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Onorato should like this

The Tribune-Review has an interesting rundown of all the Pittsburgh-revival stories flowing from the G-20 summit.

Commenters on the site have already disagreed with me on this point before, but this is more good news for Allegheny County Executive and gubernatorial hopeful Dan Onorato. Critics will rightly point out that many of the glowing stories don’t directly credit Onorato. And others will argue that he doesn’t deserve credit anyway. This is a fair point to argue, one we’ll be exploring in greather depth as we delve into all the candidates’ records later in the election cycle.

But trying to say this doesn’t help Onorato misses a simpler point in political jockeying. Call it link-cred. Any time a reporter who’s not familiar with Onorato or his candidacy calls up the campaign, operatives can send that reporter e-mails chock full of links to these stories and say “look what our guy did.” I should know, having been on the receiving end of these e-mails already.

Make no mistake: I’m not hailing Onorato as the savior of Pittsburgh. I haven’t done anywhere near enough reporting yet to say that.

But don’t fool yourself, either: Having the G-20 in his front yard has been a win-win for Dan.

September 27, 2009 at 8:08 pm

--Dan Hirschhorn

Tags: Dan Onorato, G-20, Pittsburgh

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