Bye, Bye, Corbett!

Wolf Wins PA!

Projected winner by MSNBC!

Gov. Corbett's Greatest Hits!

Just a reminder as you go to vote...

Post by Pennsylvania Democratic Party.

Post by Pennsylvania Democratic Party.

Post by Pennsylvania Democratic Party.

Post by Pennsylvania Democratic Party.

Post by Pennsylvania Democratic Party.

Corbett compares same-sex marriage to incest.


Corbett makes insensitive remarks about the mandatory ultrasound bill, telling women who do not want to see the ultrasound "you just have to close your eyes."

Chickenshit

Shorter Post-Gazette Gubernatorial Non Endorsement:

We're going to totally chicken out and say neither guy is worthwhile, but hey, get out there and vote!

 (FY, P-G)

Corbett Replaces Photoshopped Web Site Image with New Reality-based Image

As you've surely all heard by now, PA Governor Tom Corbett was caught with a Photoshopped stock image of a smiling black woman standing next to him as the footer on his campaign web site:



 After the ensuing brouhaha, the image was replaced with one that better reflects the reality of the support for his campaign:



Well it has in my head anyway.

Here's the real replacement in case you're interested:

More On Corbett's Desperation And Deceit

Yesterday, I posted this.

This morning I discovered that factcheck.org had already taken a look at the TV ad.  And what did they find?  Take a look:

We’ve noticed that the most deceitful attack ads often come from candidates who are most desperate. For example, consider the claim by Pennsylvania’s unpopular Republican Gov. Tom Corbett that his opponent “is promising to raise middle-class taxes,” when in fact Democratic nominee Tom Wolf promises to cut them. [Emphasis added.]

Yea. It doesn't get much better for the Corbett Tom.

Wolf has proposed increasing the state’s income tax — but only for those making more than roughly $70,000 to $90,000 per year for individuals, or more than $140,000 to $180,000 for married couples. For the large majority of Pennsylvanians, whose incomes fall below those levels, Wolf proposes to reduce or eliminate the income tax. [Emphasis added.]

After pointing out that the Corbett Campaign is claiming that Wolf is being dishonest, Factcheck corrects:

But it is Corbett who’s being dishonest here. He knows exactly what Wolf is proposing, because he was standing only a few feet away from him during an Oct. 8 debate in which Wolf sketched out his plan.

Wolf said (starting at about 23 minutes into the recording): “If you are in the seventy to ninety thousand dollar range as an individual — and you can double that if you are married — you should not pay any more in taxes. And people making below that will get a break. That’s my goal.”

So whenever you see the TV ad you can know for sure that it's a lie.  The Corbett Campaign is lying to you whenever they show it to you.

Tom Corbett: Desperate and Dishonest.

The Desperate Corbett Campaign

How else can you explain such a fleeting connection with the truth?

I've seen this ad on my TV a few times (as I am sure you all have):


But did you know that it's all based on a smeary lie?

Look at the image.  It reads, "Wolf calls for income tax increase" and references that to PoliticsPA.

But when you actually go to PoliticsPA looking for a mention of Wolf increasing the income tax, you'll find this piece.  In it, it reads:

The Democratic nominee’s proposed budget would also adjust the state’s 43 year old income tax. If elected, he plans to shift more of the financial burden onto citizens in the higher income brackets. He also plans to relieve more low-income households of their tax burden through a “universal exemption.”

Wolf sees his plan as fair, and he hopes that it will lessen the burden on those who he deems as the middle class; households with annual incomes between $70,000 and $90,000. [Emphasis added.]

And yet the first line of the ad claims that "Tom Wolf is going to raise the income tax on middle class families." You can't get much more dishonest than that.

The interesting part about all this is that while the (at best) misleading Corbett ad references PoliticsPA on the tax increase, all the information above is actually found at (now wait for it), PoliticsPA.

If Corbett had better ideas than Wolf, he'd be spending his money telling us all about them.  Instead he's using his money to mislead the electorate, the people he hopes will vote for him.  Can't get much more desperate than that.

And then there's the photoshopping.  (PoliticsPA led me to Buzzfeed on this):

A black woman smiling in the background of a group picture that appears at the bottom of every page of Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett’s campaign website is actually a stock image, photshopped in.

What, they can't find an actual picture of the Governor speaking with actual African-Americans to use on the campaign website?

Climate Denier Governor To Meet With Climate Scientists (An Update)

Hey, remember this?

My blog post started with this article in the Tampa Bay Times.  A group of actual scientists offered to meet with Florida Governor (and climate science denier) Rick Scott to explain the science to him.

I was wondering if we couldn't get a few climate scientists from Pennsylvania to meet with our own climate denying Governor.

Anyway, there's an update.  From the Miami Herald:

Democratic candidate for governor Charlie Crist fueled the climate wars Friday and called Florida State University oceanography professor Jeff Chanton offering to meet with the scientists who asked to meet with Gov. Rick Scott.

Scott said this week that someone in his administration would meet with the 10 climate scientists from universities and colleges across the state, but after Crist agreed to meet, them, the governor also agreed.

Of course, this is all about the upcoming gubernatorial election in Florida.

Hey, we have a gubernatorial election coming up in Pennsylvania, right?  Maybe Democratic challenger Tom Wolf should reach out to meet with some scientists and discuss the issue.  Maybe that would get Corbet to do the same - just like in Florida.

Wolf even has a "climate change" page on his website.  It starts with this:

Tom knows we need to remove the politics from the discussion about climate change and global warming. We need to take action so that future generations have access to fresh air and clean water, and have the opportunity to explore and enjoy Pennsylvania's natural beauty.

As governor, Tom will promote policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, promote clean energy alternatives, and invest in green energy technology and infrastructure. Additionally, Tom will appoint qualified individuals to lead the Department of Environmental Protection and the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources who will be responsible for proactively addressing climate change and promoting policies that are in the best interest of current and future residents -- not special interests.

Not a heck of a lot of room in there to say that climate change is "subject to debate" so it should be a rather easy conversation for Wolf to have with some climate scientists on climate change.

How long until we get a serious discussion about it from Governor Corbett?

So How Misleading IS Governor Corbett's Ad? Lots.

First, here's the ad:


And here's the text:

Tom Wolf's record on jobs is a car wreck.

While Wolf served in Harrisburg as the state's top tax collector, our taxes went through the roof. (Text on screen: Wolf fought for a sales tax INCREASE Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 2/21/07)

And higher taxes led to 152,000 PA workers losing their jobs and unemployment going up almost 50%.

Fortunately Tom Corbett came along and cleaned up Wolf's mess.

Corbett lowered taxes, creating 150,000 new jobs, and PA's unemployment rate dramatically fell.

Tom Corbett: Driving Pennsylvania towards a brighter future. ”

So, how much of that is actually, you know, TRUE?

Oh, not so much, as it turns out.  Let's take a look at the second sentence.  There's a serious voice intoning a serious charge with a reference to news article (presumably) plastered on the screen as back-up.

Funny thing, though, when you track down the actual article being referenced, here's what you find:

The nominee to be Pennsylvania's top tax collector defended Gov. Ed Rendell's call to increase the state sales tax yesterday, despite criticism from Pittsburgh and Philadelphia legislators who said the regressive levy would have a negative impact on lower-income residents of their cities.

But wait, this part of Corbett's ad was supposed to be about how when Wolf was tax collector and the article's about his nomination for that job.  How can one be used in conjunction with the other?  Simple answer: it can't, unless your intent is to mislead.

And what happened to the sales tax increase that nominee Wolf was defending?

Abandoned by Governor Rendell a few months later:

Gov. Rendell announced this morning that he is abandoning his push to raise the state sales tax, crediting a "soaring" Pennsylvania economy for producing more than $500 million in unanticipated revenue.

Through mid-June – two weeks shy of a complete fiscal year – Harrisburg has taken in $502 million more in revenue than first projected, negating, for now, the need to increase Pennsylvania's 6 percent sales tax by 1 percentage point, Rendell said at a Capitol news conference.

Doesn't that complicate the next sentence of Corbett's ad?  That's the sentence about how Wolf's "higher taxes" led to so many job losses.  Funny, they never discuss how 152,000 Pennsylvanians lost their jobs due to the sales tax that nominee Wolf defended but Governor Rendell later abandoned due to a "soaring" economy.

Isn't that misleading as well?  I mean unless they were referring to other taxes.  But if they were why didn't they say so?  Sloppy at best, misleading at worst.  We deserve better.

And about those 152,000 jobs - factcheck.org took a look at the number and found it, well, misleading (my term, not theirs). Here's how it begins:

A new radio ad from Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett boasts that he “created 150,000 new private sector jobs,” a feat called “remarkable” in a Web ad on his campaign website. Not really. Pennsylvania ranks 46th out of 50 states in the rate of private sector job growth during the three years Corbett has been in office. In fact, the growth rate is less than half the national average.

Here's the funny about Corbett's "job growth":

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Pennsylvania has added a net 138,300 private sector jobs between January 2011, when Corbett took office, and December 2013, the latest figures available. The December figures are projected, and Corbett’s office said it looked at the numbers from January 2011 to November 2013, which show a net gain of 151,100 private sector jobs.

Corbett’s comments focus on private sector job growth. During his time in office, the number of government jobs has declined by a net 42,000 (most from local government jobs). When looking at all jobs, including government jobs, Pennsylvania has gained 96,300 total jobs under Corbett – a 1.7 percent job growth over three years, ranking the state 46th in total job growth among the states.

Corbett’s numbers on private sector job growth are accurate, or pretty close if using December figures. But a much different picture emerges when the job growth is put into a national context. [Emphases added.]

So there's not so much job growth, is there.  At least according to the folks at factcheck.org.

But let's get back to the ad.  Was Wolf responsible whatever rising unemployment and tax rates when he was tax collector.

Another fact checking organization, this time politifact, says no. First on those "job killing" taxes:

We did find a basis for the ad’s claim that 100,000 Pennsylvania jobs were lost during Wolf’s tenure. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of unemployed Pennsylvanians rose by 150,000 between April 2007 and November 2008.

However, the problem with this part of the claim is that it’s a stretch to blame taxes in general -- much less Wolf specifically -- for the loss of these jobs (especially their "killing," in the ad’s overheated rhetoric).

We asked Tara Sinclair, a George Washington University economist, how much straight-line causation we can draw between tax policy and those job losses.

"Basically none," Sinclair said, saying the much bigger factor during that period was the national economic downturn, which officially became a recession almost halfway through Wolf’s tenure.

While she acknowledged that tax policy can affect job growth, Sinclair added that "economists disagree wildly on the ‘job-killing’ effects of taxes. So, confidently drawing any line of causation is impossible. And throw in that the entire country lost about 2.3 million jobs over that period. I don't think it was the high taxes of Pennsylvania that caused the job losses."

And then whether he was responsible for the taxes in the first place:

Why does this matter? Because the ad said that "on Wolf’s watch, taxes were high." This suggests that Wolf is to blame for the state’s overall tax structure, rather than just for proposing marginal expansions. In reality, most of the state’s tax structure was already well-established before Wolf was even sworn in, so it’s a stretch to lay the blame for "high taxes" at his feet.

Second, the ad overhypes how much impact Wolf had on tax policy as revenue secretary. While Wolf certainly engaged in at least some advocacy, as the newspaper articles noted, his job duties were exclusively administrative, not policy-setting.

The secretary’s job, according to the department’s website, is to "administer the tax laws of the commonwealth in a fair and equitable manner." Raising taxes or creating new ones is up to the governor and the Legislature (which during his tenure had one chamber controlled by the Republicans).

So how much of Corbett's information in his "Toy Story" ad was accurate?

Very very little.  And that makes it very very misleading.

We deserve a better Governor and a better campaign than this.