I don’t know, but there’s a pretty good discussion of potential candidates going on here. I will say that several of the folks mentioned there have confirmed to me they are weighing a run — specifically Ryan Aument, David M. Dumeyer, W. Scott Wiglesworth and Mike Pickard. Others such as Doug Brubaker say they’re flattered their names are out there, but their focus is on family and work and, where applicable, service on municipal boards.
Aument is serving his first four-year term as Lancaster County’s clerk of courts. The 32-year-old Landisville resident said he has received several calls from supporters encourgaing him to run for the seat. “I’ll take the next few days and discuss the opportunity with my wife and family and make a decision,” he said. Aument was elected clerk of courts in November 2007. The clerk of courts records and manages the criminal cases that pass through the county’s judicial system. He previously served as chief of staff and campaign chairman for state Rep. Bryan Cutler, a Republican from Peach Bottom. Aument is a graduate of Solanco High School and the Citadel, the military college in Charleston, S.C. He served four years in the Army, entering as a second lieutenant in 1999 and leaving in 2003 with the rank of captain and a Bronze Star Medal for his service in Iraq.
Dumeyer is the former chairman of the Republican Committee of Lancaster County. Asked whether he was interested in running for the 41st district seat, he said: “I think it would be appropriate to say I’m giving it some thought, though it’s fair to say I haven’t come to any conclusion.” Dumeyer, 62, of Silver Spring Road, Landisville, retired as a staffer from the state House after more than 37 years in 2007. Most recently he worked as executive director of the House Education Committee, a position he held since March 2000. He has also worked for the House Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee and as a research analyst for the House Republican Caucus. Dumeyer serves as a West Hempfield Township supervisor and its the current board chairman. He he been on the board for 20 years. He chaired the county GOP for 6½ years, leaving the post in January. Dumeyer praised True’s career in the House, specifically her “special attention to a lot of the vulnerable in our society — the children, a lot of the people who are abused, the unborn. She really made that a goal of hers, and she delivered.”
Wiglesworth, 39, is a self-employed auctioneer and Realtor who chairs the Hempfield GOP.
“I have an interest, yes. It would be a great opportunity. (True’s) done a great job. Whoever gets the nomination is going to have some big shoes to fill,” he said. “She obviously had some trust with the voters.”
Wiglesworth, of Southview Drive, Landisville, added that he has not yet talked to his family about a potential run and so had not made a final decision.
Pickard, a former Lancaster Township supervisor who now chairs the GOP there, is also weighing a run for the seat True is vacating. “She’s served the 41st extremely well,” said Pickard. “She’ll be missed, there’s no two ways about that.” Pickard, 46, of Wheatland Avenue, is the president and chief executive officer of York Saw & Knife. Of the flurry of activity True’s planned retirement has sparked, he said: “The wires are buzzing. There will be a lot of buzzing for weeks to come.”
The Lancaster County Board of Elections has scheduled the official count and canvass of the 11-vote upset of Lancaster Township Supervisor Tony Allen for 9 Thursday morning. The official count is mandated under state law; officials compare return sheets and count used and unused ballots to verify the original results.
As we’ve been writing about since last Wednesday, however, the GOP’s majority on the three-member board was toppled by less than half of a percentage point. Democrat Ben Bamford won the race, at least according to the unofficial results, which do not factor in provisional, absentee or overseas ballots. Those ballots will be opened Thursday at 9 a.m.
The Board of Elections, meantime, has received a petition from 27 registered voters in Lancaster Township seeking a recount of all nine voting districts. The county has agreed, said Mary Stehman, the chief registrar of elections. That manual recount has been scheduled for 9 Friday morning.
Gov. Ed Rendell, offering his synopsis of Tuesday’s election on NBC’s Meet the Press, acknowledged the results weren’t great for Democrats.
“I’m happy I wasn’t running this year,” Rendell said, adding that he didn’t believe the results were a referendum on Obama. “When things are bad, incumbents are held responsible for it,” Rendell said. He warned that if unemployment stays in the double digits 2010 will be “difficult for incumbents.” But, he said, “If the job picture turns over the late spring or summer, I think 2010 is going to be a wholly different result.”
The newly formed Pennsylvania Tea Party Patriots Coalition — a group that includes the Lancaster Tea Party and like-minded organizations from around the state — will march on Harrisburg and hold a rally Saturday to demand an end to fiscal irresponsibility in Pennsylvania.
“The recent Pennsylvania budget fiasco illustrates that Pennsylvania taxpayers deserve better stewards of our public monies,” the coalition said in announcing the event. “Years of unfulfilled promises and irresponsible spending have brought Pennsylvania to its current fiscally precarious condition. In times of economic hardship, everyday citizens have shown the ability to adapt by tightening their belts and making responsible choices. We expect our lawmakers in the state house to do the same. Hundreds of citizens will be at the capitol to make their voices heard.”
The county’s top elections official, Mary Stehman, says there might be additional military or overseas absentee ballots that have not been opened in the race for Lancaster Mayor. Former two-term Mayor Charlie Smithgall picked up 11 votes from provisional ballots, bringing the Republican’s total to 3,485, in the final canvassing of returns Friday evening. Mayor Rick Gray, a Democrat, picked up five votes from provisional ballots, bringing his total to 3,792, said Stehman, the county’s registrar of elections and chief clerk of the Election Board. Stehman, clarifying her remarks of Friday evening, said those numbers could change, however, because the overseas and absentee ballots have yet to be counted in the contest. Stay tuned.
As I mentioned earlier, Tony Allen could potentially petition the courts to order a visual recount of the election results for supervisor in Lancaster Township. Allen, a Republican, appears to have lost by only 11 votes or less than half a percentage point to Ben Bamford, a Democrat. I say “appears to” because there are outstanding provisional, absentee and military ballots to be counted. And we won’t know how those votes will alter the race until next week, at the earliest, when county elections officials do their official count in the township.
Allen seemed pretty sure tonight, though, that he would take it as far as he could to make sure all the votes were counted properly. “It’s so close that I can’t let it go,” he said. “I’ll do whatever’s necessary to be done. We’re counting until we win, and we’re counting on winning.” Obviously, next week’s official canvassing could give Bamford a wider margin of victory, in which case Allen and the Lancaster Township GOP would need to do some serious talking about a challenge. “The whole thing, it’s costly,” he acknowledged. “But if it comes out that I have two or three votes less, then I think it would be prudent to proceed.”
Just in case you missed them in this morning’s print edition, here are a few brainteasers for your Friday evening enjoyment:
1.) And you thought this year’s mayoral race was close? Yes, Democrat Rick Gray won a second term by only 313 votes of the 7,261 cast in the race, or about 4 percentage points. Yes, it was the narrowest margin of victory in a mayoral contest since 1993, when then-Mayor Janice C. Stork fended off Republican Brad S. Fischer by only 255 votes, or 2.2 percentage points. But that’s nothing. The closest race for mayor in Lancaster’s history came in 1898, when Democrat Simon Shissler defeated Republican Samuel Myers. By how many votes did Shissler win?
a. One vote
b. Two votes
c. Five votes
2.) Charlie Smithgall, the Republican who tried unsuccessfully to unseat Gray on Tuesday, had already served two terms as Lancaster mayor, from 1998 through 2005. How many of the city’s 40 mayors since 1818 were elected three or more times?
a. One
b. Three
c. Six
3.) Democrat George Sanderson began a decade-long stint as Lancaster mayor in 1859. How many mayoral elections did he win during that time?
a. None
b. Three
c. Nine
4.) Political analysts predicted that 25 percent of voters would go to the polls in Tuesday’s municipal election. In the race for Lancaster mayor, the most high-profile local race on the ballot, only 7,261, or 19 percent, of the 38,150 city voters cast ballots. Countywide, how many of the 313,654 registered voters went to the polls?
a. 78, 414, or 25 percent
b. 59,820, or 19 percent
c. 43,911, or 14 percent
5.) Smithgall lives on the 500 block of West Lemon Street, in the city’s 9th Ward, 3rd Precinct. Four years ago, he lost to Gray on his home turf by a single vote, 177-176. How did Smithgall fare in his home precinct Tuesday?
a. He beat Gray by a single vote
b. He lost to Gray by 22 votes
c. He tied Gray
6.) Gray lives on the 100 block of North Prince Street, in the city’s 1st Ward. In 2005, Gray beat Smithgall there with 72 percent of the vote. How did the mayor fare on his home turf this year?
a. He won with 51 percent of the vote
b. He lost with only 48 percent
c. He won with 66 percent
7.) The National Rifle Association was supporting Smithgall during the campaign. The group’s lobbying arm reportedly sent a postcard to voters here encouraging them to attend a cannon shoot fundraiser for Smithgall in mid-October. The NRA was targeting Gray because of his membership in Mayors Against Illegal Guns. So how much did the NRA contribute to Smithgall’s campaign, according to his most recent finance report?
Former two-term Mayor Charlie Smithgall picked up 11 votes from provisional ballots, bringing the Republican’s total to 3,485, in the final canvassing of returns completed early this evening. Mayor Rick Gray, a Democrat, picked up five votes from provisional ballots, bringing his total to 3,792, said Mary Stehman, the county’s registrar of elections and chief clerk of the Election Board. So Gray’s margin of victory shrunk to 307 votes and will be reported thusly to the Department of State, Stehman said.
The official count is mandated under state law, and happens beginning every Friday following a primary or election here; officials compare return sheets and count used and unused ballots to verify the original results. Elections workers will begin reviewing votes in contests outside Lancaster City next week, including the 11-vote upset of Lancaster Township Supervisor Tony Allen.
Depending on what the canvassing shows, Allen could potentially petition the court for a recount of Tuesday’s election results, which show voters narrowly ousted the veteran Republican and toppled the GOP’s majority on the three-member board. In all, 2,365 voters cast ballots in the race, meaning Democrat Ben Bamford’s margin of victory was less than half a percentage point.
I spoke with Mike Pickard, a former township supervisor who now chairs the township GOP, on Thursday. He said Allen would not likely seek a court recount before the official canvassing is complete. “The Board of Elections said there could be absentee ballots that have not been scanned yet, military ballots, and provisional ballots,” Pickard said. “When you’re looking at only 11 votes difference, the only official thing I would say is, It’s probably not over.”
If Friday’s recount confirms Bamford’s win, he will join fellow Democrat Kathy Wasong on the board. She was elected to a six-year term in 2005.
There’s no provision at the county or state level that would trigger a recount in the event of an extremely close municipal race. A 2004 law authorizing automatic recounts deals only with races for president, governor and other statewide races.
If Allen petitions the court for a recount, he will be among only a few who have done so — and who were not successful. The three most recent recounts didn’t alter the outcomes in their races.
In 1999, Democrat Bill Saylor petitioned the court for a recount in the county commissioners race. Saylor finished in fourth place, 169 votes behind fellow Democrat Ron Ford, who had won the third and final seat. The recount upheld Ford’s win. In the 1993 election, Democratic City Councilman Eugene Aleci sought a recount after his narrow, 13-vote loss in a re-election bid. The recount confirmed he had lost the race. And in the 1990 primary, Republican William Bash sought a recount of the results that showed him losing the nomination for the city’s seat in the state House to fellow Republican Peter Hahn. The recount confirmed Hahn’s primary victory, although he went on to lose the general election to Democrat Mike Sturla.
Allen, 71, of 13 Parkside Ave., is a retired industrial electrician who is completing his third six-year term as a supervisor, and is currently the board chairman. Bamford is a 45-year-old real estate developer who lives at 1031 Woods Ave.
ON MORE THING: Reports that a write-in candidate unseated Oliver C. Overlander, who was first elected Marietta Mayor in 1981, are unfounded. Ernest E. Lehman, the write-in candidate who was trying to unseat Overlander, said he fell short in his bid by 60 votes, 312-252. Lehman said he was running because he felt some longtime issues in the northwest Lancaster County borough were not being tended to. “It’s time that somebody take a leadership position instead of just talking about them,” Lehman told me.
Former U.S. Rep. Robert S. Walker, of Manheim Township, has announced his support of Tom Corbett for governor, saying Pennsylvania’s attorney general is the Republican with the best chance of “helping our party take back the Governor’s office” and restoring fiscal discipline in Harrisburg. PoliticsPa has Walker’s full statement here. Walker retired from Congress in 1997 after 20 years representing the 16th Congressional District and now heads Wexler & Walker, a Washington, D.C., lobbying firm. He is a frequent guest on political talk shows and is widely credited as being one of the architects of the Republican revolution in 1994, when voters sent Democrats packing and gave control of the House back to the GOP.
AMVETS Post 19 will hold its annual “Meet the Candidates” night on Sunday, Oct. 18. If you’re not familiar with this event, it’s become a staple of the local political scene since its founder, the late Harold Sommers, launched it back in 1996. This year’s event will be held from 5 to 9 p.m. As usual, it is free and open to the public. AMVETS Post 19 is at 715 Fairview Ave. in the city’s Cabbage Hill neighborhood.
Former U.S. Rep. Robert S. Walker, of Manheim Township, has announced his support of Tom Corbett for governor, saying Pennsylvania’s attorney general is the Republican with the best chance of “helping our party take back the Governor’s office” and restoring fiscal discipline in Harrisburg. PoliticsPa has Walker’s full statement 
