Things to ponder, May 20
From the windmill of my mind … The Pennsylvania Cable Network (PCN) is a wonderful thing. It lets you see not only how state government works, but it provides much-needed insight into how the rest of the state is thinking. On Wednesday, the network aired talk-radio broadcasts from areas of the state where two Republican Senate leaders had been toppled in Tuesday’s election. One theory put forth on why House Democrat bigwigs Bill DeWeese of Greene County and Mike Veon of Beaver County survived: Their districts are so impoverished that voters are willing to look past the pay raise and other issues because those guys “bring home the bacon” in terms of state cash. A harsher assessment that aired was that the election proved, “Republicans got it and Democrats didn’t.” Unfortunately, I’d have to say that’s true.
The older I get, the more I believe that one of the reasons our area remains stagnant is a paternalistic mindset. Too many people have been weaned on the notion that the union or the government would (and in many cases should) take care of things for them. They’ve forked over too much control in the process, to the point where they’re being made fools of and don’t even recognize it. But hey, why should someone who’s essentially living off government money worry about how it’s being spent?
Had Fayette County Commissioner Vincent A. Vicites run against state Rep. Larry Roberts (D-South Union) two years ago, he probably would have beaten Roberts handily and been sitting in Harrisburg for the next decade or more. Instead, Vicites waited until this year, when Roberts retired, and lost to Timothy S. Mahoney. The moral of this story? The days of waiting your turn to move up the ladder are over. Things change too rapidly in the modern political era.
Tuesday’s election proved another thing: Voters aren’t as fed up with former Fayette County Commissioner Sean M. Cavanagh as some would like you to believe. Although running for a mostly figurehead position on the Democratic State Committee (a position formerly held by Cavanagh arch-enemy Vicites), Cavanagh garnered 7,266 votes, the most in a four-man field. If voters were turned off by Cavanagh, he’d have finished last by a wide margin.
Look for Vicites, if he runs for re-election as commissioner next year, to be a targeted man. He’s no favorite of Mahoney, whose political allies include Cavanagh, former commission candidate Vincent Zapotosky, former Vicites advisor Martin Griglak and Fayette County Democratic Party Chairman Fred L. Lebder. Expect Cavanagh or Zapotosky, or both, to challenge Vicites in the Democrat primary.
Mahoney is upset about groundless things said about his family during the just-completed campaign. He has more than one person in his political payback sights, including a well-known township supervisor. So stay tuned … and watch the races in coming years.
Probably no one relished Vicites’ defeat more than Cavanagh, who was narrowly ousted in the 2003 Democratic primary by former state Sen. Bill Lincoln, with whom Vicites forged an alliance. Cavanagh paid back Lincoln by urging his supporters to vote for Republican Angela M. Zimmerlink that fall. It’s been downhill for Vicites ever since: He lost the commission chairmanship when Zimmerlink and Republican Joe Hardy were elected, now he’s lost an election for only the second time in his political career (the first was when he ran for commissioner as Lebder’s running mate in 1991).
In any other year, any one of the state House candidates who appeared before our editorial board would have been welcomed challengers to the incumbents. It’s too bad that they all appeared at one time. We need more people running for office, and I hope that all incumbents face quality opposition in two years.