Yes, political junkies, there’s a candidate out there who no one’s talking about. His name is Joe VodVarka. He lives in McKees Rocks in Allegheny County, and owns a small business making springs for, among other customers, weapons manufacturers. And even though we hadn’t heard about him until recently, he actually filed a statement of organization all the way back in September. He’s raised about $5,000, according to campaign finance data, all of which he said came from his Social Security payments. His wife and son are handling most of the leg-work of managing the campaign, while he seeks the needed signatures to get on the May primary ballot.

“I’m trying to get on the ballot with Social Security checks,” Vodvarka told pa2010.com. “I don’t think anyone’s ever done that.”

Vodvarka said fair trade is an important part of his platform, though he emphasized that doesn’t mean “protectionism.”

“Fair trade is a level playing field where everybody can compete,” he said.

He also wants a year-long suspension of the payroll tax for small businesses.

“The only way we’re going to bring America back is with small businesses,” he said.

Meanwhile, a Republican underdog is going another route. Larry Murphy, who made waves on the blogosphere last April when he was described by pa2010.com as a “Republican who’s not afraid of [Rush] Limbaugh,” says he’s decided to run as a Libertarian candidate instead. We were curious about Murphy when we noticed his Web site wasn’t working anymore. He said the domain name expired, but the site will soon be back up. Despite the daunting challenge of getting on the ballot as a third-party candidate, Murphy said he’s staying in the race.

“The Republicans have become the Party of No, and a party against open primaries,” he said.

Murphy estimated he’ll need more than 10,000 signatures to get on the November ballot.

Another Republican underdog whose Web site has recently gone dead, former Chester County police officer Robert Townsend, did not return a call last week.

But even after all that’s happened on a national level, politics in the Keystone State in many ways remains a white male sport. This dynamic is on starkest display in the coming top-ballot elections, where the lack of women and blacks for the office is striking. As of female candidates or candidates of any color have signaled an intention to run for Governor. Peg Luksik, who lacks a Y chromosome, and Larry Murphy, who is black, are both running in the Republican Senate primary. But neither is considered politically viable.

“There’s always been a dearth of women and African-Americans running statewide and what happens in the future remains to be seen,” G. Terry Madonna, a political scientist at Franklin & Marshall College.

Pennsylvania was 45th in the proportion of women state legislators last year at 14.6 percent, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Of 253 combined seats in the state House and state Senate, only 37 were held by women. Only 8 percent of the seats in Harrisburg are held by blacks this year, according to the NCSL, but relative to other states that puts Pennsylvania in the middle of the pack.

“We have to make a better effort to get candidates to run,” said Stanley Lawson, Harrisburg president of the NAACP. “I don’t think we can depend on any particular party to do it, we have to do it on our own. We have to encourage each other to stand up.”

Madonna attributed the lack of black candidates in statewide races partly to geography.

“The African-American population is highly geographically located in certain regions of the state,” Madonna said.

In those regions, especially Philadelphia, black political structures have indeed thrived. And statewide, there have been attempts to break through the racial barrier, most recently Lynn Swann’s GOP run for governor in 2006. [See sidebar.]

But mostly, Lawson said, “we’re a state of disgrace.”

Women have their own challenges breaking into big-time politics, namely the basic societal constructs of family and gender, said Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, who briefly represented suburban Philadelphia’s 13th Congressional District during the Clinton administration.

“In the voting booth, most people are still more comfortable voting for a white male,” she said in an interview.

Nonetheless, her advice to women considering public office was blunt.

“Go for it,” she said.

Bonita Hoke, executive director of the Pennsylvania League of Women Voters, said the state has made gradual progress in increasing female representation in politics.

“It’s coming along, but it’s got a ways to go,” she said.

Luksik, the Senate candidate, had a simple explanation for the lack of female candidates.

“The short answer is I guess I’m the only one insane enough to do it,” she said.

“I’m running,” she told pa2010.com recently, before Toomey had entered the race. “If [Toomey] wants to get in on top of me and split the vote, I guess he’ll have to answer for why he wants to do that.”

Scattered reports and political chatter have made it clear Luksik wasn’t happy with Toomey’s decision to run. When he was still leaning toward a gubernatorial run, he was said to have told her she could take on incumbent Senator Arlen Specter herself.

Now, conservatives are nervously grinding their teeth, hoping Luksik will move over to avoid splitting the opposition vote in Specter’s favor.

Lowman Henry, who chairs the Harrisburg conservative think tank The Lincoln Institute, said Luksik, known mostly as a pro-life activist, would only garner 2-3 percent of the vote, and would have to decide if that was worth taking votes from Toomey in what is expected to be a tight contest.

“She’s going to just have to take whatever time she needs to sort through this,” Henry said. “I’ve cautioned people not to get too worried about it. I’m hopeful she’ll realize this isn’t going to work out, but she needs to come to that conclusion on her own.”

Luksik says no such revelation is coming, and that she’s the candidate who can win next November.

“I understand Mr. Toomey and Mr. Specter have a long, contentious history,” she said. “I understand their desire to hit each other—I have five boys. But we need to look past that desire.”

G. Terry Madonna, a pollster and political scientist at Franklin & Marshall College, said having both Toomey and Luksik in the race would undoubtedly be a boon for Specter.

“That’s a dream come true for Specter,” he said, “as opposed to facing one conservative that everybody rallies around.”

“Rush Limbaugh is a racist, he’s a cancer to the Republican Party and he should be excised,” Murphy said recently.

Those aren’t unusual sentiments. But what is unusual is hearing them from a Republican candidate for office. Republicans far and wide have been prostrating themselves before Limbaugh in recent months, who has been effective at leveraging his massive conservative audience into allegiance from elected officials in the party. But Murphy, an underdog Republican candidate for Senate, says Limbaugh can’t be the voice of the party.

“My opponents are afraid to say that,” Murphy, told pa2010.com recently.

He’s got a point. Incumbent Senator Arlen Specter, working hard to court the party’s conservative base ahead of a grueling primary next year, recently said of Limbaugh: “I like him.”

Murphy, by far the least known of the four Republican Senate candidates, has such a low profile that it’s unlikely he’ll get caught up in the apologize-to-Rush game that has snagged his more prominent colleagues in recent months. But he’s also clearly hoping his stance against Limbaugh will bolster his credentials as a more independent Republican.

“People like Rush and [radio host] Laura Ingraham, they’re really destroying our party, and we need to wake up and see that,” Murphy said, adding that his would be a “different kind of Republican candidacy.”

“It’s not going to mean-hearted, it’s not going to be sound bites,” he said.

Former Congressman Pat Toomey and conservative activist Peg Luksik are also running against Specter in next year’s primary.

Republican Senate candidate Larry Murphy