Thought Theater

Court: Pennsylvania Senate A Two Party Race genre: Polispeak

Despite the admitted efforts of Rick Santorum to assist the Green Party in fielding a candidate in the Pennsylvania Senate race to take some votes from his Democratic opponent, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled that Carl Romanelli did not have the sufficient petition signatures nor would he be afforded an opportunity to rehabilitate some of those excluded signatures. In effect, the Santorum effort seems to have failed although Romanelli's attorneys discussed the possibility of asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. The Wall Street Journal has the full story.

It’s no longer a three-way Senate race in Pennsylvania. The state Supreme Court rejected an appeal to allow Green Party candidate Carl Romanelli to “rehabilitate" 3,000 petition signatures he needs to get on the November ballot, and upheld an earlier ruling that Romanelli needs a total of 67,070 signatures.

“I am devastated," Romanelli said. “All I have left is to declare a write-in candidacy."

Romanelli isn’t the only one distressed. State Republicans have been hoping the Green Party candidate would siphon votes from Democratic contender Bob Casey Jr., the state treasurer, thus helping Republican incumbent Sen. Rick Santorum.

Democrats, on the other hand, cheered. “This means that we’re going to have a one-on-one, head-to-head campaign," said Pennsylvania Democratic Committee spokesman Abe Amoros, citing Republicans for using Romanelli to divert votes from the Democrats. "We feel confident that in a one-to-one match, Mr. Casey can defeat Mr. Santorum."

Many feel that Santorum can't win this race given the fact that he simply can't get past forty percent support. Santorum has only polled over forty percent in one poll (41%) since April of this year. The fact that Romanelli won't appear on the ballot will only serve to assist his opponent, Bob Casey. Had Romanelli been on the ballot, it gave Santorum an opportunity to win with less than a 51% majority.