Gotham City

Gotham City:
Telling Tales of Our Capital Region’s Politics

by Frank Pizzoli

“My last term. And you can print that,” says Robert F. Bob Dick, 67, who has been around Republican politics for nearly 30 years.

For the last three years, he’s been Dauphin County Republican Chairman, a post he first held from 1975 to 1980. Dick served as state vice chairman from 1980–1982 and as county co-chairman with Bill Smith of CTA scandal days — when, sadly, State Treasurer Budd Dwyer committed suicide at his own press conference, under the stress of mounting legal pressures.

As chairman, Dick has been criticized for “charging candidates” if they want to run for office with party support. He explains that, “We don’t charge people. Here’s how it works. Before I came, campaigns were run from bank loans and candidates’ war chests. I wanted to be independent.” Consequently, he organized a Chairman’s Club. Admission is $250 annually from about 50 or 60 people who voluntarily donate to the fund.

“We can organize the necessary machinery for a good campaign. If a candidate wants to have all these resources on his or her own, it’s going to cost a lot more. It’s simple, if you want the Dauphin County Republican Party endorsement, we have figured out what it cost to run, and run right, so we set fees,” Dick says. Not everyone is upset with his organizational strategy. On the Republican State Committee level, the word is “Finally, Dauphin County is together again.” All but a few of his 294-committee seats are filled.

Currently, Dick is running for his fifth term as county treasurer against Democratic opponent Leon L. Czikowsky. Known as a “row office,” the county treasurer handles all of a county’s funds, including employee pension funds, investments, and money sent by local tax collectors for real estate — if the county receives the funds, the treasurer oversees their safekeeping.

“You don’t usually hear much unless there’s a screw up,” Dick says. For example, his counterpart in Orange County, CA — readers may remember — made poor investments and sent the county into a downward spiral from which they are still recovering.

His opponent, Czikowsky, would make one significant change if elected. “I’d get rid of or make major changes to the office of tax collector,” he told MODE recently. Currently, real estate and school taxes are collected annually by 39 elected tax collectors drawn from various subdivisions of government throughout the county. They collect on all of the county’s 110,000 pieces of property.

As a regional Republican, what are Dick’s views on the Reform Party, often referred to as hurting more Republican aspirations than Democratic candidates? “I think he was due,” Dick says of Jesse Ventura. “A lot of people don’t realize that you can register to vote and vote on Election Day in Minnesota. That helped Ventura tremendously.”

“Work within the party. Nothing was ever accomplished by working from the outside,” Dick says of Patrick Buchanan. “People are afraid of change,” he adds. “I’m glad we have Tom Ridge,” he says, reflecting on the current Governor, who may be angling for a veep seat on the next Republican ticket.

What’s he going to do when he’s not chairman? After the fireworks of holding public office is over, Dick will concentrate on his “grandchildren and my coin collection.”

He collects colonial era coins, mostly “large pennies, and nickels minted from the copper stares that held together the barrels of gun powder.” He is expected to keep his powder dry until retirement.