Suddenly Pennsylvania, which had been a pretty solidly blue state, has been put in play and Barack Obama has no one else to thank for this blow to his campaign than his fellow Democrats in the Pennsylvania state legislature. Twelve of them are now under indictment, two high ranking elected officials and ten staffers, for using millions of dollars in taxpayer funds to pay for political work and personal benefits.
Among the most egregious of their offenses was the practice of rewarding staffers with bonuses for doing work in political campaigns. The bonuses were paid with public funds and some of the staffers, whose salaries were paid by the taxpayer, did nothing but political fundraising and other campaign work in their offices in Harrisburg.
The Philadelphia Inmquirer notes:
[The bonuses] helped trigger the investigation, which has centered on Democrats because of the sheer dollar amount of the bonuses.
At the end of 2006, after winning back control of the lower chamber, House Democrats gave nearly $1.9 million in bonuses to 717 aides - more than the other three caucuses combined.
House Democrats, according to the charges, had the bonuses down to a science. House aides, at the request of Veon and Manzo, created a grading system for rewarding staffers who had done political work. The grades: "OK," "good," and "rock star." Depending on the grade, aides got anywhere from $250 to $25,000.
By 2006, the system of bonuses for political work was so ingrained that finding aides for campaigns was a cinch, the charges state.
The investigation is continuing and perhaps hundreds more Democratic staffers and elected officials may be implicated before it's all over. The Democrats are almost sure to suffer a backlash in November from Pennsylvanians who are already outraged that the legislature voted themselves a pay raise two years ago in the dead of night. The only question is how severe the backlash will be. There is also the possibility that some Republicans might also be charged in the investigation, thus blunting voter anger against the Democrats.
If this turns out to be a purely, or mostly, Democratic scandal, however, Obama may well lose Pennsylvania in November.
RLC