Tom Corbett Dug His Own Grave

Nine times out of 10, the candidate with the most money wins, and the Democratic gubernatorial primary in Pennsylvania is shaping up to be no exception. This election is a testament to the power of money. Everyone looks at it. If you have more money and you can outspend your opponents, you can out-communicate your opponents. Right now, Tom Wolf is currently crushing Tom Corbett 47%-25% (Politics PA). Just to show how much money Wolf actually has, he was able to put $10 million of his own money for the primary campaign (CBS Philly). He has also run a total of 15 television ads, nearly all of which aired in the state’s largest and most expensive market, Philadelphia.  Wolf’s spending advantage enabled him to get his message out first, and more voters know who is because of it. Even though that money has driven Wolf to success in this election, Corbett already dug his own grave and had no chance from the beginning.

There are four issues that have sunk Tom Corbett that gave him no chance even if he had the money that Wolf had. The biggest reason why people aren’t going to vote for Corbett is because of his cuts to public education. Twenty-seven percent of voters who rated Corbett’s job performance as fair or poor did so based on his performance on education issues (Politics PA). Thirteen percent rated the governor poorly because of economic issues, nine percent faulted him for the lack of change in the state, and an additional nine percent blamed his handling of natural gas drilling (Politics PA). Because Corbett cut education spending, he has also stood in the way of a tax on fracking. This has resulted in costing Pennsylvania a loss of over a billion dollars because he refused to support a five percent surcharge on fracking. Corbett then makes a bullshit claim that the reason he had to cut $1.1 billion from the state’s public education budget was because he didn’t have enough funding (CBS Philly). He then tries to cover up his mistake in the 2014 election by trying to replace some of the money in the public education budget to appease the people, but the voters aren’t buying it.

One of things that Republicans and Democrats have always agreed on before the election of Corbett was public education funding. As soon as Corbett cut public education spending, while refusing to tax those who are fracking, he already punched his ticket out of office. It doesn’t look like money can save Corbett to win this election, as an overwhelming number of Pennsylvania voters have decided that Tom Corbett has got to go.

Citations

Harkins, Jill. "PA-Gov: F&M Poll: Wolf 47%, Corbett 25%." PoliticsPA PAGov FM Poll Wolf 47 Corbett 25 Comments. July 2, 2014. Accessed October 3, 2014.

Romeo, Tony, Pat Loeb, Mike DeNardo, and Steve Tawa. "Tom Wolf Wins Dem Nod For Pa. Governor - CBS Philly." CBS Philly. May 20, 2014. Accessed October 3, 2014.