Good luck to Rep. Schwartz, I say.

She is a powerful Democrat, and based on recent polling, she would have a really good chance of defeating Corbett.

I'm in west/central PA, and even in this area, I know Republicans that can't stand Corbett, especially what he has done with education funding. A recent poll found that his approval rating is only 26%. The same poll found his negative numbers higher than his positives, and that was JUST in Central PA alone.

What can you tell us about her???

Allyson is very politically savvy and worked her way up to that position having been a state Senator for 14 years before running for that Congressional seat when Hoeffel decided to run against Specter for the U.S. Senate seat back in '04 (and had to resign his House seat to do so).

She has managed to balance her DLC moniker with many many local grassroots appearances, and she does travel all around and appears at events here in Philly and the surrounding area - even in the districts of other Dem congressmen (most notably Brady in the 1st Congressional but also Fattah, since she used to represent parts of the 2nd Congressional when she was a State Senator). I would say she's sortof like an older version of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz in terms of style and politicking, maybe not as energetic but certainly seasoned.


Her focus has been on health-related issues and she is pro-choice... and even headed up a Center run by Planned Parenthood back in the '70s.

Thanks for the info.
ALMOST sorry my daughter's out of college, as I suspect her school was/is in her district.

But to get elected in the reddest of blue states, she'll have to placate
business interests and the pro-business press the way Rendell did.
Once Rendell, then co-DNC chair, caved on Bush v. Gore, he had no
opposition to his path to the governorship.

Anyone who thinks they're going to win Pennsylvania on social issues
has another thing coming.

And Democrats who ran as anti-frackers got clobbered last fall.

Pennsylvanians care only about business and money, and they are
socially conservative. And the press is owned by business interests
that won't print a fair article when the elections on the line. Only the
big city TV news has any degree of liberalism.

Pennsylvania is the most conservative blue state of them all! If it weren't for Philadelphia area progressives, we'd be little more than the middle states' own version of Alabama!

My sis is in her district and the past 5 or so years, she has increased her exposure, most notably, appearances on the political shows. I would have preferred that she take on teabagger Toomey but Cor-butt's seat is up (2014) before Toomey's (2016).

Thankfully her seat (13th Congressional) even after the redistricting, is pretty blue now. I remember the days when the 13th was solid red and Marjorie Margoles-Mezvinsky finally broke it. It eventually went purple with Joe Hoeffel (another who should consider running) and was finally blue with Allyson.

The only other who might be competitive and is known statewide, is Mark Singel (having been Lt. governor for 8 years under Casey, Sr. and had run against Ridge but lost when Ridge did a "Willie Horton"-like ad on Singel). Singel has tried multiple times to run for various offices (the last for Murtha's seat in 2010) and always deferred to whoever the party decided to support. He is pro-choice and was born in the Pennsyltucky area (Johnstown), so is known there too.

The last gubernatorial election, few over here in eastern PA knew anything about who the hell Dan Onorato was and he did little campaigning over here - an area that IS required by Dems who want to get elected in a statewide office. If Schwartz (who is DLC) was in the game, I expect like what happened with Kathleen Kane, the new Dem AG, folks like the Clintons would be here in a heartbeat to stump for her.

In any case, whoever runs, we need to get that rethug out of office NOW!

a noun, a verb, and Sandusky