Pepper Picking

In what is turning out to be a snooze of a summer for state-office races, Craige Pepper, the Republican candidate for state treasurer, is trying to inject some excitement into the landscape. Pepper has challenged her Democratic opponent, Bob Casey Jr., to a series of debates in the state's major media markets.

Pepper, a former Merrill Lynch financial planner, has been making the political rounds since last summer. The state charter prevents Casey, who is serving the last year of his second four-year term as auditor general, from seeking that office again.

Pepper has criticized Casey, who lost to Ed Rendell in the 2002 gubernatorial primary, for running for treasurer as simply a consolation prize. That said, just what kind of debate can treasurer candidates have, anyway?

"That's what we would like to know," says Casey's campaign manager Vanessa DeSalvo Getz, noting that her boss is looking forward to the debate even though Pepper has yet to offer him specifics about what the topics would be. Well, Bob, here you go:

"The debate should focus on the responsibilities of the office and who is best equipped to handle them," replies Pepper. "Treasury is an administrative office, not a legislative office."

DSC Runs Kerry Ops

Top dogs at the Democratic State Committee are spending the summer courting voters for John Kerry and making sure Pennsylvania Democrats are registered to vote.

Even though Al Gore won the commonwealth in 2000, the party isn't taking anything for granted here.

A New York Times-CBS News national poll released this week showed President George Bush getting 44 percent of the vote to Kerry's 45 percent in a two-man race.

"If the election was held today, we'd kill [Bush]," says Don Morabito, executive director of the state committee, on his candidate's prospects here. "Kerry can win this."

The DSC's field operation for Kerry is just getting started in this swing state, considered a pivotal one in November's election.

Former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean developed his state organization early, attracting a large contingent of energetic hipsters last summer. But while Dean released them and has endorsed Kerry, only seven of his workers in the state have volunteered for Kerry's campaign, Morabito says.

The focus for the state committee will be on mobilizing Democratic votes in the western and central parts of the state. Morabito says his ace in the hole is Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry. Her late husband was ketchup magnate and U.S. Sen. John Heinz, a Pennsylvania Republican who was killed in a 1991 helicopter crash in Merion.

Morabito says he thinks Teresa Heinz will have enormous crossover appeal with Republicans here, which can only help Kerry.

One of the bigger concerns for the state Democrats is not Bush, but independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader. "Nader could certainly have an impact on Kerry," says Morabito. "I heard he's asking the Bush people for money."

Kevin Zeese, spokesman for the Nader campaign in D.C., responds, "There is no Republican conspiracy. The Democrats like to create urban myths."

Corruption Elsewhere

The Democratic political scandal and corruption going on in Delaware makes Philadelphia's City Hall probe problems look like traffic violations.

In May, Delaware U.S. Attorney Colm Connolly handed down a lengthy indictment against New Castle County Executive Tom Gordon and his chief administrative officer, Sherry Freebery, both Democrats. Gordon's assistant Janet Smith was also indicted.

Gordon and Freebery are charged with racketeering and mail and wire fraud for allegedly using public money and resources for their private and political benefit. (Smith was charged with two counts of mail fraud and one count of destruction of documents in connection with the federal investigation.) If convicted, they face maximum 20-year sentences and hefty fines. All have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The indictment apparently has not deterred Freebery from running for Gordon's seat as county executive, the highest seat in New Castle County. Gordon had planned not to seek re-election after 20 years. Ironically, Gordon was formerly the county police chief and Freebery was a patrol officer.

But in the First State, being indicted doesn't always guarantee that you'll win an election. Freebery has competition. Philadelphia attorney Stan Ellenberg is the campaign chair for Richard Korn, a Democrat who announced last week that he is running for the county executive seat. Korn faces Freebery and County Council President Christopher Coons in the Sept. 11 primary.

Korn, who says he thinks there's a very good chance that many of New Castle County's 152,000 Democrats will vote for him, has a lawsuit pending against the county. He claims the county improperly charged taxpayers $1.4 million in legal fees for employees who appeared before the grand jury in the investigation.

"You can either vote for public corruption or vote for me," he says.

Fighting political dirt is not new to Korn. A former Long Islander, Korn successfully sued the Nassau County administration in 1987 over a county budget he deemed illegal. Two years later, he ran for Nassau County county executive but lost to Republican U.S. Sen. Alphonse D'Amato's candidate Tom Gullotta.

"Al threw a punch at me," reminisces Korn. "I should have let him hit me; maybe then I would have won."