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LEFTOVERS: Morganelli & Onorato clash, more Dems for Wagner, Gordon announces, Senate’s a tossup

There was quite a kerfuffle over the 2008 campaign last week, as Democratic gubernatorial front-runner Dan Onorato spent a couple days jostling with John Morganelli, his party’s nominee for Attorney General in 2008.

The reason? Morganelli says that Onorato secretly supported incumbent Republican Tom Corbett over him, even inviting Morganelli to a few fundraisers that proved fruitless. This would be both surprising and counter-intuitive, since both Onorato and Corbett were already looking down the road at runs for governor—races that by all accounts were already pointing to a showdown with each other.

Nevertheless, reports on Capitolwire (subscription only) and PoliticsPA have detailed Morganelli’s accusations, apparently first floated on Lehigh Valley Ramblings. Allegedly, Onorato invited Morganelli to at least two fundraisers in Pittsburgh, from which Morganelli says he left empty-handed.

“I was not angry,” Morganelli told Capitolwire, “just disappointed [because] I think Dan’s support in Allegheny County—rather than his support of Corbett—and some serious money could have made a difference.”

Onorato’s campaign has called the account fiction.

“Dan Onorato has been and will remain a strong supporter of Democrats across the commonwealth,” a campaign spokesman told the Web site. “While we understand Mr. Morganelli’s frustration at being defeated, it is simply inaccurate to link that loss to Dan’s support of his campaign.” Added Onorato himself: “I said he could put my name on the invitation and I would show up. That is all I said. … In politics, other people let you put their name on the committee, and show up, but you raise the money yourself.”

Lamentably, this is one of those he-said-she-said things. But in fairness to Onorato, Democratic insiders hardly considered Morganelli’s campaign a modicum of political prowess.

Meanwhile, one of Onorato’s primary opponents, Auditor General Jack Wagner, has been rolling out endorsements from county party chairs faster than we can keep up. The latest were leaders of the local party organizations in Fulton and Dauphin counties. By our count, Wagner is close to having 15 local party chairs behind his candidacy, with the party’s state committee endorsement meeting only days away. And as Wagner’s campaign pointed out, he picked up a new one every day last week.

Lower Merion Township Commissioner Brian Gordon formally declared his candidacy for the Democratic primary in the 6th Congressional District Sunday. Gordon’s already been fundraising and building a staff, and while we couldn’t make it to the event, his campaign sent us some prepared remarks.

“This will be a campaign of ideas and ideals,” he said. “With a constellation of policy advisors who are experts in their fields, including Republicans, Democrats and Independents, this is an opportunity to solve the major problems and challenges of our time.”

And lastly, CQ Politics has changed its forecast on the Senate race from “leans Democratic” to “toss-up”—which it says is still “admittedly generous to [Arlen] Specter.”

January 31, 2010 at 5:51 pm

--Dan Hirschhorn

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