Oh Yeah, Sez Who? Sez Me, That's Who
Ed Rendell and Lynn Swann held their first televised debate last night (Wed. Oct. 5) in Pittsburgh. It was broadcast locally on KDKA-TV, which offers this highlight.
The Post-Gazette story includes audio links to the debate, though (I warn you) they take a while to download.
John Baer's take is that it was a Rendell win, though he gives Swann points for poise and aggressiveness.
Angela Couloumbis has a piece in The Inquirer that extracts what are probably the two best lines of the night:
"Well, Lynn, you'll learn that the people of Pennsylvania don't elect you king," Rendell said, explaining that his property-tax plan is primarily targeted to helping low-income seniors because lawmakers were unwilling to raise other taxes in order to offset more cuts in property-tax bills. "You have to work with the legislature."
"He's always complaining that it's the legislature's fault," Swann said at one point earlier in the debate. At another point, he said: "I believe in the two R's - I believe in reform, and I believe in results. My opponent believes in the two R's as well. He believes in rhetoric, and he believes in Rendell."
To underscore that point, the Swann campaign went up with a new ad yesterday called "Decades" that is a LOL hoot. It's from the shop of John Braebender, who is also Santorum's media guy.
posted by Tom Ferrick Jr. at 6:21 AM
5 Comments:
KDKA's website has the whole debate online, for anyone who missed it: http://kdka.com/video/?id=20712@kdka.dayport.com
I was in Chicago and was channel surfing andcaught 10 minutes. Swann was very good butI can't stand Fat Eddie.
IMHO, Swann is right about everything he says about Rendell. He never reforms anything , we won't get property tax relief for a decade and don't forget Rendell looked great as mayor because he followed that horrible act of Wilson Goode. Who wouldn't look good after that nitwit.
I don't know why the Inky loves Rendell so much? What do you think Tom?
Rendell is a smart businessman, who has made remarkable progress notwithstanding the innumerable obstacles thrown in his path by the Republican-dominated legislature with which he has had to work. I'll admit, Swann is glib. But glib is only good on the tv. The city of Philadelphia ran like clockwork under Rendell: it was clean, fiscally sound, and somebody was not getting busted every time you looked around for corruption. Nor were there 4 murders a day. We who live and/or work in the city would have voted him Mayer for Life if we could.
Actually, when Rendell was mayor, the murder rate was about 30% higher than it is today. I think he was mayor from 1992-1999. The murder rate in his first four years was 425 a year!! and 367 per year in his last four years (you can look it up at the FBI website).
It's only averaged 320 from 2000-2004 so it's actually way down from a historical perspective and especially compared to Fat Eddie's term. I could spin these stats and say there are 500 or 600 people who are alive today who might have been murdered if Rendell was still the mayor (lol).
You are probably mistaken about it being worse today because the media has deservedly focused the spotlight on the still unacceptable number of murders.
Glad I could clear up another or your misconceptions or what I might refer to as your misunderestimation.
FYI anonymous- Rendell has never been a businessman.
He maybe spent 1-2 years on a law firm's payroll while he lined up his next political job as governor.
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