Rep. Mary Flowers and her series of statewide public hearings on HB 311 took the single payer discussion to the Kane County Gov. Center in lovely Geneva IL. Thursday, 8-14-08.  
And we seriously couldn't be more pleased with the repercussions of the conversation...

"This time, it's finally about us"
-Front Page, Kane County Chronicle

That's right...
FRONT PAGE

The Race Tightens

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/...

The key excerpt:

"The Keystone Poll of 551 Pennsylvania voters shows Casey, the state treasurer from Scranton, leading Santorum, of Penn Hills, by five percentage points -- 44 to 39 percent. Green Party nominee Carl Romanelli, a former Luzerne County family court officer, garnered 4 percent, and 13 percent of respondents were undecided."
-------------------------------------------------------

First of all some people may find this poll disturbing. At first, though, it does look troubling.

However, I still think Santorum is likely headed toward defeat. The first factor is that Romanelli is probably off the ballot. So once Romanelli is struck from the ballot the bitter Pennachiods supporting will probably go back to Casey. The second factor is that Santorum, despite the advertising, still remains trapped in the high 30's/low 40's. While Casey has lost some support, Santorum hasn't gained any either.

(This was going to be comment to this article, http://www.dailykos.com/...
but I have made it my first diary, as I was late to the discussion and because I wanted to add a poll.)

I was curious about the stance of Kossacks in relation to PA senate discussions, over time, (especially since one primary candidate seems to have positions more like Lieberman and another more like Lamont, but the two races seem to have very different support from the Kos community).

So I pulled the polls from the archives (find them below the jump).  I quickly and roughly grouped them discussion or leaning towards either the Progressive Democrat or the Conservative Democrat.

In truth, I do not think that this discussion or the polls are about Casey v. Pennacchio as much as is it about Conservative Democrat v. Progressive Democrat and perhaps stereotypes about Pennsylvania voters.

MAY 16, 2006
I spoke a few minutes ago with Bob Casey. I wished him the courage and strength to be a true Democrat and to defeat Rick Santorum.
I wish him the courage to speak out loudly and often
- against an open-ended, tragic and costly military occupation of Iraq
- against the scourge of illegal handguns that is plaguing our cities and killing our children and teenagers.
- against the gun lobby, against foes who refuse to admit that there is a difference between a deer in the forest and a nine-year old child waiting in a schoolyard.

Sandals takes the opportunity to assert his stand on gun control without turning his comment into an attack. Pennacchio chose to take the low road.

more on the flip

The Pennsylvania Secretary of State's website has finally begun posting the results of today's primary.

Given the extremely large number of diaries on this subject, I figured we should have an open thread.

Races to watch include PA-4 (Georgia Berner vs. Jason Altmire) , PA-8 (Patrick Murphy vs. Andrew Warren), Lt. Gov. (Catherine Baker Knoll vs. Valerie Roberts), and the 175th state legislative district, where netroots candidate Anne Dicker, founder of Philly for Change, will show us whether netroots candidates (well, she's not officially a netroots candidate, but Chris Bowers has been relentlessly promoting her) can win at the state legislative level.

Races to not gloat about are limited to the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate (Bob Casey vs. Alan Sandals vs. Chuck Pennacchio).

After I've initially posted this thread, I'll start posting and updating results in the extended body.

What I didn't know was that the old voting machines have been retired.  Today, I voted via a paper ballot and an optical scanner--and I was impressed.

Last night, I got a phone call from the DNC, thanking me for my past support.  I cut the woman off, and said any money I give, from now on, will be given to the local party and local candidates.

More on all of these below:

YOU can make a difference in the May 16th PA primary and can help put a strong progressive in the primary instead of a centrist, anti-abortion, pro-Alito pick of the DLC leaders. Forward this article and phone to everyone you know in Pennsylvania

Wherever you live, in PA or not, you can help beat Rick Santorum by taking action today.

There never was an outcry amongst Democratic primary voters against Bob Casey.   Chuck Pennacchio never came close in polling or money to Bob Casey, at any point.  Pennacchio supporters will of course point out that the reason for that is lack of name recognition, lack of media, and the lack of Bob Casey engaging his primary opponents in a campaign.  

For what do we Democrats stand? Is it privacy? Perhaps it is equality and the separation of church from both state and science. Do we believe in protecting the environment? Do we favor diplomacy over preemptive war? Should we asking the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes? In short, do we believe in the common good?

There has been lots of complaining and whining about Bob Casey being pro-life. The abortion rights supporters have been stating admantly about how they can't "compromise" on abortion and how every other issue doesn't matter unless there is a Democrat who is 100% for every type of abortion, including late-term and partial-birth abortion.

And it's comforting to see that Howard Dean is on board the zip-lip train.  What would Howard tell a Senator who said this:

"Our President is a criminal. He he lied us into war in Iraq and he's engaged in warrantless wiretapping of Americans in violation of our Constitution.  We need to impeach this President."

PoliticsPA has learned that the Quinnipiac poll to be released Thursday morning will show Senator Rick Santorum trailing Bob Casey Jr. 36- 49

Mr. Casey, 46, of Scranton is a proven vote-getter. When he was elected treasurer in 2004, he won more votes than any other candidate for state or federal office in the history of Pennsylvania. Before that, he was elected statewide as auditor general in 1996 and re-elected in 2000. His one statewide loss was in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in 2002, which was won by Ed Rendell and did Mr. Casey no lasting damage or shame.

snip

That, of course, is also a problem for Mr. Casey at the other pole. Some Democrats were annoyed that party leaders, including Gov. Rendell, asked the pro-choice Barbara Hafer not to run for the Senate in the interests of improving Mr. Casey's chances.

Whenever Bob Casey goes down a little from his last poll in his race against Rick Santorum, Daily Kos finds itself host to anywhere from one to three "sky is falling" diaries about how Bob Casey's support went down and that this clearly constitutes a lasting trend, and that since he's definitely going to lose, we should support Chuck Pennacchio instead. (Oddly enough, when Rasmussen showed a net gain of four points in his last poll, putting Casey up by 13 points, no "sky is falling" pro-Pennacchio diary was posted).

The latest poll in question is the Keystone poll for May, which showed Casey up by only 6 points. The rest of the diary is devoted to analyzing this poll and how it compares to his previous Keystone polls.

First, let's talk about money. Bob Casey has raised millions, compared to tens of thousands for Chuck Pennacchio and half a million that Alan Sandals has mostly put up out of his own pocket, or borrowed.

Last night, in jpol's diary supporting Chuck Pennacchio, an apparent pro-Casey comment caught my eye.

it's like you really want Casey to lose so that you can be self-righteous like the other pro-abortion fanatics on this board to talk about "the message" that no one cared about