Geez, Midge Rendell probably barely has her inauguration gown back from the dry cleaners, and they are already talking about the 2010 election. Pennsylvania has alternated between Democrat and Republican Governors for half a century. I’d like to keep things this way.
On the slate for the Republicans, we have folks like former Congressman Pat Toomey and Attorney General Tom Corbett. On the Democrat side, it seems that Robert Mellow, Auditor General Jack Wagner, Dan Onorato, and Don Cunningham.
Advantage so far goes to Republicans as far as names go. Most everyone who follows Pennsylvania politics knows who Tom Corbett and Pat Toomey are. For the Democrats, only Jack Wagner holds statewide office, and not a very well known one. The rest are local players. It’s still really early yet, but so far it’s looking like we might have some good candidates.
I am a big Pat Toomey fan. I think he ran a great primary campaign against Arlen Specter even though he lost. He’s a free market & low taxes kind of guy. He is a social conservative, but he doesn’t thump bibles and stick his nose where it doesn’t belong like Rick Santorum did.
Tom Corbett I don’t know much about, but he doesn’t come across like a bonehead and a tax ‘n spend liberal.
You’re also right, I don’t like this whole gotta get a candidate out immediately mentality. We’re seeing it with the presidential campaign now. It’s not 2008 yet and we’re having debates and straw polls television ads. We have perfectly capable candidates have to drop out because they’re running out of money. Yeah, W’s a lame duck, but he is still president.
An addendum to my comment about longer campaigns is this article about Newt Gingrich: http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/08/gingrich/index.html