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Also this issue: The 8-Ball Cruz Control Sweet on Sweet Freeze Play "Rat" Infestation Data Interrupted The Bell Curve |
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October 31-November 6, 2002
city beat
 Finish in focus: Soon-to-be governor-elect Ed Rendell takes on future loser Mike Fisher in the most recent debate. |
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As the 2002 gubernatorial race lurches to a merciful end, here’s a look at where candidates stand on the issues.
Finally. After months of chest-beating, pissing contests and jockeying for position, Election Day is upon us. Next Tuesday we Pennsylvanians get to schlep down to our local polling place and decide who will sit in the governor’s mansion for the next four years. The latest polls show Democrat and former Philadelphia mayor Ed Rendell still holds a commanding lead over Republican Attorney General Mike Fisher. According to a poll conducted last week by Quinnipiac University, Rendell is at 54 percent and Fisher is at 35 percent, with 9 percent undecided. The remaining 2 percent is divided between Green Party candidate Michael Morrill and Libertarian Ken Krawchuk. Here is the quick and dirty rundown on the players and their key policy positions:
Ed Rendell, Democratic Party -- Former district attorney and mayor of Philadelphia, and former chair of the Democratic National Committee. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Villanova Law School, Rendell is currently a law partner at Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, and teaches government and politics courses at Penn. As governor, Rendell says he would increase the state's share of basic education funding to 50 percent across the board, thereby reducing school systems' reliance on local property taxes. He would also push for slot machines at racetracks and bringing riverboat gambling to Pennsylvania. One of his first acts as governor, he says, would be to convene a summit of politicians and local leaders to discuss broad-based tax reform. A tireless campaigner and consummate politician, Rendell promises to bring to Harrisburg the same energy and enthusiasm that marked his tenure as mayor, and brought the city back from the edge of financial ruin.
Morrill authority: Mike Morrill, the Green Partyâs
gubernatorial candidate, looks in from the outside at
Tuesday nightâs debate.
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Mike Fisher, Republican Party -- Pennsylvania Attorney General, former State Representative and State Senator. After receiving his law degree from Georgetown University in 1969, he practiced law until winning a seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 1974, where he helped co-author Pennsylvania's death penalty statute. Elected to the State Senate in 1980, Fisher served as chair of the Senate Environment Resources and Energy Committee and Republican Whip from 1991 to 1996. He lists among his accomplishments the arrest and prosecution of more than 7,000 drug dealers, the creation of a school violence task force and spearheading the state's lawsuit against big tobacco companies, which resulted in an $11.3 billion settlement forwarded to the state treasury. As governor, Fisher says he'll expand prescription drug benefits to middle-class seniors, spur job growth through economic development and set high standards for public schools by requiring accountability from administrators, teachers and students.
Michael Morrill, Green Party -- Morrill, a native of Boston, is one of Pennsylvania's leading consumer advocates. Morrill has served as Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Consumer Action Network, and Pennsylvania Director for Citizen Action. He was lead organizer for Unity 2000, the massive march and rally held here during the Republican National Convention two summers ago. Morrill is the local standard bearer for the party that successfully ran Ralph Nader as a spoiler in the 2000 presidential race. The Greens' platform is built on grassroots democracy and social justice, nonviolence and ecology. If elected, Morrill says he'll raise the minimum wage to an acceptable level and institute universal health coverage. He favors giving the public schools back to the city of Philadelphia and making the governor's office a bully pulpit on issues like racial injustice and religious intolerance.
Ken Krawchuk, Libertarian Party -- Krawchuk, who received his degree in Physics from St. Joseph's University, is the only Philadelphia native in the race. (Rendell originally hails from New York.) Holder of several patents in computer programming and telecommunications, Krawchuk is president of Krawchuk & Associates, a suburban Philadelphia computer consultant firm. No stranger to Libertarian Party politics, Krawchuk ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1998, but with 33,591 votes, became the first Libertarian to gain more than 1 percent of the total votes. He's also run for Congress, state representative and township commissioner, but never won an election. If elected next Tuesday, Krawchuk says he'll immediately pardon all non-violent drug offenders while revoking parole for violent criminals. He'd also decriminalize drug use, drastically cut taxes and reduce the size of state government to the bare minimum needed for services.
The past few weeks of the campaign have been tense for everyone involved. Fisher has been needling Rendell for failing to release his tax returns while simultaneously castigating the third-party candidates: Morrill for having the temerity to unofficially declare Rendell the winner at a debate two weeks ago, and Krawchuk for his trademark campaign stunt of tearing a dollar bill to pieces to illustrate what Harrisburg does to taxpayer dollars. Fisher's camp says the Morrill comment proves that he's not serious about winning the race, since he's already given Rendell the nod, and Krawchuk is in violation of federal laws by defacing legal tender.
In his defense, Morrill says he's seen the polls showing Rendell way ahead, he's just being realistic and approaching Election Day with his eyes wide open; Krawchuk, meanwhile, says tearing his dollar bills up is fine legally as long as he tapes it back together and spends it later. The truth is, Morrill is probably on the right track when he says the election is Ed's to lose, and also probably right when he says that Fisher is grasping at anything that floats in his effort to keep his campaign from sinking. For his part, Morrill is steamed because he's been shut out of the last two debates, and claims (again, probably rightly) that the state's voters have been cheated out of the chance to hear everything all the candidates have to say before casting their ballots. In fact, before Tuesday night's debate at WPVI studios, Morrill stood in the pouring rain with a handful of Green Party faithful shaking his fist at the unfair gods of TV and politics who snubbed his campaign.
Pot luck: Ken Krawchuk, who wants to reform drug
laws, hopes to change his no-win election streak.
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Rendell's campaign machine has been steadily chugging along, picking up endorsements and contributions as his celebrated campaign bus rolls from town to town. Following the age-old campaign adage to always run like you're behind, Rendell has proven once again that when it comes to thriving despite the rigors of a long campaign, he has few political equals. Fisher is by all accounts a decent, honest and dedicated public servant who more than held his own in debates with the glib and polished Rendell, but comes up a little short on personality and the ability to clearly articulate his vision.
By now you've probably researched the candidates thoroughly and know which one most closely reflects your views on gun control, abortion, education and public policy. All that remains is for you to get yourself up on Tuesday, and head down to your local polling place. Remember, we're all going to have to live with this guy for the next four years, so vote like you mean it. In the final analysis, it doesn't matter as much whether you vote for Rendell, Fisher, Morrill or Krawchuk as much as it matters that you vote for somebody.
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