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State Senate campaign sinking to new depths

By Richard Robbins 4 min read

Neither Deberah Kula nor Pat Stefano can brag about their campaigns for state senator. On the contrary, they should be embarrassed, unless, of course, they have no idea what they’ve doing, which could very well be the case. If the future results in serious Harrisburg gridlock, we may look back on the Kula-Stefano race has its harbinger.

Thank you very much – for nothing.

Serious polarization takes time, so we may yet be spared the frustrations and indignity of super partisanship in the state capital.

It also requires the efforts of a great many soulless individuals acting on multiple fronts. As a result, if over the next several years we see a replication of the nastiness of this campaign across the state, we might as well head to a nearby cave for the next 10 or 20 or 30 years.

In the meantime, the political landscape will darken considerably, accompanied by thunder and lightening signifying (here’s that word again) nothing.

You may not have been paying much attention, although with all the mailers and TV attack ads, it’s hard to believe anyone in western Pennsylvania has escaped the onslaught in Senate District 32, which includes all of Fayette and Somerset counties and a small slice of Westmoreland County.

What follows is a brief recap:

Kula (according to Stefano) is a wasteful, money-grubbing pol, a Ed Rendell pawn who intends to raise taxes beyond the point any hard-working, god-fearing taxpayer can afford to pay. Hello, middle class bankruptcy.

Stefano (according to Kula) was a miserable failure as the chairman of the sewage authority he oversaw, who looked the other way as the professional head of the agency stole hundreds of thousands of dollars. Plus (bombs away!), Stefano was himself a criminal.

If the past is prologue, we can expect more and nastier charges (if that’s even possible) to be pressed in the closing days and hours of the campaign. It looks like a fight to the finish, 15 rounds, no TKOs, and nary a chance for a split decision: one of these foolish individuals will sit in the state Senate, casting votes on important public affairs on our behalf.

(As an aside, what the candidates say about themselves is as innocuous as what they say about each other is down and dirty: Kula, the Democrat in the race, supports veterans while the Republican Stefano pays his employees on time. Wow, how about those as recommendations for a high state office.)

Now, we’re accustomed to cellar-dwelling national campaigns. Accustomed to name-calling from candidates for president and Congress.

What we are not accustomed to is this kind of campaign conducted on a local level. The Kula-Stefano campaign has broken through a barrier that was largely sacrosanct for decades: because candidates might be neighbors or former classmates, or even long-time friends, it was thought the better part of decorum was to refrain from the sort of wild charges that we’ve had in this campaign.

What explains the tenor of the campaigns? It’s evident Kula and Stefano have been over taken by party professionals and/or practiced political consultants, players accustomed to larger, more cosmopolitan stages.

It’s also evident that wads of cash are being thrown around in this new “swing” district. You don’t air network ads on the cheap. As for the mailers, they have the professional glean only big bucks can purchase.

The evolution of these things is important to understand. First comes polling, which lets the candidates know where they stand (but only if the polling is credible). From the results of the polling comes the question asked by political consultants, oh since 1972: how do we move the numbers?

For generations now the answer has been to be as negative about your opponent as you have to be, because despite protests to the contrary, voters love negative. They respond to negative.

The tone of the campaign is disturbing, and this comes from a guy – me – who believes campaigns must of necessity be hard-hitting. The object of democratic politics is to confer on officeholders the power to govern. Many more campaigns like this and governing in Harrisburg will become nearly impossible.

Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown and is the author of two books of local history: Grand Salute: Stories of the World War II Generation and Our People. He can be reached at grandsalutebook@gmail.com.

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