Wolf's victory a rebuke to the conservative agenda

Democrat Tom Wolf decisively ousted incumbent Republican Gov. Tom Corbett on Tuesday on an election night that was otherwise an enormous, if muddled, victory for conservatives nationwide. Pennsylvania's vote, however, was a rebuke of policies that slashed education funding, restricted abortion rights, cut social programs and cozied up to the state's powerful and lightly-taxed natural gas industry.

Tom Wolf campaigns on Election Day at Warmdaddy's in South Philly.
Maria Pouchnikova

Democrat Tom Wolf decisively ousted incumbent Republican Gov. Tom Corbett on Tuesday on an election night that was otherwise an enormous, if muddled, victory for conservatives nationwide. Pennsylvania's vote, however, was a rebuke of policies that slashed education funding, restricted abortion rights, cut social programs and cozied up to the state's powerful and lightly-taxed natural gas industry.

"You gotta focus on where the people are, especially around the issue of education," says Democratic Philadelphia state Sen. Vincent Hughes. "The hard right has held this guy captive, as they're holding the rest of the Republican Party captive. They've got him in a political straightjacket...If they'd loosened up the reins a little bit, it might be a different story."

Corbett governed from the right in a left-leaning state, signing a no-new-taxes pledge and shrinking the size of government services that people like. But Wolf must still grapple with a state legislature in which Republicans managed to increase their majorities.

Republicans also held on to 13 of 18 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives — benefitting from districts heavily gerrymandered to dilute Democratic votes.

It was Corbett's deep cuts to public education that most fueled anger, particularly in Philadelphia, where cuts have created a state of perpetual fiscal crisis and contributed to the elimination of thousands of teaching and staff positions and the closing of 30 schools.

"I had to bring supplies to the schools," said Elizabeth, 44, a mother of three, who voted for Wolf at Thomas G. Morton Elementary School in Southwest Philadelphia. "That's not the way it's supposed to be done."

Corbett also lacked charisma and political instinct. Once, he casually joked that gay marriage was akin to incest. He even failed to convince the Republican legislature to back two legislative priorities: privatizing state liquor stores and cutting public employee pensions.

Corbett's handling of the Penn State child sex-abuse scandal was another problem: Democrats, led by Attorney General Kathleen Kane, (apparently falsely) accused Corbett of delaying the investigation into football assistant coach Jerry Sandusky for political gain when he was Attorney General; but a multitude of Penn State alumni were infuriated by his apparent role in firing legendary coach Joe Paterno.

In Philadelphia, Corbett was crushed. But turnout, despite early reports, was anemic. A full accounting is not yet available, but it appears that an even lower percentage of registered voters turned out than the roughly 40 percent who cast ballots for governor in 2010 — and far below the more than 60 percent who cast ballots in the presidential race in 2012. It is a pattern that consistently hurts Democrats.

Kevin Kelly, one of three middle-aged white committee­persons working outside a polling place in a Southwest Philadelphia neighborhood that has in recent years become largely non-white, put the matter bluntly: Turnout would have been much higher if a "black guy" had been on the top of the ticket. That's likely true, but any presidential race would have brought more voters to the polls.

Boosting Philadelphia turnout was critical, but Democrats had to strike a balance between energizing President Obama's base without tying candidates too closely to an unpopular president. On Sunday, Obama rallied thousands at Temple University.

One newish Philadelphia voter was City Commissioner Chair Anthony Clark, who claims to have cast a ballot on Tuesday. A City Paper investigation last month revealed that the chair of the city's election board had not voted since 2011. Clark voted in the 62nd Ward in the lower Northeast, where he is registered to vote. Clark is the ward leader of the 28th Ward, in Strawberry Mansion, even though the Philadelphia Democratic Party rules require ward leaders to be registered in the ward they represent.

➤ That hundreds of thousands of Phila­delphians did not vote is a reminder that American democracy is marked by futility and alienation — and, for many ex-offenders barred from voting, disenfranchisement.
But while voter interest is low, big money is absolutely enormous.

Candidates and party committees in Pennsylvania gubernatorial, congressional and state legislative races raised more than $100 million this election cycle, according to the Institute on Money In State Politics' incomplete figures. That doesn't include third-party groups like 501(c)4 non-profits, which can keep their donors secret.

According to Pennsylvania Common Cause, this is one of only 11 states that place no limit on the amount of money individuals and PACs can contribute directly to candidates. Not that it much matters in the free-for-all, post-Citizens United era.

Wolf, a wealthy businessman, poured $10 million of his own money into his race and had raised $31.5 million as of Oct. 24, according to data analyzed by PublicSource. That's compared to $23.9 million for Corbett.

Major Corbett donations included at least $5.8 million from the Republican Governors Association, which has received funds from libertarian manufacturing kingpin David Koch, right-wing Las Vegas Sands mogul Sheldon Adelson and hedge-fund manager Paul Singer.

Wolf received strong backing from organized labor, including six-figure donations from unions, including the Pennsylvania State Education Association PAC and the Pennsylvania Service Employees International Union.

According to the latest numbers from the Center for Public Integrity, an estimated $60 million was spent on the television advertisements that dominated the state's campaigns, more than in most other states.

Wolf's ads tended to tout him as a kind-hearted businessman and father. Corbett's ads ominously warned that Wolf would hike taxes.

The progressive and labor-backed group Pennsyl­vania Working Families accidentally sent, according to the Inquirer, 30,000 Philadelphians mailings advising them to vote at the wrong polling place.

Election watchdogs at Committee of Seventy said that they had received a large number of calls requesting information about polling-place locations.

"While we get these calls every Election Day, there are far more than usual today," e-mails Seventy's Ellen Kaplan. "A number of callers got incorrect information from the PA Working Families flyer."

➤ Election day was mostly smooth.

"Fuck you, youse a fucking coward! Youse a fucking pork eater!"

But early morning voters in Point Breeze were welcomed to the polls by two grown men shouting and shoving. One of them, Anthony Tappe, a Democratic committee person for the 36th Ward's 1st division, was incensed at what he called a "corrupted" situation inside the voting location for the 36th Ward's 1st and 39th divisions. He said he had been unjustly excluded from working the polls.

But there is sometimes great warmth even bet­ween Democratic and Republican poll workers stuck in a room together for 13 hours, election after election. The 56th Ward's 9th Division, in Holmesburg, has for more than 20 years voted at the home of 50-year veteran Democratic committeeperson Joe Seigafuse. Seigafuse and 9th Division Repub­lican committeeperson Dan Brown­sey Jr. were chatting in the garage.

They say Ed Rendell tried to relocate the now rare residential polling while he was governor. "But we got the machines back," says Seigafuse, coyly. "A private residence is more personal. More of a hometown feeling," says Brownsey. "In the morning we had coffee and doughnuts, and lunchtime we make hot dogs and sauerkraut," says Seigafuse. "And we eat 'em! We have a good time."

"He's Democrat, I'm Republican," says Brownsey. "But you know what? It's all very neighborly. And I think sometimes that might be lost."

At St. Thomas Indian Orthodox Church in Oxford Circle, poll worker Sandy Malkin says turnout was much better than the previous election, but that some of the elderly voters were having trouble with the ballot.
Malkin says the neighborhood is "working class, a lot of teachers, city workers, police and firemen, a lot of immigrants, new citizens. We're very diverse — a lot of Chinese, a little bit of Indian, African people, African-American." She says she's noticed that many of the new immigrant voters, in particular, have been taking selfies at the polls. "They think it's very important."

In West Philadelphia, voter and University of Pennsylvania political science graduate student Matt Berkman wanted to know why there was a Bible at his polling place.

"I was just amazed when the poll worker told me that the presence of the Bible was mandated," writes Berkman by e-mail. "The Bible itself didn't personally or religiously offend me, although I imagine it could have offended other community members. It was the fact that nobody seemed bothered by such an apparent violation of church/state separation that befuddled me."

Kaplan of Committee of Seventy says that "Bibles are included in the materials every voting division gets from the Board of Elections and are used to swear in polling-place workers. No voter should be instructed in any way that they must 'swear' on the Bible before voting."

The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania says that it has never taken action on the Bibles because it has never received a complaint.

"We have never heard any suggestion that voters are expected to do anything with respect to the Bibles, or that they are used to interfere in any fashion with the voting process," says Senior Staff Attorney Mary Catherine Roper. "Because we have never heard that sort of complaint, we have not taken any legal action to challenge the practice."