Roberts looks to mend fences after big victory
Basking in the afterglow of a 3,000-vote victory over the closest of four challengers, state Rep. Larry Roberts (D-South Union) on Wednesday credited and thanked his legion of supporters for turning out in his behalf. But Roberts, set to start a seventh term in the state House, acknowledged that one of his tasks over the next two years will be finding ways to “mend some fences” with familiar faces who supported his opponents.
“When you’re the victor, it’s easy to be gracious. There were a lot of people who worked hard for my opponents, and I feel bad for them,” said Roberts. “For the next two years, I’ve got to find out why those people worked against me and I need to mend some fences. I already know most of them, but obviously there were (some against me).
“There was a lot of hatefulness and a lot of meanness in this campaign. …I need to find out why that was, and I need to resolve that.”
Unofficial returns showed Roberts with a commanding win in the five-way race, capturing 7,505 votes, or 35 percent of those cast in the 34-precinct 51st District. Second-place finisher Timothy S. Mahoney got 4,454 votes, or 21 percent of those cast. Independent Mahoney was 3,051 votes behind Roberts.
While most political observers expected Mahoney to offer the stiffest challenge to Roberts and his second-place finish wasn’t much of a surprise, the closeness of third-place finished Gary Gearing wasn’t as greatly anticipated.
Independent Gearing got 4,355 votes, only 99 votes fewer than Mahoney, to capture 20 percent of votes cast. Gearing finished 830 votes ahead of Republican Harry E. Albert III, who got 3,525 votes, or 16 percent of those cast.
Trailing the pack by a substantial margin was independent Terry Janosek, whose 1,750 votes constituted 8 percent of the vote. Janosek got 1,775 fewer votes than fourth-place finisher Albert.
Roberts said that Election Night results were consistent with an earlier poll performed by his campaign.
The incumbent cited the public’s distaste for negative campaigning and the Herald-Standard’s endorsement in his race as other reasons for his win, indirectly taking jabs at Mahoney on both counts.
“People don’t like negative campaigns … and I don’t think they liked the Herald-Standard endorsement (of Mahoney) either,” said Roberts, who quoted his campaign manager Vickie Hartsek as saying, “This (vote) separated the man from the boys.”
Roberts said his strong showing had more to do with his loyal following among the 65,000 people that he represents in Harrisburg than it did with the fact that four challengers may have carved up the anti-Roberts vote.
“I said from the beginning that if my friends came out to vote for me, we would win. And that’s what happened,” said Roberts. “They got their friends out, I got my friends out, and I think I had more friends than they did.
“I never once thought we were in trouble. We campaigned hard … I ran the same type of campaign that I usually run, only more intense. We put our best foot forward, I highlighted all the positive points … that’s the way I run a campaign.”
Roberts also said he wanted to thank all of those who voted for him, worked for him and supported him in some other way. He said that effort included folks who live outside his district but have benefited from the services his office provides.
Albert, who had hoped to copy GOP successes in last year’s race for Fayette County commissioner, said his candidacy was hamstrung by a lack of financial and voter support from the Republican Party at the local and state levels.
“It’s obvious to me that I didn’t have the support of the Republican Party. Without that, there’s no way I was going to get in, and I did not,” said Albert. “I don’t mean (just) financial support. I mean voter support as well.”
Albert said that he met more than once with Charmaine Sampson, administrative assistant to Fayette County Commissioner Joseph A. Hardy III, a GOP bigwig whose political action committee wound up making big contributions to Roberts and Gearing.
“Obviously, Mr. Hardy represents a branch of the Republican Party and he didn’t back me. He was the highest Republican vote getter the county has had. Without that (support), it wasn’t going to happen (for me),” said Albert.
A former Fayette County commissioner, Albert also said the fact that Democrats were encouraged to vote a straight ticket because of the presidential race and several high-profile state races race probably hurt his chances.
“I’ll just go on with my life,” said Albert, noting that he currently has no plans to run for office in the future.
Gearing said that while he was “absolutely” confident of winning and is disappointed he didn’t, he remains encouraged by his finish and by the overwhelmingly positive post-election comments coming his way.
“I did call Larry last night and congratulated him on his victory,” said Gearing. “I’m disappointed in the results but I believe that we ran a good campaign, got a lot of good positive comments from everybody and (got) a lot of good support.
“I look forward to doing it again in the future. I told my son last night that maybe I’ll run for governor. He said, ‘Daddy, maybe you should stay with state representative and work your way up.'”
While noting that he hasn’t had a chance to analyze any numbers to support his theories, Gearing said he thinks the extraordinarily large voter turnout and straight-ticket voting by Democrats played big roles in the 51st District outcome.
“I’m still a little disappointed in the overall end result, but I’m proud of the accomplishments,” said Gearing. “(But) people are very positive, very upbeat and congratulatory. We ran a nice campaign; (we) got an enormous amount of comments and compliments on the marketing and the advertising. (It’s) nothing to be ashamed of. We can be proud of our accomplishment.”
Gearing said that he would “probably run in the primary the next time” as a registered Democrat, which he had been prior to switching to independent for the race decided Tuesday.
Janosek said he wasn’t discouraged with his last-place finish, considering the political axiom that incumbents in both parties always have an advantage in a presidential year from straight-ticket voting.
Janosek also thanked everyone who voted, regardless of his or her preferred candidate, because the high turnout was “great” for democracy. He pledged to take a third crack at unseating Roberts in 14 months, when campaigning for the 2006 primary election begins.
“If he (Roberts) makes it through the next 14 months, I’ll be waiting,” promised Janosek. “I’m coming back, as a Democrat, because nobody’s going to talk me out of the primary (election) this time.”
Janosek said that Gearing got more votes than he thought he would “but he spent an awful lot of money,” and that Albert as the Republican nominee didn’t fare as well as Janosek thought he would.
Roberts prevailed, according to Janosek, because of the profound advantage of the incumbency. “He’s the incumbent. It’s like one older guy told me: ‘There’s only one party in this country, and that’s the Incumbent Party,'” said Janosek.
Mahoney said that Roberts had nothing to crow about regarding this win, considering that Roberts got 35 percent of the vote while the three other Democrats running as independents got a combined 49 percent.
“I feel that the dark cloud over the 51st District just became darker,” said Mahoney. “I don’t think that Roberts got a vote of confidence (Tuesday), because if you add up my votes, Gearing’s votes and Janosek’s votes, all being former Democrats, we beat him 1.4-to-1. For a 12-year legislator, I don’t think that’s very confident.”
Mahoney also said he’s now focusing on the results of state Attorney General Jerry Pappert’s investigation into alleged improprieties in this year’s primary election – a matter that Mahoney believes is far from over.
“I don’t think I lost the race. I lost in votes – but I didn’t lose in what I set out to do, which is uncover corruption. I think I did that. If I had it to do over, I’d do it again,” said Mahoney. “I’m going to sit back and see what happens with the Attorney General investigation, and go from there. I’m not a politician; I’m just a man trying to do the right thing.”
While disappointed in the outcome, Mahoney said he’s more frustrated that more voters didn’t see through the real issues of the campaign and the teamwork that was going on to ensure Roberts’ survival.
“I’m disappointed. I just can’t believe that the voters just go in there and pull that straight ticket, like they’re sheep going to be butchered. It’s like they’re trained to do that. It’s got to stop,” said Mahoney. “And you had Joe Hardy financing Roberts and Gearing, and them complimenting each other in the debates. I see through that; surely people have to start seeing through that. It was definitely some teamwork.”