The tactics, at least until the Interstate 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis, were simple -- present the transportation portion of the state's annual budget as a boondoggle and then castigate McIlvaine Smith as the "only Chester County representative" who voted for it. To do that required leaving out a lot of details about the bill and completely avoiding the fact that the vote in the State House broke down along party lines, with four Republicans voting with the Democratic majority while only one Democratic voted against the bill. (All of the other representatives from Chester County are Republicans.)

Representative Hershey's argument was even more novel -- he opposed the transportation bill because it called for charging tolls on Interstate 80 which "could lead to the tolling of other roads in the future" and because by spending some of the money on mass transit, it "will not generate enough revenue to repair the many deficiencies in the state's road and bridge system." In other words, he supports taxpayer subsidies to out-of-state drivers instead of charging them user fees (i.e. tolls), and he wants to spend all of the money on infrastructure that has been neglected for years instead of looking for ways to reduce the burden on our infrastructure (simultaneously reducing fuel consumption, but that's a different debate). [Quotations are from Hershey's "A review of 2007-08 state budget" which appeared in the Daily Local News on July 26, 2007.]

There is no argument that our roads and bridges are in bad shape, and nor does anyone think that traffic is getting better - - it's not, it's getting worse. But if you compare traffic to the problem of moving water through a pipe, then the analysis becomes simple. To prevent backups, you can either add more pipes, move more water through the same pipe, or stop trying to move so much water. Since no politicians is likely to suggest that our society reduce its travel, that leaves expanding the road network or moving more traffic on the existing network. If carpooling put two people into each car instead of one, we could nearly double our capacity by reducing the number of cars on the road by about half. Buses make even more efficient use of our roads by doing the work of 20-40 single passenger vehicles in the space of about five. From a capacity standpoint, trains are the best because one passenger car with 100 passengers takes up the space of about 10 vehicles. Naturally, there are other issues of convenience and access, but they also justify spending more money on public transit. By squeezing more passengers and freight onto existing rails and roads, public transportation increases the capacity of our infrastructure without requiring expensive land purchases that gobble up open space, or creating even more infrastructure that needs to be maintained.

Criticism of McIlvaine Smith's transportation vote subsided after the Minneapolis bridge collapse, since no one wants to be accused of blocking repairs on the next bridge that causes a death. But the basic motivation of McIlvaine Smith's attackers remains unchanged -- to take back a seat that "belongs" to their party. Therein lies the most disturbing thing about this conspiracy. Their goal is not good roads or even rational spending, it's about making the party more powerful. Earlier this week, Americans learned that Karl Rove announced that he will retire at the end of this month. Numerous commentators identified Rove as the architect of the Republican party's attempt to create a "perpetual majority" at all levels of government, something that we call a one-party state in countries that we do not like. Although Rove will soon be gone, he leaves behind a party still dominated by activists who fantasize about a world in which they face no opposition. Their schemes make it that much tougher for honest politicians of all parties to deal with the problems that they fail to face.

Disclaimer: The author of this piece is currently registered as a Democrat after many years as an independent and fewer years as a Republican. [See details.]

As one reformer described the problem, "There is entirely too much patronage and paying people back for things which they supposedly have done over the years. Patronage alone is no substitute for ability, interest and integrity, which are more than ever essential attributes for people in politics and government today." (page 64) Another account was more explicit:

To challenge their party's leadership, Wood and his colleagues found people to run for County Commissioner and District Attorney in 1971. Both lost, but the reformers used the experience to learn how to campaign. They did better in 1973 when Wood won the primary as a candidate for controller, and Stewart Deery did the same for the office of treasurer. Since winning the primary was equivalent to winning the election (there was no meaningful challenge from the Democrats in those days), Wood and Deery gave the Independents their first taste of victory. In subsequent years, they were joined by Robert Thompson (to whom his book is dedicated), Joe Pitts, Irene Brooks, Bob Struble, and many others.

In the even-numbered years, the Independents tried to win control of the party by running candidates for committee person. They had three goals: an open Republican primary so that anyone could compete, secret ballots so that the Party leadership could not punish members who voted the "wrong" way, and the separation of the jobs of County Commissioner and County Chairman to reduce the use of County government as a source of patronage for the Party.

The Independents also wrestled with the question of tactics. In particular, there were plenty of independent candidates who wanted to challenge the County machine, but by dividing the independent vote, they insured that the machine candidates won. The way to overcome that was to weed out some of the Independent candidates, but that called for some sort of pre-primary endorsement -- one of the regular Party practices that the Independents condemned.

How successful were they? Woods writes: "I like to think that the answer to that question is `yes,' ... [but] there is always the counter-tendency in political organizations to want to run things from the top down rather than from the bottom up. People who lead organizations get impatient when the organization does not perform as the leader might like, and the tension between the wishes of a strong leader and those of the rank-and- file is ever present."

The Independent Years: Politics of Chester County in the 1970's by Lawrence E. Wood is available at the Chester County Historical Society for $14.95.

How many people in the Borough would recognize Joe Pits on the street? Not many, according to my informal survey, and the reason is that he rarely comes to West Chester. That's not too surprising, since his party controlled Congress at the time of the last census, and gave him a district that stretches from Berks County through Lancaster County and into Chester County, ending at West Chester. [Congressman Joe Sestak's district surrounds the Borough on three sides and covers everything to the east.]

Pitts is best known in the Borough for his "guest editorials" which appear regularly in the Daily Local News. They carry titles like "The Bush plan for fiscal sanity" (Mar. 13, 2001), "No weapons, but a weapons program" (Feb. 29, 2004), and "Freedom on the march once again" (Jan. 25, 2005). He also receives frequent praise from the Local for "protecting our cell phones" (June 9, 2004), visiting a mushroom farm (July 28, 2004), and in a rare instance of implied criticism for the Bush administration, for offering a "fix" for the Patriot Act (Aug. 8, 2006). The Local also publishes plenty of letters criticizing Pitts, giving them headlines like "Pitts leaves questions unanswered" (Mar. 6, 2004), "Pitts, Christianity and abortion" (Jan. 11, 2005) and "Pitts out of touch with reality" (July 28, 2006).

At the beginning of this year, I received an invitation to join Congressman Pitts at a breakfast with other Chester County municipal leaders. This was a good chance to find out what the man looked like, and to see what he had to say about the issues that concern us directly. The breakfast took place at the Hilton near Kennett Square, and featured a fine institutional meal followed by a speech and question-and-answer session. I came away thinking the following: 1) Pitts is taller in person that I expected, 2) he's good at making references to his experience in Washington, 3) he offered some useful insights into how federal money is distributed for transportation projects, 4) he loves President Bush's war policies even more than John McCain, and 5) he blames everything that's wrong on "the other party" which is, of course, the Democrats.

On that last point, Pitts was more explicit in a guest column that appeared in the Local on Jan. 6, 2007. Although the title was "Initiatives Democrats should love," he wrote "After 12 years in the minority, the Democrats have just taken control of Congress. As a Republican, I know I will often be at odds with them. I'm prepared to cast a lot of "no" votes. But partisanship should always come second, after what's good for America. When they're right, I'll vote with the Democrats. And when I propose something they should like, I hope they won't shoot it down."

That was enough for me. A Republican Congressman who has spent years defending policies that expanded the national deficit, damaged our reputation in the world and committed us to an endless war says that he's going to disagree with people who think that needs to change, but hopes that they won't disagree with him if he throws them a bone. He's right when he says that "what's good for America" should come before partisanship, but he's set a lousy example in that respect.

With all that in mind, I was happy to hear that Slater is going after Pitt's seat. That's why I am willing to give him space on this page, and why I include the following links to their two webpages: Slater for Congress and Pitts' congressional site. Check them out for yourself.

There's no need to restate what others have written, but WCJIM thought it might be good to look closely at the Borough's results. They probably won't tell us what will happen nxt November, but anyone who is thinking about running for local office in the following year (when wards 1,3,5 and 7 plus mayor are all up for grabs) may find some clues on how to present themselves to the Borough's electorate.

First, here are the statistics:

April 22, 2008 Primary Results
Ward	1	2E	2W	3	4	5	6	7	TOTAL
Registrations
Total D&R	1361	350	780	1017	765	1110	1145	1274	7802
Dem.	747	293	568	656	520	721	715	838	5058
Rep.	614	57	212	361	245	389	430	436	2744
Votes Cast
Dem	475	155	263	380	247	444	427	523	2914
Rep	157	15	39	61	33	89	95	102	591
Turnout (percent of registered voters)
Total	46.44	48.57	38.72	43.36	36.60	48.02	45.59	49.06	44.9
Dem	63.59	52.90	46.30	57.93	47.50	61.58	59.72	62.41	57.6
Rep	25.57	26.32	18.40	16.90	13.47	22.88	22.09	23.39	25.2
Democratic Presidential Candidates (% of votes cast for a candidate)
Obama	300 (63.16)	135 (87.10)	207 (78.71)	255 (67.28)	194 (78.86)	313 (70.65)	288 (68.09)	366 (70.25)	2058 (70.8)
Clinton	173 (36.42)	20 (12.90)	55 (20.91)	123 (32.45)	52 (21.14)	129 (29.12)	134 (31.68)	155 (29.75)	841 (28.9)
Write-in	2 (0.42)	0 (0)	1 (0.38)	1 (0.26)	0 (0)	1 (0.23)	1 (0.24)	0 (0)	7 (0.3)
Republican Presidential Candidiates (% of votes cast for a candidate)
McCain	120 (77.92)	4 (40.0)	20 (54.05)	45 (75.00)	17 (60.71)	57 (66.28)	65 (71.43)	70 (72.16)	398 (67.3)
Paul	14 (9.09)	1 (10.0)	11 (29.73)	8 (13.33)	8 (28.57)	15 (17.44)	14 (15.38)	13 (13.40)	84 (14.2)
Huckabee	14 (9.09)	2 (20.0)	3 (8.11)	6 (10.00)	2 (7.14)	5 (5.81)	11 (12.09)	8 (8.25)	51 (8.6)
Write-In	6 (3.90)	3 (30.0)	3 (8.11)	1 (1.67)	1 (3.57)	9 (10.47)	1 (1.10)	6 (6.19)	30 (5.1)

Some analysis: This data is what statisticians would call "rich," meaning there are a lot of conclusions to draw from it. For starters, registered Democrats now outnumber Republicans in every voting precinct in the Borough. That has been true in most of the Borough since the early part of the decade, but as recently as last fall, there were still more Republicans than Democrats in Ward 1 (northeast). Four years ago they outnumbered Democrats 876 to 691, but since then, the number of Democrats and Republicans in Ward 1 dropped from 1,567 to 1,361 (most likely due to improved purging by Voter Services), but the Democrats gained 56 while the Republicans lost 262.

WCJIM does not yet have complete statistics for all current registrations, but based on the figures from last fall, and the totals for Democrats and Republicans from this spring, it looks like Democrats hold an absolute majority in the Borough. Last fall, there were just over 4,000 Democrats out of 8,730 total registered voters, and by now the Democratic total has risen to 5,058. Meanwhile, the number of epublicans declined from 2,800 to 2,744, so unless there was an extraordinary gain in the number of Independent, Green, Constitutional, Libertarian and "other" registrations, the Democrats ae now in the majority. Of course, that doesn't mean that they all vote as a single block, and it doesn't separate WCU Democrats from other Democrats who are more likely to be around to vote next year, but it certainly shows what a Republican candidate will have to overcome.

As far as the Democratic primary went, the Borough did not follow the rest of the state's Democrats (who favored Clinton). Obama won big in the Borough, and the Borough's two "most Democratic" wards -- wards 2 and 4, which have had Democratic majorities the longest -- gave him his biggest majorities. Obama's worst result -- if a 26.6% margin of victory can be considered "bad" -- was in ward 1.

The Republican protest vote was very large. Not only did over one quarter of the Republicans vote for someone other than McCain, just under 5 percent cast no vote for any presidential candidate. The undervote for Steve Kantrowicz, who was unopposed in his bid to take on incumbent State Senator Andrew Dinniman, was even greater: nearly one in five of the Republicans who showed up to vote cast no vote for him. The undervote for Shannon Royer, who's making his second attempt to become a state representative, was even worse: almost one quarter of the voters left him off their ballot. U.S. Congressman Joe Pitts got more than 85% of the Republican vote, but that's way down from two years ago when he got over 97% of the Borough's Republican primary votes.

A conclusion: Pennsylvania's primary turned out to be more important than anyone would have expected a year ago. The results encouraged Clinton to stay in the race, and gave Republicans the hope that the Democrats will damage each other enough to allow their candidate to snatch victory form [fill in your own description of the Bush presidency]. It's a safe bet that the last two candidates standing will be back this way in the fall, but if the Borough's numbers hold up, neither candidate may think it's worth spending a lot of time in West Chester.