Tom Corbett desperately needed a break. This week he just might have gotten one. Actually, he got two.
Saying the Republican Corbett has had a rough go of it in his first two years in the governor's mansion is a little like saying the Titanic encountered some turbulence on its maiden voyage.
Corbett's poll ratings are in the toilet. There are now reports of discord among top staff, who continue to flee just as quickly as folks tried to get off the Titanic. Even the one program he is hanging his hat on, busting up state control of the sale of alcohol and turning it over to private enterpise, which once seemed certain, is now showing eroding support with voters.
So it's most unlikely that the drowning Corbett would be thrown a lifeline this week by two Democrats.
Joe Sestak was first to offer the governor a hand. The Delco Democrat, who just about everybody figured was running for something - we just didn't know what - made up his mind. He's not going to join the rush of Democrats looking to challenge Corbett. That's a big break for the governor. Sestak was probably the most visible Democrat, with a wider statewide presence than either Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz or state Treasurer Rob McCord.
Sestak basically has never stopped criss-crossing the state since he lost that U.S. Senate race to Republican Pat Toomey. He's seen more VFW and Legion halls than the rest of the Democratic field combined. Sestak is going to take another whack at the incumbent Toomey. If he gets the Dem nod, and there's no reason to think he won't, it will mark the first time in Pa. history that there has been a rematch in a race for U.S. Senate.
There's another streak on the line in the upcoming governor's race. This state likes incumbents. It hasn't rejected a sitting governor who runs for re-election. That's as in not ever. We usually send a Republican to Harrisburg for eight years, then a Democrat for eight years, and then flip back again.
Score one for Corbett. It also appears he won't be looking at a challenge from inside his own party. Maverick Republican Montgomery County Commissioner Bruce Castor has decided not to run.
But Corbett's biggest benefactor comes from a most unlikely place. The governor may wind up owing a huge thank-you to President Obama. The gubernatorial election comes at the presidential mid-term in November 2014. The country is likely to be aflame with anti-Obama rhetoric, what with Obama battling a trifecta of scandals in D.C. That does not bode well for Democrats in 2014.
The president doesn't have enough hoses to put out the flames from the Benghazi affair, news that the IRS has a penchant for playing hardball with folks and groups whose politics it doesn't like, and the Justice Department deciding to snoop into the phone records of reporters at the Associated Press.
Make no mistake, Corbett is still vulnerable. But there's a long way to go before the gubernatorial vote a year from this coming November.
The tide just may be starting to change for Corbett.
The governor will be speaking a commencement exercises at Villanova Law School today. If he's smiling, you'll know why.
Before he speaks the the graduates, he might want two Democrats who helped him out this week.
Thanks, Joe. Thanks, Mr. President.
Comments