Corbett touring Pa. to push for pension overhaul

Gov. Tom Corbett is entering the fourth week of a town-hopping expedition discussing his plan to overhaul Pennsylvania’s public pensions.

At a July visit to a coffee shop near Hershey Park in Dauphin County, Corbett repeated his refrain that the state’s pension debacle is a bipartisan issue.

“I do not view this as a Republican-Democrat issue,” he said. “Taxpayers, homeowners, property owners — we don’t look at the R and the D.”

But the events on the governor’s barnstorming route haven’t been bipartisan.

The local legislators of all the places visited are overwhelmingly Republican. The statewide sweep has eschewed Democratic strongholds. Events have been in suburban or rural areas, at restaurants, municipal centers, and farms. The campaign began in the governor’s hometown of Shaler.

Franklin and Marshall College pollster Terry Madonna said Corbett’s tour mirrors the campaign of his Democratic opponent Tom Wolf.

“It’s sort of traditional,” Madonna said. “You tend to go to places where you’re going to get a favorable response, where you have supporters, where you have political leaders that support you.”

The Corbett administration has reason to pick its visits carefully. In January, the governor canceled what would have been his first visit to a Philadelphia school because a protest over funding cuts erupted outside.