Here’s a question for Delaware County Republicans.
Do you have any idea who Tom Smith is? Actually, he’s your newly minted candidate for the U.S. Senate. I don’t know if Mr. Smith is going to Washington, but he is going to be the challenger to incumbent Democrat Sen. Bob Casey Jr.
A lot of years, I would think Casey – even with that sterling statewide name recognition – would have been been vulnerable. But a challenge from Tom Smith? First he has to get people to know who he is. I think we'll see a lot more of the TV ads he used so well in the primary to beat the party’s endorsed candidate, Chester County tech entrepreneur Steve Welch.
Smith, who made millions in the coal biz, isn’t shy about spending his own money. He’ll need to go through a lot of it to mount a serious challenge to Casey.
If I was to go up on Baltimore Pike and start asking people who Tom Smith was, how many do you think would even know his name? That’s his challenge.
But without question Smith is one of the big winners of Primary Day. He overcame the party bosses who threw their weight behind a lightweight candidate.
Welch, who had trouble raising money, did not even come in second. That spot want to maverick state Sen. Sam Rohrer.
But Welch was not the day’s biggest loser.
That ignominious perch is reserved for Gov. Tom Corbett. He’s the one who got behind Welch early and then leaned on the state committee to follow his lead.
They did, right off a cliff.
It’s the latest pothole for the governor, who has not exactly set the world on fire in his first two years in office.
He hasn’t made a lot of people happy, starting with his refusal to put an extraction tax on Marcellus shale, to another brutal budget that included nasty cuts to education and crucial social services. And now he’s in the crosshairs of a lot of people in Upper Darby who are blaming him for cuts that could cost them their music classes.
It’s been a long time since an incumbent governor was not re-elected in Pennsylvania. Corbett just might put that streak to the test.
He’s the one with egg all over his face this morning after his imprimatur on the Welch candidacy blew up in his face.
Welch did manage to win here in Delaware County, as well as next door on his home turf in Chester County, but was thumped in the rest of the Philadelphia region.
The fact that Corbett’s backing could not deliver the crucial Southeastern region does not bode well in what is expected to be a very close presidential race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.
There have been some fissures in the legendary Delaware County GOP rule, most notably the fact that the county has backed Democrats now in presidential races going back to the elder George Bush.
Yesterday’s showing by the governor’s guy in the U.S. Senate race is not likely to ease the party’s concerns.
Tom Terrific? For Smith, absolutely. For Corbett, not so much.
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