The Pennsylvania General Assembly have become the idiot savants of electoral politics — good at one thing only, namely, staying in power. No event is too much for them to "spin".

We’ve heard their jaws flap about prostitutes on dinner cruises at taxpayers’ expense. We’ve seen their smiling faces peer out at us from the dailies as they try to explain polluting public waterways while holding lesser office.

Legislative leaders back peddle about perks including catered meals on days some elected officials may also have claimed per diems (in case they hit a famine, I guess). One ran from the scene of a crime and later allegedly lied on an insurance claim form about the accident’s actual location.

One legislator, rumored to be "psychic," allegedly stole an electrical generator because she feared Y2K catastrophe. Didn’t she know she’d be caught?

Like little boys in jock straps arguing nose-to-nose, our distinguished assembly can reform the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (long known as a huge threat to public safety), yet they cannot reform campaign finance laws. Representative Greg Vitali, although victorious in the House by a 106–91 vote in favor of campaign finance reform, has a steeply uphill battle in the Republican controlled Senate.

Openly cynical about taxpayers, Republican leaders advised House legions to "vote their districts" and we’ll worry about killing the bill over in the senate. The old "look good" vote that amounts to withering one’s spine. I’m surprised the General Assembly doesn’t vote itself another benefit at taxpayers’ expense — lifetime, free physical therapy for destroying their backbone while in office. Meanwhile, there has been a survey circulating in the House and Senate asking members to indicate what level of reform they can tolerate. About 40 of our 253 elected officials in the General Assembly had responded after a few weeks. Funny, when it comes to issuing a convoluted explanation of why some "member-in-trouble" ought to keep his seat (read: keep my side in power) they can generate same day responses.

One clown, Rep. David Argall, wanted to protect "motorcycle" clothing by amending the state’s Human Relations Act. Few, if any, of Rep. Lita Cohen’s colleagues will seriously work with her to end discrimination against gay and lesbian taxpayers who help foot the bill for salaries, benefits, and pensions larger than they themselves will ever see.

There are more than 258,000 Pennsylvania children with no health insurance, yet Senator Schwartz’s legislation remains bottled up in committee. By what rationale do elected officials allow children to suffer? How is allowing children to go uninsured good public policy? When you’re busy licking your own chops, the plight of others is obscured.

Our elected officials have rendered themselves legislatively inert.

Although there is an equality of dissatisfactions within the public over the course of electoral politics, our assembly took a poll to prove otherwise. All is well in the Keystone State they tell us — "the voters told us so". The main thrust of the poll asked if constituents were satisfied with "constituent services." And they were. Since Tip O’Neill told us "All politics is local," our assembly emptied their ink barrels publishing their poll results. They’d have us believe voters say about them what voters used to say about old Congressman Dan Flood: "He might be stealing, but he’s stealing for us."

With polls come perils. On July 24, 1824, the first presidential straw poll on Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and William H. Crawford was commissioned by The Pennsylvanian, a four-page Harrisburg weekly, according to then-journalist Sean Connolly who published his article on the topic in 1996. There were 532 votes cast with Jackson pulling 335. In the actual race, neither received an Electoral College majority, allowing the U.S. House of Representatives to choose Adams over Jackson.

Today, endless streams of poll data choke us. Instant gratification isn’t fast enough for poll results even with the Internet, which amounts to an electronic venue where the same basic polling mistakes can be made only faster.

For example, pollsters currently rely on about the same number of respondents used in 1824. Sometimes pollsters splurge and ask, oh, maybe 1,200 folks a set of questions. Then, they "extrapolate," which means they do arithmetic voodoo on the numbers, concluding things like: "Americans (all 500 of them asked) say they can’t wait for 500 television channels." How a question is asked can easily jaundice a survey’s outcome: "When did you stop beating your spouse?"

Another peril with polls is that they only measure group responses at the moment questions are asked. Like we continue to age the second after a flashbulb pops, polling groups continue changing after the last question is answered. Last night’s insight is this morning’s embarrassment. Like a single’s bar. Having a Senator Delp moment?

Another pitfall is "margin of error" — the percentage by which polls may be inaccurate, usually 3 - 5 percent. Unless a point spread is wide, poll results are questionable.

Another unfilled pothole is flat sampling methods: Exactly who are these respondents? And how many times have those same 500–1,200 folks been questioned?

Don’t we improve with each time at bat? Do Neilsen Households defeat the purpose over time by reporting what pollsters want to hear? Is Pavlov training dogs or are dogs training Pavlov? Meaningless polls and dizzying spin, the state of affairs in Pennsylvania Primary Election politics, and electoral politics in general, reflect a stagnant system carefully crafted to re-elect incumbents and thwart newcomers. Primary elections are meaningless.

Bradford’s State Representative Ken Jadlowiec is a good example. Referred to in one lobbyist’s newsletter as the "The Free Ride Champ," Representative Jadlowiec holds the record for not being challenged in an election. Beginning as an unchallenged candidate for District Justice, he has been elected to the House every two years since 1986 without a single opponent at the polls from either party.

Across Pennsylvania, observers estimate that as many as 40 percent of the 203 State House campaigns — about 82 — will have only one candidate listed on the ballot. More than one-third of the 25 Senate races (there are 50 Senators in Pennsylvania) have unchallenged incumbents.

The combined number of non-challenged House and Senate seats would be even greater were it not for a so many "unbeatable" veterans of both chambers deciding to retire. For perspective, the entire House of Representatives runs every two years.

Half the Senate runs every two years.

In Congress, Pennsylvania has 23 delegates — 21 congressman in the House, plus two Senators. The state is expected to lose at least two House seats when the 2000 Census is tabulated and congressional districts are retabulated based on population. Four of the 21 incumbent Congressmen face no challenger in this re-election year. House members run every two years; senators run every six years on an alternating basis.

The only two "real" congressional races this primary season focus on a retiree and a Congressman running for the Senate. Retiring Republican Bill Goodling’s seat has drawn five Republican challengers and two Democrats, one of whom will face the Republican winner in November. At a recent breakfast for congressional candidates, three attendees (and that was just within my line of sight) appeared to be asleep while candidates answered a total of three questions in almost an hour.

The other race is for Pittsburgh-area Congressman Ron Klink’s beltway seat that has drawn eight contenders in that Democratic primary. Klink is running in the Democratic primary with four other senator-wannabes for a chance to run against U.S. Senator Rick Santorum. With so many candidates running, these may be the only two true elections held on April 4.

Thrown on top of this "unchallenged" pack of elected officials is big money. Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "Senator for Life". With a whopping $1,040,941 million, Democratic National Committee Chair Ed Rendell, most recent former Philadelphia mayor, sits atop the state’s largest PAC, according to figures reported for 1997 and 1998 to the Pennsylvanians for Effective Government. Next in line is LAWPAC (that means trail lawyers) with $1,008,421. Teachers are next with $956,939 in their PACE-PSEA political action committee. Community Alliance for Economic Development and Jobs weighs in next with $901,613. Then the numbers slip to $606,539 for Fund for PA Leadership. They cascade down to $151,839 for Local 0830 Teamsters PAC, the last organization in a list of top 50.

Fayette County State Representative Larry Roberts knows what it’s like to take a licking from an incumbent. He also knows the sweet taste of success at the ballot box. "I first ran, in 1990, against a 24-year House incumbent Fred Taylor," Roberts says proudly. On the Friday before the Tuesday election, Roberts stood with his opponent Taylor outside the office of the Herald-Standard, the county’s daily newspaper. In spite of Taylor’s longevity, editors gave Roberts their endorsement with the words "Roberts is inexperienced, but capable of doing the job".

Standing on the pavement outside the newspaper office, trying to be a gentleman, Roberts asked Taylor, "Hey, win, lose, or draw next week, let’s you and me play golf the day after the election?" Taylor bristled and replied "I’m not gonna teach you how to play golf, I’m gonna teach you a lesson about politics." And that’s when incumbent fear hit the fan, spraying everyone in sight.

Over that last weekend before voters hit the polls, Taylor had Roberts’ signs ripped down, according to Roberts. He even went so far as to "hire away" as many of Roberts’ campaign workers as he could. "My workers said Taylor would double whatever I could afford to pay them," Roberts says. Next, Taylor bought up all the available radio time over that last pre-election weekend and blasted Roberts as "inexperienced" — citing the local newspaper editorial. Gee, that was original, just lie, go "out-of-context".

Roberts lost by 1,000 votes.

Apparently, hell hath a second fury. Party moguls didn’t stop with Roberts’ initial defeat at the polls. He was offered jobs in return for his pledge not to run against the machine. His district was constantly gerrymandered in order for his opponents to make the claim that he couldn’t run because he didn’t live in the district. Sound familiar? "They told me they would hound me right to the West Virginia border if I didn’t give up my idea of running for the House," Roberts chuckles. Yes, he did have to move in order to tap dance around their thirst for retaining power.

In the 1992 election cycle, Roberts forced onto Taylor a page from William Howard Taft’s (1857 –1930) book. Taft was spectacularly defeated in 1912 when he ran for re-election against Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. He later said, "No one was ever elected ex-president by such as large majority." When Roberts ran against Taylor the second time, he beat him by the same 1,000 or so votes which escaped him the first time.

Sounds as if Taylor taught Roberts, and us, a cynical lesson in how to maintain power at all costs. Why not fight like hell? Have you seen the perks list lately? And don’t worry, if you get into trouble they’ll open a legal fund on some squirrelly looking letterhead with a post office box for your checks. You can stay in office for as long as you like and mount an entire political opera with a cast drawn from the Attorney General’s office, the Governor’s office. A bevy of friends will warmly refer to you by first name in the media. They’ll even pump out your constituent newsletter, without a word printed inside on your troubles, while you wait for the boom to lower.

Barry Kauffman, Common Cause executive director, just shrugs his shoulders. "Business as usual," he says. "This is the worst year in a string of bad years," he points out. "There’s an usually large number of ‘free rides’. We could hit 80–90 percent of the primary elections until it’s over. That’s a disgrace."

Kauffman cites "gerrymandering" legislative districts into Democratic or Republican strongholds as the main reason for the inertia. "If you twist geography into districts with one-party majorities, what can we expect?" He does note that some regions of the state are naturally and historically deeply ingrained into one party or another.

Other counties have renegade pols who switch parties in order to gain power, and in the process establish a second political party in name only. It’s not about policy or platforms. For example, the story goes in York County that local guys there ran into the same wall as Roberts did. So, they decided it was more important to be in power than Republican. They switched. One legacy today is Eric Fairchild, Jr., controversial West Shore School District director, son of one of those political renegades, Eric Fairchild, Sr.

However we carve political pies, voters demonstrate shrinking interested. A little over a century ago, 75 percent of eligible voters turned out for the 1892 presidential election. Observers at the time thought that number was low. By 1920, presidential voter turnout had dropped to 49 percent.

By 1960, old Joe Kennedy warned his son Jack not to buy any more votes than he needed to win, complaining that he didn’t want to "buy a landslide". Unless more people run for office and voters renew their interest in electoral politics, I’m not sure you could even buy an election these days. No one has their hand out at the polls.