Voter Discontent Threatens Pa. Incumbents

[cal04]

If Pennsylvania is a barometer, an endangered species list could be taking shape for incumbents in this fall's elections as increasing voter anger spreads across the political landscape. Unhappy voters tick off a list of offenses — some national, others local — in a swing state critical to deciding what party controls Congress for President Bush's last two years and to shaping the presidential race in 2008.

Rising gas prices and the continuing bloodshed in Iraq have stoked the Pennsylvania discontent to levels not seen since 1994 when Republicans pushed out Democrats to seize control of the House and Senate. Twelve years ago,
President Clinton's approval ratings were in the 30-percent range statewide and Democratic Sen. Harris Wofford's popularity had dropped. In Pennsylvania, opposition to the Iraq conflict surfaced early, in part because of the May 2004 beheading of Philadelphia-area contractor Nick Berg, the involvement of some reservists in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and war dead among the highest in the nation.

The state has lost more than 110 in the conflict. Last summer, local politicians earned the voters' wrath when the Republican-controlled state legislature voted itself a pay raise in the middle of the night and Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell signed the increase into law. The uproar forced lawmakers to repeal it four months later. Pennsylvanians increasingly have adopted a throw-all-the-bums-out attitude, reflected in part in last Wednesday's survey by the Pew Research Center that showed nearly half of Pennsylvanians are dissatisfied with the state's
direction.

"I feel that the administration and a lot of politicians are not in touch with the reality of this nation and the people that live in this nation and their plights and worries and problems," said Jolene Springer, 44, a retail store manager from Hershey, Pa. High-profile candidates whose futures are at stake include Democrat Rendell; Sen. Rick Santorum, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate leadership; and three GOP incumbents in House seats in the Philadelphia suburbs. "I'd like to get a bunch of pacifiers, box them up and send them down there," said Scott Kline, 41, a conservative whose grease-smeared face reflected a day spent repairing air conditioners in Steelton, a central Pennsylvania town marked by abandoned steel mills.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060513/ap_on_el_ge/battleground_pennsylvania