Lawmaker stumping for Obama
HARRISBURG – State Rep. Josh Shapiro will keep busy during the next six weeks making campaign speeches and urging voters to show up at the polls for the April 22 primary election. But he will not be doing all that campaign work for himself. He’s running unopposed in the primary.
Shapiro’s effort will be aimed at trying to help U.S. Sen. Barack Obama win Pennsylvania, which pundits have declared the last major battleground in an epic battle for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Shapiro, D-Montgomery County, pledged his support for Obama last summer when the Illinois senator was still considered a long shot to win the nomination coveted by U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York.
Shapiro said he was drawn to Obama’s dominant campaign theme of hope and promise of bringing a new tone to Washington.
“I think politics at many levels is broken,” he said. “Our government is broken and we need to heal some of the wounds of division that have occurred in Washington in recent years.”
As presidential primary politics heat up in the Keystone State for the first time since 1976, many Democratic state lawmakers said they still are undecided – or at least unwilling to publicly reveal which candidate they will back.
House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, Greene County, along with Reps. Sean Ramaley, Beaver County, Chris King, Bucks County, and Tim Mahoney, Fayette County, said they were still uncommitted to either Clinton or Obama.
Mahoney, a freshman lawmaker who will be contending with a primary challenge from former Rep. Larry Roberts this spring, was candid about his lack of commitment.
“I’m in my own campaign, and I don’t want to pick one (candidate),” he said. “I might tick off some people doing that.”
Mahoney would commit only to leaning in favor of Obama.
“He’s about change,” he said of Obama. “The same thing that I’m about.”
Picking sides can be a high-risk, low-reward move for state lawmakers. Terry Madonna, a pollster at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, said few voters will be swayed by endorsements from their local state lawmakers. Conversely, he said, lawmakers risk upsetting their supporters or campaign staffers by getting in the middle of the showdown.
“They don’t need to get embroiled in a presidential campaign,” he said of lawmakers. “They’ve got supporters on either side of the issue. They can privately be for somebody, but a lot of them don’t want to get too far in front of this.”
Some exceptions were found among southwestern Pennsylvania lawmakers.
Rep. Peter J. Daley, D-California, said he’s been a Clinton supporter for months.
“I really think she has the experience that we need,” he said of the former first lady.
Clinton’s unwavering support of universal health insurance coverage should help her woo voters in Daley’s district, which includes parts of Washington and Fayette counties.
“I think people in our area need healthcare desperately because we are an impoverished area,” he said.
Rep. Deberah Kula, D-North Union Township, also said she’s backing Clinton.
“I know there’s a lot of people who say she is a little rough and gruff and whiney,” Kula said of Clinton. “But I think her ideas are good. I think she is very caring. I think she can be tough when she has to be.”
She added that Clinton’s recent focus on the need for bolstering the U.S. economy and economic development should be themes that resonant with Fayette County voters.
And Kula hinted that her choice for president was based on a bit of nostalgia for the days of economic prosperity the last time a Clinton occupied the Oval Office.
“I think our country was in much better shape under Bill Clinton (in the 1990s) than it has been under George Bush,” she said.
However, Kula does not see herself playing a large role in the Clinton campaign.
“I have never really gone out and tried to influence people on who they should vote for,” she said. “I think everybody has his or her own opinion.”