Recently in Dems and Republicans Category

I was just talking to one of my colleagues on the sports desk about the mayoral race in York. He said there didn't seem to be a lot of campaigning, and he wondered if he'd missed it.

He hadn't.

Kim Bracey, the Democratic candidate, is virtually assured of a win. Independent Steven Young is running as a write-in, which is always a long shot under the best of circumstances. And Republican Wendell Banks, frankly, isn't a viable candidate. His big campaign platform is bringing an NFL team to York. And he's been making himself scarce in recent months, when a serious candidate would have been campaigning hard.

Call me a cockeyed optimist, but I genuinely figured that we'd have a new state budget by the time the July 4th weekend was over.

I don't know about you folks, but I'm starting to get a little cold sweat going.

Basically, it comes down to a standoff between the Republicans who dominate the Senate, and Gov. Ed Rendell and his fellow Democrats who dominate the House.

It's interesting, in a queasy kind of way, to speculate about who has the most to lose. On the one hand, the Republicans probably wouldn't mind seeing Rendell get the blame for a budget crisis, in light of next year's gubernatorial race. Whoever ends up as the GOP candidate could argue that things didn't go so well under the last Democratic administration.

On the other hand, it could easily backfire. I gotta hand it to Pennsylvania's Republicans -- they hold their government representatives accountable. The GOP in Harrisburg took a bigger hit than the Democrats in the wake of that pay raise flap a few years back, losing their majority status in the House and barely hanging onto it in the Senate.

Could be that they just can't afford to risk ticking off their base with an extended budget standoff right now.

I guess we'll have to wait and see. Hopefully, we won't have to wait too long. Here's an Associated Press story about it:

HARRISBURG, Pa.--State budget negotiations that include Gov. Ed Rendell are scheduled to resume in Harrisburg, nearly a week after Pennsylvania's fiscal year began without a deal in place.

A spokesman for Rendell said the governor plans to attend a meeting for legislative leaders scheduled to begin late Monday afternoon.

Rendell and his Democratic allies in the General Assembly are pushing for a mixture of spending cuts and new revenue sources, while Republican leaders oppose higher taxes.

There were no signs of progress after two lengthy sessions at the executive residence last week.

The pay of many state workers will be held up, starting on July 17, until there's a resolution.

The national economic downturn led to a revenue shortfall of nearly $3.3 billion for the year that just ended.

These days, you hear a lot about the divisive nature of modern politics. So let me share with you a truly heartwarming instance of bipartisan compassion.

I got an e-mail today from the National Republican Senatorial Committee. They wanted to be sure that I, as a member of the news media, saw the results of a recent poll indicating that a majority of Pennsylvania Democrats want to see Arlen Specter face another candidate in a Democratic primary rather than automatically becoming his new party's pick in the Senate race.

As you no doubt recall, Specter recently changed his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat, thus helping to give the Democrats a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

According to the poll by Susquehanna Polling and Research, 63 percent of the Pennsylvania Democrats polled want to see Specter face a primary opponent, vs. 28 percent who want to see him just get nominated and 32.09 percent who are undecided.

Like I said, this notification came from the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Isn't it awfully swell of them to be so concerned about what their Democratic brethren in Pennsylvania want? Heck, I'm getting all choked up just thinking about it.

State Sen. Jake Corman, R-Centre County, who is chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, was in York County last week to talk about what a great plan Republicans have for the state budget, as opposed to the lousy one Gov. Ed Rendell is backing.

Rendell and the Senate Republicans have to find a compromise they can both live with before July 1, the deadline for a new state budget.

Basically, Rendell is talking about a $29 billion spending plan, while the Republicans are backing a $27.3 billion budget. The difference may seem proportionately small, but keep in mind that the vast majority of spending under the state budget is mandatory.

I started covering state politics the year Rendell, a Democrat, took office. And every year since then, he's feuded with Republicans over the state budget.

This year, however, the feud seems to be happening earlier and more publicly than it did in the past. Corman said that's because the economy will make this a particularly difficult budget year.

While I'm sure that's true, I suspect there's another reason as well.

I always end up doing a double-take at this time of year. OK, in tomorrow's primary, I'm going to vote for ... Wait a second! I'm not voting for anybody. Because I can't.

I'm registered as an independent. That's for professional reasons. When I moved to York, I knew that I'd be covering politics, and I didn't want anybody to be able to accuse me of bias on the basis of my voter registration.

People still accuse me of bias all the time, of course. But since liberals and conservatives tend to level that accusation in more-or-less equal amounts, I figure I'm doing a pretty good job of keeping partisanship out of my writing.

Pennsylvania has a closed primary system, meaning you have to be registered in a certain party to vote in its primary. And even though it would benefit me personally if the state government changed that, I don't think they should.

Yesterday, we were scrambling to get a pretty big story -- the potential closing of the Springettsbury Township Harley-Davidson plant.

I was working on it, but business news isn't really my bailiwick for this blog. The reason I bring it up is because I got a call from U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr., who wanted to mention his role in getting tax breaks for motorcycle purchases added to the federal stimulus bill.

Casey's been one of the Obama administration's big boosters for the federal stimulus package. Every time I talk to him on the subject, I think about the way the national Democratic Party treated his father, what a mistake that turned out to be, and how the Republicans seem to be making the same mistake these days.

As promised, here's the video of Arlen Specter's visit to our newspaper yesterday.

On a personal note, it was the most robust I've seen him look in person since his bout with cancer. Regardless of what you think of him politically, I think you'll agree that's good to see.