The Franklin & Marshall College survey released Wednesday showed Attorney General Tom Corbett with a comfortable lead over state Representative Sam Rohrer (R-Berks) in the GOP primary, while the Democratic contest is still wide open. Corbett leads Rohrer 26 percent to four percent—but for all the talk of Corbett being the party’s presumptive nominee, 65 percent of voters are undecided.

On the Democratic side, Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato’s lead has disappeared, but the change is barely statistically significant. Onorato, Auditor General Jack Wagner and Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Hoeffel are all tied with six percent of the vote. Scranton Mayor Chris Doherty, who left the race last week, had four percent of the vote, and state Senator Anthony Williams (D-Philadelphia), who just entered the race this week, had one percent. Seventy-two percent of voters are still undecided, a number identical to last month’s survey.

With so many voters undecided, the flood of TV ads to come could prove decisive. With a wide financial advantage over his opponents, Onorato is well-positioned to take advantage of that dynamic.

The survey did not gauge general election match-ups.

Click here to see the poll.

“Having grown up here in Scranton as one of 11 kids and now raising six kids of my own, I’ve long been committed to making this the best possible place for raising a family,” Doherty said in remarks prepared delivery at the construction site of a new medical school in the city. “Running for governor gave me an opportunity to meet people from all over the state who share that same goal. I appreciated the support and interest we received everywhere we went. Unfortunately, in this day and age, running for statewide office means spending most of the day raising money. I’d rather be working on the challenges facing Northeast Pennsylvania.”

His withdrawal had been expected for days, after Mellow’s recent decision not to seek reelection ignited a flurry of speculation that Doherty’s seemingly lagging gubernatorial campaign made a run at Harrisburg more viable. After a couple days of news reports leading up to the announcement, Doherty had already e-mailed his supporters late Wednesday night. He was set to kick-off an effort to get on the ballot for state Senate Thursday evening.

Doherty’s exit leaves three officially declared candidates in the Democratic primary, with a fourth moving toward a run but still unannounced. Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato, Auditor General Jack Wagner and Montgomery County Commissioner are all running, while state state Senator Anthony Williams (D-Philadelphia) is reportedly circulating nominating petitions both for governor and for reelection.

“Running for the state senate is a unique opportunity to continue the work I started when I was first elected mayor while continuing to make sure our community has the strongest possible representation in Harrisburg,” Doherty said.

Doherty, a Democrat, told The Times-Tribune that Mellow’s decision not to seek reelection leaves “a major void.”

“The issues in the Senate race are the same as for governor,” he said.

Doherty’s gubernatorial campaign has been lagging for weeks, starting with the departure of his campaign manager, continuing with disclosure of a war chest that came in well under his opponents, and seeming to culminate with his recent decision not to enter his name into nomination when state Democratic Party leaders voted on an endorsement.

His campaign has scheduled an announcement for Thursday morning in Scranton.

First, let’s not forget to note that having more boots on the ground in western Pennsylvania is an important step for the campaign.

“With this new office, we can work to ensure that the needs and desires of Western Pennsylvania will not fall on the deaf ears of the status quo,” Sestak said in a statement.

But primary opponent Arlen Specter’s campaign did all it could to distract from that narrative. It seized on the fact that the staffer running the office, Pam Iovino, was an official in the Department of Veterans Affairs under the Bush administration, and called hypocrisy on Sestak for criticizing veteran policy under Bush while hiring someone who worked in the department.

“This is strange even for Joe Sestak,” Specter campaign manager Christopher Nicholas said in a statement. “In the same press release touting his hiring of a former Bush administration official, Sestak criticizes the Bush administration. Sestak’s trying to have it both ways.”

Maybe it’s just me, but this seems a bit stranger from Specter’s end. Iovino was no high-level cabinet official (she was assistant secretary of congressional and legislative affairs). As friend-of-the-site Colby Itkowitz points out, Iovino was confirmed to her position with Specter’s support. And if it’s hypocrisy for Sestak to hire anyone connected to the Bush administration, then it’s also fair to ask if Specter is the pot calling the kettle black here. Hiring someone who worked for Bush isn’t quite the same as winning reelection in 2004 thanks in part to campaign support from Bush. Don’t get me wrong—I see what they’re trying to do here. It’s just seems like a stretch.

Anyway, by the end of the day the whole thing had devolved into shouting on the blogosphere and on Twitter, with the news that Specter didn’t make it to the late Congressman John Murtha’s funeral—and why? Because he was raising money in San Francisco.

Can we get back to simpler campaign attacks?

Meanwhile, The Inquirer reports that Scranton Mayor Chris Doherty appears to be on his way out of the governor’s race. Doherty, whose candidacy has seemed to be foundering in recent weeks, will make an announcement Thursday regarding his interest in running for the state Senate seat being vacated by Bob Mellow, a campaign aide says. He’s probably not making an announcement just to say “no thanks.” So look for the Democratic primary to narrow later this week.

And finally, we did have some more endorsements in that primary. Auditor General Jack Wagner must eat out a lot, because the Pennsylvania Restaurant Association backed his candidacy, saying he “has a well established record in public service and what it takes to navigate our state through the difficult waters ahead.” Wagner’s main rival, Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato, will be endorsed by United Steelworkers Wednesday morning in Pittsburgh.

The Inquirer, citing an anonymous campaign aide, reports that Doherty is “is listening to what they have to say.”

Almost immediately after Mellow announced Tuesday that he won’t seek reelection, speculation was rampant that running for his seat would be a good move for Doherty. His bid for the Governor’s Mansion is increasingly seen as unrealistic, and the prospect of running for Lieutenant Governor as also dimmed in recent days.

WINNERS

Arlen Specter: Winning his party’s formal endorsement only nine months after he left the GOP was a big victory for the incumbent senator. He now has the organizational backing of the entire state party behind him, not to mention overwhelming support at the local level in most parts of the Keystone State.

Anthony Williams: Who would have thought that an undeclared candidate could go so far? Williams still isn’t even in the race for governor, but the state senator had big support in his hometown of Philadelphia and survived the first-ballot voting. If his claims of early fundraising success prove true and he gets into the race, he could find himself assuming the mantle of southeast favorite with ease.

LOSERS

Joe Hoeffel: It’s clear why he called for the state party to forgo an endorsement in the first place—he never had a chance. Despite being in the race for months, Hoeffel was knocked out of contention in the first round. With a small war chest and Williams trying to steal his southeast mojo, Hoeffel may soon find his base drying up.

Chris Doherty: If perception is reality in politics, then there’s simply no denying that the vibe coming from the Scranton Mayor’s campaign has changed considerably in recent weeks. A campaign manager departed. Finance reports showed him with little cash to speak of. And everyone wondered if he’d just run for Lieutenant Governor instead. Cap that off with his decision to not even enter his name into nomination, and it seems more and more like he’s on a road that ends on primary day, if not even sooner. Sure, no one expects Doherty to exit the race tomorrow. But suddenly, we’re hearing more about a run for auditor general in 2012 than we are about a run for governor in 2010.

EVEN-STEVENS

Joe Sestak: The Delaware County congressman was never expected to win the party’s endorsement. And he can keep running on an anti-establishment message. For Specter’s primary opponent, his campaign strategy this week is no different than it was last week.

Jack Wagner: It’s tempting to say that Wagner came out on top by winning a majority of state committee votes, and there’s a valid argument to made that he did. But the truth is, Wagner needed an endorsement more than anyone did. Having the institutional backing of the state party behind him would have gone a significant way toward making up for the financial disadvantage he faces against rival Dan Onorato. And while he still has a huge amount of party backing at the local level, observers will question if that’s enough when you’re outspent more than ten-fold. Money matters in politics, and getting his message out will be a challenge for Wagner.

Still, it was a striking show of support for Wagner, who, despite months of talk that Onorato was the front-runner, remains favored by a wide swath of party rank-and-file.

“To get more than a majority sends a strong message about our campaign,” Wagner said after the vote. “It’s diverse and it’s spread across Pennsylvania.”

The vote was forced to go to a second ballot when no candidate garnered a two-thirds vote in the first. State Senator Anthony Williams (D-Philadelphia) won overwhelming support from Philadelphia committee members, forcing Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Hoeffel out after the first round. In preliminary counts from the second round, Wagner won 153 votes, followed by Onorato with 76. Williams won 48, and there were 27 abstentions, many from Montgomery County members who support Hoeffel. After addressing regional caucuses in the morning, Scranton Mayor Chris Doherty didn’t even have his name entered into nomination.

After the vote, Onorato also sought to frame the result at good news for his campaign—and indeed, with no party-favored candidate, his financial and organizational advantage may only prove formidable.

“I’m really excited for the next few months, because we’re prepared to take this to the voters,” he said. After months in which he was called the insider candidate, Onorato could say, “I’m the outsider.”

Wagner, for his part, downplayed the importance of Onorato’s money edge.

“They’re talking about finances, I’m talking about financial reform of government,” he said. “That’s my message. I’m not about tax increases. I’m not about new taxes. I’m about holding the line on taxes and spending less of the people’s money. And that’s not often a message you hear from the Democratic candidate.”

There was drama at the outset, when Montgomery County party chairman Marcel Groen called for the state committee for forgo an endorsement in the governor’s race. Groen supports Hoeffel, who had called for a primary with no party endorsement.

“By going for an open primary … we send a powerful message to the people of this Commonwealth that, unlike our GOP counterparts, we do not choose our candidates in back rooms,” Groen said.

His entreaty was greeted mostly by boos. Southwest caucus chair Jack Hanna spoke out against the idea.

“Changing the rules right before we endorse a candidate is pulling the carpet out from someone’s legs,” he said. “Let us go forward. If we don’t endorse a cnaiddate today, then so be it.”

State party chairman T.J. Rooney signaled that he was willing to consider Groen’s motion and put it to a vote, but he was overruled by a voice vote of those in attendance. In the end, it was a moot point.

After the Democratic State Committee met here Saturday to vote on endorsing a candidate for governor, it was Hoeffel and Doherty who clearly seemed to have come out on bottom. Despite being in the race for months, Hoeffel was knocked off the first ballot by state Senator Anthony Williams (D-Philadelphia), who hasn’t even officially declared his candidacy. Doherty, meanwhile, addressed regional caucuses in the morning but left before the statewide committee vote was taken. His name was not even entered into nomination.

For two candidates who are low on campaign cash and find their three opponents each surging in one way or another, it was hard not to see their path toward a nomination in May narrowing.

Hoeffel’s campaign, for its part, maintained that everything was on course.

“We called for an open primary, and that’s what happened,” co-campaign manager Lauren Townsend said. “Jack Wagner did extraordinarily well, and we congratulate him.”

It was striking to see Doherty’s name not in the voting mix at all, even with his name on the ballots that had been printed. There was immediately speculation that he might be dropping out, but some party insiders cautioned against reading too much into it. The state committee was never his crowd, they said, and he would continue to move forward. A Doherty campaign spokesman could not be reached for comment after the vote.

Update: In an e-mail, Doherty spokesman Mark Nevins says that “We leave the state committee meeting with tremendous energy and encouragement. Mayor Doherty is still 100 percent committed to running for governor. He has been aggressively seeking the support of party leaders and Democratic voters all over the state and will continue to do so. We are pleased that state committee members did not endorse a candidate for governor and, instead, opted for an open process. Mayor Doherty has run on a platform of creating jobs and making Pennsylvania the best state in the country for families and he will continue to campaign aggressively on those issues.”

Yes, it was a hectic evening at the Democratic State Committee, and behind the scenes there was serious politicking going on, with operatives counting votes for their candidates and gauging support in the hours before party committee members will gather to vote on endorsements in the three statewide races.

Through it all, pa2010.com managed to get a decent idea of what’s going on. Here’s our take, with the usual rumor-mill-caveat that this stuff isn’t necessarily confirmed. Enjoy.

Making the trip: There were some doubts that the necessary quorum would make the trip considering the snowstorm. But throughout the night, estimates of the number of committee members who had checked in gradually ticked up. First it was 130, then 160, then 180. By midnight, with the bar still full of revelers, there was a consensus circulating that well over 200 voting members or their proxies were on hand, and that an endorsement meeting could go forward.

Specter’s set: Even as Joe Sestak worked the room at various times, there seemed to be little doubt among party insiders that Arlen Specter is set to achieve the difficult two-thirds threshold needed to win the party’s endorsements. His outreach at the local level has, by all accounts, been extraordinary, as he has leveraged his longstanding relationships throughout the state into a level of party support that was hard to imagine last Spring. If he can win the endorsement Saturday, only nine months after switching parties, it will be an amazing political achievement.

The Doherty-Onorato chatter dies down: There was no shortage of speculation that Dan Onorato and Chris Doherty might come here having brokered some kind of a deal to run together on a gubernatorial ticket. But that doesn’t seem to be in the cards. Onorato, some say, was sufficiently spooked by the idea of going up against Bob Brady. And while there’s little doubt that Doherty would entertain a joint ticket with him on the bottom, the Scranton mayor is happy to stay in the race and raise his name recognition for another statewide campaign down the road. Unless there was a deal of monumental proportions being brokered deep into the night, Jonathan Saidel looked free and clear to win an endorsement that had seemed like his for months anyway. And one couldn’t help but notice Brady, who doesn’t always make it to these shin-digs, holding court in a foyer just above the bar for hours, deep into the night—perhaps just to make sure no funny business was going down.

Will Wagner win? The behind-the-scenes drama that is the race for governor was the most captivating of the night. And as morning approached, it was by far the most uncertain. Word swirled that the Onorato camp had thrown its weight behind the idea that the party should forgo an endorsement, in the clearest indication that it has no expectation of winning one. Meanwhile, coming off a string of endorsements from county party leaders, Jack Wagner was looking more and more like a man who might come out of Lancaster on top. Getting two-thirds will be a formidable challenge. But it seemed almost certain that he’d emerge as the top vote-getter. The hypothetical scenarios that would arise if he did win two-thirds, though, were dizzying. Usually the endorsed candidate takes control of the party infrastructure. But would Ed Rendell, who’s hardly buddies with Wagner, let him do so? Clearly hoping to take a major step forward, allies to Wagner could been seen working the room late into the night.

We got a handful of clips. Embedded above is a brief video of Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Hoeffel discussing his position on abortion rights. More clips can be found on the pa2010.com YouTube Channel.

Click here to see Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato discuss manufacturing and industrial revitalization.

Click here to see Auditor General Jack Wagner discuss health care policy.

And click here to see Scranton Mayor Chris Doherty discuss his opposition to decriminalizing marijuana.