Vote for Dan Onorato

The best of a good bunch for governor.

Pennsylvania Democrats, you have a decision to make: All four candidates for governor bring to bear considerable individual insights and charms, yet none is what you'd consider a household name.

The leading Democrat, according to polls, is Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato, a man not all that different from the man he hopes to succeed, Gov. Ed Rendell. (This is, for the record, a plus and minus.) But even a week out from primary day, those same polls show a high percentage of undecideds. Onorato is the favorite, but the ball game isn't over. Auditor General Jack Wagner, running on his finely hewed, almost encyclopedic knowledge of the state budget, professes confidence. Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Hoeffel, the race's outspoken liberal, hopes to ride his progressive positions on social issues and taxation to Harrisburg. State Sen. Anthony Williams, who has the support of the Philadelphia Democratic City Committee and Mayor Michael Nutter, has benefited from a well-financed ad campaign despite his late entry into the race, in February. Each has qualities we would like to see in the state's next governor. And indeed, if we could construct a sort of Voltron from the four of them — Hoeffel's fearless progressivism, Williams' grasp of urban issues, Wagner's wealth of ideas, Onorato's résumé of executive leadership, hardscrabble self-confidence and charisma — we would. Alas, that is not an option.

By the process of elimination, then, City Paper endorses Dan Onorato for governor.

While we admire Williams' advocacy on behalf of inner cities and inner-city schools, we find his reliance on vouchers as a panacea somewhat naïve. More importantly, we find one aspect of his campaign particularly distasteful: It has been funded heavily by three Bala Cynwyd investment-fund managers who, Williams says, support his stand on school choice and thus gave him $1.5 million. Asked about this, Williams is almost dismissive of the implications of deep-pocketed interests bankrolling a campaign. In a state in which legislators are frequently hit with corruption charges, this blasé attitude does not bode well.

While ideologically, we share many of Hoeffel's views, particularly on social and taxation issues — this state's record on gay rights is particularly embarrassing, and its tax structure needs fundamental change — as well as his positions on drilling in the Marcellus Shale (he backs a high severance tax and a moratorium on drilling in state forest land, and pledges not to take gas money), we doubt Hoeffel's ability to make those changes happen if he wins in November. Hoeffel can come off a bit too professorial — like that smart, engaging social-studies teacher whom everyone loved but no one feared in high school — and lacking the intrinsic toughness necessary to herd the Capitol's ever devious and hostile cats, no matter his good intentions.

If Hoeffel is the beloved but unfeared teacher, Wagner is the economics instructor whose classroom turned into a spitball war whenever his back was turned. A nice guy, to be sure. But he can, at times, seem a substitute for Ambien. He is a technocrat who speaks like an accountant; that said, his knowledge of how the state spends (and wastes) money is second to none. His proposed constitutional convention is long overdue. His plans for slicing the size of the legislature, getting rid of single-bidder contracts and creating a scholarship program to make college more accessible for high school students, funded with table-games money, are vital to the state's future. If everyone listened to his ideas, this state would be much better off. But does he have the political will to make Harrisburg listen? As with Hoeffel, we're not convinced.

By contrast, Dan Onorato's persona oozes vigor and confidence — in a word, leadership. Onorato was down in the trenches, overseeing Pittsburgh's remarkable resurgence. Certainly, Onorato will claim more credit than he deserves. But the fact is, Pittsburgh is no longer teetering on the edge. It has a lower unemployment rate than both the nation and the state. (Last month, Forbes declared Pittsburgh the country's most livable city.) On the big issues, there's not much daylight between Onorato and his fellow Democrats: He pledges to push for LGBTQ anti-discrimination laws and to allow local governments to regulate handguns. He promises not to mess with the state's abortion laws, though he is personally anti-abortion. He proposes a moratorium on leasing state forest land for drilling, and plans to use the severance tax to re-fund the Department of Environmental Protection.

His line on spending — of all state programs, everything is potentially on the chopping block except early-childhood education and a cost study of the state's education system — gives us pause, but his insistence on bringing uniformity and sanity to the state's property-assessment system is spot-on. Onorato strikes us as a pragmatist and a problem-solver, with the gravitas to bring a dysfunctional legislature to heel. He would do well to listen to his compatriots' ideas — particularly Wagner and Hoeffel — but at the end of the day, he's the best choice for Keystone Democrats.

(editorial@citypaper.net)