Wolf, Corbett will face off in fall
HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania Democrats tapped millionaire businessman Tom Wolf as their nominee to challenge Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, launching what promises to be a bruising campaign that began with immediate salvos between the candidates.
Wolf will accuse Corbett of making hobbling cuts in aid to public schools and of being too cozy with the natural gas industry. He’ll also test Corbett’s support from the business community. Corbett, in turn, will paint Wolf as a tax-and-spend liberal whose policies will threaten the economy.
The general election will be expensive: Already, the Republican Governors Association reported having $8.6 million to spend in Pennsylvania, while the Democratic Governors’ Association reported $3.5 million.
In a brief, three-minute victory speech under the floodlights at a minor-league baseball stadium in York Tuesday night, Wolf invoked Yankees great Lou Gehrig and described himself as “the luckiest person on the face of the Earth right now” before attacking Corbett’s policies.
“We have a clear choice: 2014 is going to be a very important choice for all of us,” he said. “We have a clear record of an administration that wants to hollow out our schools, wants to play fast and loose with jobs, that wants to take our natural assets and play fast and loose with them, and that also wants to have a stacked deck ... that will actually not have a level playing field.”
About 175 miles to the west, Corbett accepted the Republican nomination in a hotel ballroom in Pittsburgh, where he told Republicans it appeared that he would face Wolf in the fall election.
“Whoever it is in that race, we understand that the choice for the people of Pennsylvania this fall will be very clear,” Corbett said. “Because if you look at the field of candidates, their positions and their proposals, they want to raise taxes, I don’t. They want to return to the days of runaway spending and irresponsible budgets, I don’t.”
Wolf’s victory capped a months-long TV courtship of voters with folksy ads that played up his small-town roots, featured his Jeep Wrangler and testimonials from his wife, his two grown daughters and employees of his kitchen cabinet company. He poured $10 million of his own money into his campaign, which made him a household name and gave him an early advantage.
Unofficial returns from 99 percent of the state’s precincts showed Wolf with almost 58 percent of the vote, far ahead of U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz, state Treasurer Rob McCord and former state environmental protection secretary Katie McGinty. Schwartz captured under 18 percent, McCord almost 17 percent and McGinty under 8 percent. Turnout was light, with roughly 850,000 of the state’s 4.1 million Democrats casting ballots.
Corbett is viewed as vulnerable and a Wolf victory in the general election would break a four-decade gubernatorial tradition: ever since the state constitution was changed in 1968 to allow governors to succeed themselves, every governor has been awarded a second term.
Neither Corbett nor Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley faced a primary challenge. State Sen. Mike Stack of Philadelphia won the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor and will be Wolf’s running mate.
