Brotherly Love Is Missing in Keystone State

The night began peacefully enough, with cold beer and steaming-hot ribs at a local Democratic fund-raising dinner last week. Until the banner went up.

Then the veneer of civility came down in the bitter race for the party’s gubernatorial nomination between ex-Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell and state Auditor Gen. Robert P. Casey Jr., which will be settled in a primary Tuesday.

For more than a year, Casey and Rendell have banged heads in a fierce contest that has exposed the deepest fault lines among Democrats--in Pennsylvania and nationally. Casey embodies a vanishing strain: He’s an economic liberal and social conservative who quotes Hubert H. Humphrey to justify new government programs and supports a ban on abortion. Rendell offers a mix of economic moderation and social liberalism similar to Bill Clinton’s “New Democrat” agenda.

These contrasts, accentuated by differences in experience and style, have produced a race of unusual intensity and antagonism. And when two burly Casey supporters tried to raise a sign on the stage as their man spoke at the party dinner, that bitterness burst forth like one of the thunderstorms rumbling outside.

Supporters of Rendell--who had already spoken and left the hall--tried to tear down the sign. The two groups jostled, the competing supporters in the crowd chanted angrily at each other and, for a moment, it appeared that the campaigns would settle their accumulating grievances with fists.

Cooler heads prevailed, the sign went up and Casey delivered his speech--but not before the vivid demonstration of just how much this race has split Democrats along lines of ideology, region and class.

“This is the easiest election to understand,” said Terry Madonna, a political scientist at Pennsylvania’s Millersville University. “We have two candidates who, on almost every dimension you want to examine, are appealing to a different constituency base within the Democratic Party.”

The latest public polls give Rendell a lead of 5 to 10 percentage points. But Casey’s support from organized labor--which grew alienated from Rendell when he demanded union wage givebacks to help solve Philadelphia’s budget crisis in the early 1990s--will provide him a powerful turnout operation on election day. As a result, while most local observers give Rendell the edge, few count out Casey.

The winner will face Republican Atty. Gen. Mike Fisher in a state that has leaned toward Democrats in recent presidential elections but tends to back GOP candidates for most statewide offices.

From almost every angle, Casey and Rendell give Democrats as clear a choice as they ever receive.

Rendell, 58, has been in politics long enough--first as Philadelphia’s district attorney, then as mayor from 1992 to 1999--that he lost a gubernatorial primary in 1986 to Casey’s father. The late Bob Casey went on to serve two terms as governor. The younger Casey, 42, is serving his second term as the state auditor general, the first elected office he’s held.

Rendell has made experience the central argument in his campaign; Casey has tried to undermine that effort with biting television ads denouncing his opponent’s record.

Rendell is a large man with a booming voice who doesn’t so much court voters as invade them. Mingling with the lunch crowd at a Philadelphia mall last week, he leaned into tables, laughed loudly, generally appeared oblivious to the concept of personal space and left every target with the same admonition: “Don’t forget to vote.”

That same day, Casey was friendly but somewhat reserved as he shook hands at a Philadelphia supermarket accompanied by his wife and officials from the United Food and Commercial Workers union. Casey usually didn’t approach shoppers or workers until the union officials brought them over; often he said little more than, “Nice to see you.” Typically it was his wife, Terese, who tried to close the sale by asking for votes.

Along with his opposition to abortion rights, Casey is dubious about new gun control legislation. Rendell supports legal abortion and generally embraces gun control. Both sides, however, agree that these issues have attracted less attention locally than nationally.

Abortion hasn’t vanished. Casey recently said it was relevant to the race because he would sign legislation banning the procedure in the state--except in cases of rape, incest and a danger to the life of the mother--if the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the national right to abortion.

But because Pennsylvania Democrats are more closely divided on abortion than in California or New York, where the liberal position dominates, neither side has seen much advantage in emphasizing their disagreement.

The two candidates have a raft of other policy differences that, taken together, embody different generations of Democratic thought. Casey harks back to the themes and priorities of New Deal liberalism, while Rendell identifies more with Clinton’s “third way.”

Both say the state is suffering economically. But in response, Casey puts the greatest emphasis on strengthening the social safety net by providing health-care coverage for more unemployed workers and prescription drug assistance for more Pennsylvania senior citizens. Rendell, by contrast, stresses measures meant to expand opportunity, primarily by doubling the cigarette tax and legalizing (and then heavily taxing) slot machines to pay for a dramatic increase in state education funding.

Casey wants to expand the state minimum wage; Rendell says any increase should come at the federal level because a Pennsylvania-only hike would hurt the state’s competitiveness.

Casey denounces Rendell for supporting the privatization of public services and says he opposed the recent decision by a state board to let private contractors, including for-profit companies, run dozens of failing Philadelphia schools this fall. Rendell hails that decision--which the teachers unions have fiercely opposed--as “a worthwhile experiment.”

Looming over these differences are regional divisions. As happens in many parts of the country, it’s been difficult for politicians from Pennsylvania’s biggest city to win support statewide. As Rendell readily reminds his audiences, no Philadelphian has been elected governor since 1914. Candidates from Philadelphia also struggled in several recent Democratic primaries because the area’s voters (especially in the suburbs) haven’t turned out as heavily as voters elsewhere.

For the most part, the gubernatorial race is breaking sharply along regional lines. Despite Casey’s support from municipal unions still angry over their budget battles with Rendell, the former mayor has a huge lead in Philadelphia and its suburbs. Casey leads across the more socially conservative northern and central parts of the state and in much of the southwest outside the Pittsburgh area. In and around Pittsburgh, however, Rendell is running unusually well for a Philadelphia candidate.

The contrast between the two men and their coalitions makes the race more than just a collision of ambitions.

A Casey victory would suggest a continued advantage for the socially conservative, organized-labor coalition that has long defined Democratic politics in this historically industrial state. A Rendell victory would signal a shift toward an alliance of urban minorities and suburban moderates.

Those stakes help explain why the race has become a wrestling match every bit as heated as the struggle over the sign the Casey backers hoisted the other night.