{"id":311,"date":"2012-01-07T10:06:26","date_gmt":"2012-01-07T15:06:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=311"},"modified":"2012-01-20T09:35:13","modified_gmt":"2012-01-20T14:35:13","slug":"hello-2012-welcome-to-the-deep-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=311","title":{"rendered":"Hello 2012, welcome to the deep stuff"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hijinks in the 19th Senate District kick off election season, more silliness likely ahead<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, CoatesvilleTimes.com<\/em><\/span><\/span>
\n\"\"<\/a>Just when you thought it was safe to go back on the Internet, we\u2019re back with the first column of 2012.<\/p>\n

Although probably not as exciting as Googling \u201cSantorum\u201d \u2014 and no, you really, really don\u2019t want to do that \u2014 it\u2019s good to be back in the saddle in the new year, which, as luck would have it is one of those scary, even-numbered years.<\/p>\n

As we\u2019re already knee-deep in thick stuff of the 2012 election cycle \u2014 and I don\u2019t mean snow \u2014 the forecast is more wacky in the coming weeks, not that there hasn\u2019t been a sample of wacky already\u2026<\/p>\n

Leading the league in local wacky is the 19th state Senatorial District \u2014 despite redistricting, almost all of the greater Coatesville area lives within the 19th. Now, understandably a few years back, the mere idea of a Democrat representing large swaths of Chester County would have put a lot of people off their feed. Heck, from what I can gather, old Sam Morris\u2019 time in office caused a plague of locusts or infomercials (I forget which) that took people decades to get over.<\/p>\n

But then after the death of Sen. Robert Thompson, a funny thing happened: long-time Chester County Commissioner Andy Dinniman won election to the state Senate from Chester County \u2014 a Democrat. As a matter of record, the seas did not boil, although some wags have attributed last year\u2019s earthquake to his election. As it turned out, Dinniman managed to get himself reelected by a comfortable margin, and it started to dawn on people that electing Democrats to the state legislature would not lead to the apocalypse \u2014 and others got elected to the state house just a couple years after Dinniman broke through.<\/p>\n

Dinniman became one of those endangered species: he\u2019s enjoyed relative support across party lines and been one those dreaded moderates, you know that political sort that works across party lines, tries to solve problems and oddly, actually gets stuff done, instead of just holding angry press conferences explaining why the other side is ugly and their mothers don\u2019t love them.<\/p>\n

Fast-forward to now, this week to be exact. Former State Rep. Tom Houghton announced he would mount a primary race against Dinniman. Houghton was all set to run against state Sen. Dominic Pileggi \u2014 announced his run last year, in fact, but then the Senate Majority Leader rudely redistricted his would-be opponent out of his district and into Dinniman’s. Imagine that. And now Houghton has turned his sights to Dinniman because he says the state Senator isn\u2019t liberal enough.<\/p>\n

Well, duh.<\/p>\n

This is Chester County after all. Liberal Democrats get 38% of the vote here, trust me, I know from personal experience. And aren\u2019t the Democrats screaming bloody murder about the Tea Party dragging the GOP to the extreme right with purity tests? Yup, no sense of irony, here, right?<\/p>\n

I tell you, though, the guy who feels like Christmas came a second time must be Chester County Republican Party chair Val DiGiorgio.<\/p>\n

If Houghton \u2014 and I\u2019ve known Tom for a long time, like him and think he was an able and effective legislator \u2014 had instead chosen to run for his old 13th District state house seat against freshman John Lawrence, that would be a difficult, costly defense, using up party resources, while at the same time, the GOP would be looking at running a sacrificial lamb in the 19th state Senate race.<\/p>\n

But now…DiGiorgio doesn\u2019t have to worry about Lawrence and the 13th, as there\u2019s no star Democratic candidate likely to pop up and mount a real race. And one of two scenarios happens in the 19th: either Houghton somehow beats Dinniman in the April 24 primary, which puts the seat fully in play for the GOP; or a wounded Dinniman has to make up for the money spent in the primary, cope with whatever damage was done to him during the primary and hope to rebuild his coalition.<\/p>\n

Just from knowing all the players \u2014 there will be hard feelings and yet another rift among factions in the county’s Democrats.<\/p>\n

One other factor: I got a call yesterday from someone in the mushroom industry, which has surprising power in the southwest part of the county \u2014 the newest portion of the 19th. It would seem that during his time in Harrisburg, Houghton made some enemies among that group \u2014 folks with no shortage of money and the ability to influence elections \u2014 and they are hell-bent to see him go down in flames. I’m told, though, in hopes of the seat returning to Republican hands, they\u2019ll wait to see if Houghton wins the primary to unleash their flamethrowers and wads of cash.<\/p>\n

So pretty much the worst case scenario is playing out for Democrats in Chester County, again, who seem to have the least capable and credible leadership this side of the New York Mets\u2019 ownership group.<\/p>\n

And to think, the fun and thrills of 2012 are just getting started.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

If you’ve been checking us out, I thank you and apologize. We’re having some issues staffing up to properly cover the Coatesville area \u2014 and while we’ve had some promising interviews, we’re still short-handed. Please feel free to send in your announcements, letters to the editor or even suggestions to me at mike@timescommunitynewsgroup.com<\/a>. We expect to have the same great coverage in the Coatesville area we’ve been able to provide in Unionville and Kennett, but we ask your patience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hijinks in the 19th Senate District kick off election season, more silliness likely ahead By Mike McGann, Editor, CoatesvilleTimes.com Just when you thought it was safe to go back on the Internet, we\u2019re back with the first column of 2012. Although probably not as exciting as Googling \u201cSantorum\u201d \u2014 and no, you really, really don\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":315,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,3],"tags":[24,78,76,77],"class_list":["post-311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","category-featured","tag-coatesville","tag-dinniman","tag-houghton","tag-state-senate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}