media Watching: Sestak leads Toomey by +4 since 8am. Data is defined by combining and weighing blog, web, & other internet posts. #paelect We’ve been watching our alerts and research for 2 weeks steady. Up until today, the media listening stream has favored Pat Toomey (R).

Update: 2:51

I need to respond to Ben Smith’s story on Politico yesterday. He has a
picture of one campaign brochure that features Joe Sestak less
prominently than Dan Onorato. From this one campaign leaflet, he jumps
to the erroneous conclusion that Sestak is not loved by the Democratic
party.
As someone who has stopped by almost daily the Philadelphia office of
Organizing for America, Obama’s get the vote operation, I can tell you
that the Democratic Party is working v just as hard to elect Sestak to
the Senate as they are to elect Onorato as Governor. Every one of the
thousands phone calls made there every day mentions both candidates.
In addition, I have seen all types of configurations on the campaign
literature and some favor Sestak. Each is designed with a target
audience in mind.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1010/Also_Sestak.html?showall
–
Laura Goldman

————————————————————————————————————–

Update: 1:13 pm

We are using Twitter SEARCH: Twitter ##p2 #tcot #pagov #paelect (We coined #PAelect last year)

@pa2010news Make informed choices in PA. View our archive of the races: Http://YouTube.com/pa2010video Comments? #p2 #tcot #pagov #paelect

We’ve been at it all day so to get the full experience, check in at once at:

… Instant interaction across the political eco-system: http://Twitter.com/pa2010news

… YouTube.com: Campaign video archive – check the facts! – pa2010Video – http://bit.ly/ayQo9Y

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Of course you can email us at press@pa2010.com

We’ll add more to the blog soon.

Benjamin F. Barnett

Publisher

———————-

The candidates running to represent Pennsylvania’s 8^th Congressional District are trading allegations of voter fraud in the closing hours of a closely contested race. A decision by the Bucks County Board of Elections could mean that we might have to wait to learn the results of the race between incumbent Democrat Patrick Murphy and challenger Mike Fitzpatrick.

At issue are at least 8,000 absentee ballots. On Friday, the Republican-controlled elections board voted to sequester the ballots until they can investigate the allegations. If the election is as close as it was in 2006 – Murphy beat Fitzpatrick by 1518 votes – and the polls showing a close race are accurate, then those ballots could swing the election.

The Allentown Morning Call reported Friday that Republicans allege Democrats improperly solicited absentee votes using a misleading mailer. While not illegal, the mailer purported to be from the non-existent Pennsylvania Voter Assistance Office and directed voters to return the application for an absentee ballot in time or lose the ability to vote. The GOP also alleges that canvassers solicited absentee ballots by filling out ballots for people and getting them to sign other family members’ names. The Morning Call reported that the Republican Party is challenging all 270 ballots generated by the mailer.

Murphy and the Democratic Party counter that Republicans are engaging in illegal voter suppression and fraud. The day before the Bucks County Board of Elections meeting, Murphy put out a press release accusing the Fitzpatrick campaign of instructing voters to forge the signatures of students away at college on absentee ballots. The Murphy campaign is also alleging voter suppression because six times as many ballots from Democrats as Republicans have been rejected in Bucks County.

On Monday, Murphy fired the latest salvo, issuing another press release, including a pair of YouTube videos, with statements from 16 voters, including war veterans, claiming that they were victims of voter suppression.

The Board of Elections did vote to extend the deadline to request an absentee ballot from the original date of 5 p.m. Friday to 8 p.m. Election Day. Still, if the margin of victory is small, the 8^th district will likely be in for a recount and possibly litigation over the validity of votes.

Grassroots activists hope Democrats make the cut

Thursday, 28 October 2010 19:44

Written by Eric Mayes Tribune Staff Writer

Barbershops mobilized to reach voters

There is a buzz in Black barbershops and salons across Philadelphia and it’s not the buzz of clippers — its people buzzing about the upcoming election.

“I support my president,” said Mark Lightfoot, the owner of Philadelphia Hair Company in the Germantown section of the city.

His words were music to the ears of Derrick Plummer, director of African-American outreach with the Democratic National Committee.

Lightfoot was one of 1,000 barbershop and salon owners across the nation working with the Democratic Party in an effort to mobilize Black voters.

“Barbershops are a great community resource,” said Plummer, noting that the outreach program was a continuation of a grassroots effort started during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Lightfoot’s shop has 17 barbers and can reach hundreds of potential voters.

Talk in the shop often turns to politics Lightfoot said and he uses the topic to push his customers to register to vote and to go to the polls on Nov. 2.

He also takes the opportunity to talk to his clients about why they should vote Democratic. For him it boils down to a way to support the nation’s first Black president.

“A lot of people don’t know the things that [President Barack Obama] has done,” he said, as he ran the clippers over a customer’s hair. “He has done everything he said he would do.”

The election has many Democrats worried. Historically, the party of the president loses seats in the mid-term election. This year, pundits expect loses to be larger that usual because of widespread voter disaffection with Washington D.C.

“We hope people come out so it won’t be so bad,” Lightfoot said.

In an effort to counterbalance those projections the Democratic Party has strengthened its outreach on behalf of all Democrats.

“It’s not a good look right now,” Lightfoot said of the political situation.

He can’t imagine giving control back to Republicans, the party he said created the situation to begin with.

“It happened once so we know it could happen again,” he said.

Lightfoot acknowledged voter anger but and added that he felt it stemmed largely from a lack of knowledge.

“It’s mainly ignorance,” he said. “I don’t think Democrats are letting be known all the things that have been done.”

Just a block down Germantown Avenue, Michael Sydney, the owner of Eyelashes4U salon, echoed much of what Lightfoot said. His salon has about 20 customers a day and reaches a good mix of young and old who often talk politics.

Sydney’s primary concern is the economy and he doubted Republicans would do anything to help small businesses like his.

“I look at Obama, how he took and put a lot of time in building the economy,” he said. “It’s helping us survive.”

Contrasting that the to the recession that started under the watch of President Bush.

“I lot of small businesses fell because of that,” he said. “The people that’s running Wall Street take the money and do what they want to.”

He felt Democratic candidates like Joe Sestak, who is running for the U.S. Senate, and Dan Onorato, who is running for governor were more sympathetic to his priorities and more willing to listen.

“If it was a situation where we couldn’t be heard that would be a bad situation,” he said.

Sydney said he especially likes Sestak.

“He sees a way to bring back jobs, not just ship them overseas,” Sydney said.

He worried what the future would hold if the Republicans captured too many seats in the House and Senate, and invoked a Biblical scenario right out of the Book of Revelations.

“It’s crazy,” he acknowledged. “But, you can really see things like that.”

Voter turnout is expected to be crucial in the mid-term. Black voters could be a big enough bloc to affect the final outcome.

That is particularly true in Pennsylvania. There are about 1 million more registered Democrats than Republicans.

According to the state Department of State there are about 8.5 million registered voters in Pennsylvania, 4.3 million Democrats compared to 3.1 million Republicans. About 33 percent of the state’s Democrats live in Philadelphia and the five surrounding counties.

African-Americans have traditionally been loyal Democrats. But with disillusionment about politics and Washington DC widespread many could choose to stay home for the mid-term election, which usually sees lower turnout than elections held during presidential years.

Democrats now hold a majority in the U.S. House, where they hold 255 seats and the Senate where they have 57 giving them a comfortable majority in both.

However, they are faced with a number of challengers vying for key seats. If they lose control of the legislature will surely challenge Obama even more fiercely than it has up to now.

The president was under no illusions about the political realities he faced. But, he said, reality mattered more than political reality.

“Frankly, this election is a choice about who is [in Washington] to look out for middle class families and working families,” Obama said in a recent interview.

Sydney and Lightfoot said they were doing all they could to keep that Democratic majority.

“I really think it’s really important that we pick the right people and stand behind them,” Sydney said.

Subject to change; call to confirm

UPDATED 6:00 PM

October 29, 2010 CONTACT Chris Fetterman

412-281-5678

610-554-2346 (cell)Brian Herman

412-281-5678

847-445-3891 (cell)

*** Media Advisory ***

Dan Onorato’s Public Schedule

# # #

October 29, 2010

Contact: Bryan Oberle

(814) 520-8012 Cell (814) 490-3575

media@kathydahlkemperforcongress.com

Congresswoman Dahlkemper’s Election Day Schedule

Erie–U.S. Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper will spend much of Election Day visiting with 3rd District
constituents at polling places, urging them to make sure their voices continue to be heard in
Washington D.C. by voting for her to represent them in Congress.

Dahlkemper is the right choice for western Pennsylvanians on Tuesday, Nov. 2 because she
will protect American jobs, support tax cuts to working families, protect Social Security and
Medicare for seniors, and help small businesses grow. Dahlkemper has worked hard on those
ideals during her first term in Congress.

“I am confident Tuesday that we will bring home a victory for western Pennsylvania by
returning me to Congress for a second term,” Dahlkemper said. “I am looking forward to getting
back to work on helping western Pennsylvania continue its economic recovery and move
forward.”

Congresswoman Dahlkemper will be available for interviews and photos throughout the day
Tuesday, much of which she will spend at polling places. Her detailed Election Day schedule
follows:

• 7 a.m.-7:45 a.m.: St. Joseph Apartments, 517 Maryland Ave., Erie (Congresswoman
Dahlkemper will also vote at this location at this time)
• 8-8:30 a.m.: St. Andrew School Gym, 606 Raspberry St., Erie
• 8:45-9:15 a.m.: Bethel Baptist Church, 1781 W. 38th St., Erie

• 10:45-11:15 a.m.: First Presbyterian Church, 323 Main St., Greenville
• 11:35 a.m.-12:05 p.m.: St. Bartholomew Church Center, 321 W. Ridge Ave., Sharpsville
• 12:15-12:45 p.m.: Diagnostic and Imaging Center, 2435 Garden Way, Hermitage
• 1-1:30 p.m.: Sharon City Building, 155 W. Connelly Blvd., Sharon
• 1:40-2:10 p.m.: Blind Association, 1230 Stambaugh Ave., Sharon
• 3:15-3:45 p.m.: Meadville Senior Center, 1034 Park Ave., Meadville
• 4:15-4:45 p.m.: Edinboro Community Building and Fire Hall, 124 and 125 Meadville St.,
Edinboro

• 6:30-7 p.m.: Joanna Connell School, 1820 W. 38th St., Erie
• 7:15-7:45 p.m.: Holy Trinity Social Center Gym, 650 E. 23rd St., Erie
• 8-11 p.m.: Saga Club, 3828 Washington Ave., Erie (Congresswoman Dahlkemper will watch
election returns with supporters).

Reporters on Tuesday may call Campaign Manager Tina Mengine at (814) 434-9532 for any
updates on the Congresswoman’s schedule.