Bill Scranton wimps out and PA's voters lose.

I still think a primary battle would have helped the Repansycans to take out Slow Eddie in the fall. Only time will tell, kiddies.

The Super Bowl is over and the Pittsburgh Steelers won, but with Bill Scranton out of the governor’s race, Pennsylvania could be on the verge of a political title game unlike any in its history.

The Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles have never met in the Super Bowl, but two guys with close connections to them are probably going to match up in November to see who runs state government the next four years, starting next January.

It’s Gov. Ed Rendell, the Comcast commentator on Eagles postgame cable shows, versus Lynn Swann, the ex-Steeler wide receiver.

This is what passes for political reporting in the Commonwealth:

The Hall of Fame politician versus the Hall of Fame football player.

And this is what passes for expert political analysis here:

“This is kind of the Super Bowl of governor’s races. We have two candidates with star power,” said G. Terry Madonna, Ph.D., the Franklin & Marshall College political science professor and political analyst.

Oy vey!

First things first: Mr. Swann still has to win the Republican primary. Jim Panyard, the former head of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers Association, is still in the Republican race. But no one expects that to be a problem for Mr. Swann, not with virtually the entire apparatus of the state Republican Party lined up behind him.

The majority of that apparatus was already lined up behind Mr. Swann and against Mr. Scranton. By last week, Mr. Swann had the public endorsement of more than enough GOP state committee people to be certain he would win the party’s endorsement Saturday.

Mr. Scranton’s best hope was to talk the party into not endorsing anyone, to let primary election voters decide. But he realized, he said in a statement, that wasn’t going to happen and “determined that my chances of success are minimal in mounting a grass-roots effort.”

He realized that only twice in the last 26 years had anyone successfully challenged the party endorsement — District Justice John Bender in the 2001 Superior Court race and Arlen Specter in his first Senate run in 1980.
(Thanks to the Scranton, PA (Yep, that Scranton.) Times-Tribune for the heads up.)