I love this YouTube Video for one simple reason - I identify with it. I’m someone who have no respect for the status quo. In fact, all the things that the narrator describes, fits me to the T. Enjoy.
A new Keystone Report podcast is now up. You’ll hear an interview I did with Dr. Michael Coulter, professor of Political Science at Grove City College, in Grove City, PA. We spoke about election results from this month’s election. Enjoy.
I’m talking about the automatic payraise that State Legislators will receive on Dec. 1. My question is for what? I know it’s hard work resisting change and reform, but does this work warrant a pay raise? Or maybe the pay raise if for all the hard work of keeping government closed - as in hiding consultant fees, keeping e-mails privates, allowing nespotism, etc.
If you are into jealously over pay, feel free to read the article. Otherwise, just know that we pay these people too much. The job isn’t worth the amount we pay them and they don’t bring anywhere close to the value of what we pay them.
I’ll still hold onto my version what the ideal legislature would look like - they would be in session 3 months every other year, get paid a minimal amount - like $5,000 for their time, have no district offices, and hence no staff (they can rely on committee staff for legislative advice, and wouldn’t need distric staff since they would no longer be the ones offering government services - just legislating) Be fined $100 for every day they go over without a passed budget, limited benefits - only health insurance while they are in session and pay for them to get to and from the state capitol.
It’s nice to see people being nice to other people over the Internet. One such good example is Bill Columbus. Bill is a cartoonist. I met Bill at a Chamber of Commerce function a couple of months ago, thought his business was interesting and decided to see if I could put him in touch with other people who might be able to help him out. Unfortunately, none of the contacts I sent him panned out.
Bill wrote a nice blog post on his blog just yesterday about the experience. You can read it here. It’s nice to see that I’m not alone in restoring people’s faith in other people. Enjoy.
Attached is a great commercial with a great message - failing your way to success. Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45mMioJ5szc
I interviewed Brett Lieberman of the Harrisburg Patriot-News about the election results from Tuesday’s election, November 6. We discussed the state-wide judicial retention races, the changes in the county courthouses, highlights of the races in the south eastern part of the state, and the impact that this year’s election will have on the elections in 2008.
Brett has been the Washington correspondent for The Patriot-News since 1995 and has been covering Pennsylvania politics and issues since 1992. He also writes the Pennsyltucky Politics blog and a weekly politics column for the newspaper. You can find his blog at http://blog.pennlive.com/pennsyltucky/. Brett has also covered presidential, senate and congressional elections, and has appeared on PCN, C-Span, and BBC.
You can hear the Keystone Report podcast here.
Well, the judges held on - pretty well actually. I’m a bit surprised by the margin to be honest.
In Carlisle, the results are listed below. The top four vote getters are bolded. I’m pleased with the results, especially since I provided strategy advice to Sean. Even I’m a pleasantly surprised that Sean was the top vote getter in this race. He worked hard and campaigned well for the position. Congrats to all the winners.
SEAN M SHULTZ (DEM) . . . . . . . 1,457 15.56%
FRANKLIN L RANKIN (REP). . . . . . 1,390 14.85%
WILLIAM M KRONENBERG (REP). . . . . 1,349 14.41%
DONALD GRELL (REP) . . . . . . . 1,296 13.84%
KENNETH E GOSSERT (REP). . . . . . 1,157 12.36%
SUSAN A C HOEFLER (DEM). . . . . . 1,018 10.87%
DOROTHY LAUDERBAUGH (DEM) . . . . . 852 9.10%
KARL MARCHUT (DEM) . . . . . . . 785 8.38%
WRITE-IN. . . . . . . . . . . 58 .62%
I’ve had some time to think about what will happen tomorrow. Here’s my predictions - no one in their right mind can possibly say what is going to happen with the statewide races. How mad are voters and will they take out their frustration on judges by actually going to the polls to vote in the retention - it’s anybody’s guess. I’ll say this much, PACleanSweep has done a good job of pushing their message. It wouldn’t surprise me if Justice Saylor gets voted down, and a few other judges do not make the retention vote, but it also wouldn’t surprise me if they did win retention. Alot will depend on turnout - in this case - how many angry voters from the T get out to vote versus voters in the Pittsburgh and Philly areas. The advantage here goes to the T voters for one reason only - the Philly and Pittsburgh mayoral races seem to be blowouts, so the logic is why go to vote?
On the local level here in Cumberland County, I would guess that there will not be a whole lot of change. Commissoner’s Barclay, Eichelberger and Rovegno will most likely be re-elected - it’s just a matter of what order they come in. The commissioners’ race was unusually quiet this fall. Here in Carlisle, we have four Borough Council seats, with nine candidates running - 4 D’s, 4 R’s, and 1 Green. It looks like Frank Rankin and Doc Kronenberg will easily get re-elected. That means there is a three man race for two other seats. The three that have a shot for two of these seats are Democrat Sean Shultz, Republicans Don Grell and Ken Gossert. I’ll make a prediction here and say that Sean Shultz comes in third, followed by Don Grell. Ken Gossert has a history of getting through the primary, but not being able to win in the general election. Sean Shultz has run a good campaign doing lots of door-to-door and created a great organization of volunteers to help him. He lost by 15 votes two years ago and I’d say he has more than made up for that loss this time.