Down River – June 5, 2014
Republicanism Strong in Lock Haven’s Fourth:
The official count has been released for Clinton County’s role in the May primary and the results are in line with the unofficial election night tally.
Down River was curious to see where all the anti-Tom Corbett write-in votes went on the Republican ledger and here is the official tally:
Corbett (the only name on the ballot), 950 votes; successful Democratic challenger Tom Wolf, 83 write-ins; Robert Guzzardi, a prospective primary challenger to Corbett but forced off the ballot, 13 write-ins; unsuccessful Democratic candidate Rob McCord, 15 votes; ditto Allyson Schwartz with 5 write-ins and Katie McGinty with 1 write-in.
Glenn Thompson was the only name on the Republican ballot for Congress and he received 1,298 votes. Unsuccessful Democratic challenger (and Renovo’s own) Tom Tarantella got 34 write-ins.
The State House race had no Republicans on the ballot but incumbent Democrat Mike Hanna received 20 GOP write-in votes; Hanna was unopposed on the Democratic ticket and proved to be the top vote-getter among all primary candidates, securing 2,150 votes to nine “scattered” write-in votes for others.
There were a handful of ties for local committeemen in both parties, the most intriguing the hotly contested Republican committeeman write-in contest in Lock Haven’s fourth ward.
According to county voter registrar Maria Boileau, lots will be drawn Friday to break the tie, but there certainly will be no losers among this aggregation: David Liddick, Dwight Bolin, James Berkebile and Todd Sweitzer.
We likely will be headlining the winner come Friday on “therecord-online.com.”
Unusual Huntingdon County Face-Off:
A Huntingdon County state House Republican will be going for a fifth term in Harrisburg in November, but this time as a Democrat.
State Rep. Mike Fleck has represented Huntingdon County and parts of Centre and Mifflin Counties in the state capitol for eight years but his reelection effort hit a snag last month when he was edged out in the Republican primary by Huntingdon County Treasurer Richard Irvin.
Irvin did the hard way, by mounting a successful write-in campaign against Fleck, the only candidate on the GOP ballot.
Fleck had won his first four terms relatively quietly and was building some seniority in the state House Republican caucus. But not too long ago he “came out,” making him the first openly gay GOP member of the House.
All of a sudden Irvin orchestrates a successful write-in campaign and comes out on top in the primary in a heavily Republican district, edging Fleck by 243 votes; meanwhile Fleck took the Democratic nomination, where there were no candidates on the ballot, by 15 votes over Irvin, setting up the November runoff.
Irvin, according to a story in the Centre Daily Times, said he was not running against “a gay representative or a straight one” but was running “for state representative.”
State senator John Eichelberger (R-Blair County) had some post-election comments, blaming Fleck’s loss on his coming out. According to the Huffington Post, Eichelberger said Fleck should have “stayed in the closet.”
Fleck told the CDT that Eichelberger has not allowed his staff members to work with Fleck’s office out of what he said was an Eichelberger fear that Fleck could run against him.
Fleck said he did not blame his loss in the GOP primary on his sexual orientation, though (the CDT said) “he did wonder about giving interviews on the same-sex marriage ruling, coincidentally issued on May 20, the same day as the primary.”
Two Great Parade Marshals, Two Great Parades:
Flemington and Avis did their towns proud last week with their parade marshal choices:
The Red Eyes chose Tom Walker, 97, to be the marshal for the final day of Old Home Week festivities there and the Avis parade was led by longtime educator and friend to all Eleanor “Jean” Kodish.
Well done, Flemington and Avis.
A Quiz:
Let’s finish with a sports trivia question that so far no one in this county has been able to correctly answer (thanks to Tony Anastos for the information leading up to the question):
Name the Indy 500 racer whose grandparents ran the Fallon Hotel?
Time’s up.
19-year-old Sage Karam from Nazareth, PA finished ninth in his inaugural Indy 500 run. He is a senior at Nazareth High School and his father is Jody Karam, a former Lock Haven University wrestler now the coach at Bethlehem Liberty (and his uncle is Jeff Karam, ditto a former LHU wrestler and the ultra-successful wrestling coach at Bethlehem Catholic High School).
Karam’s grandparents (Jeff and Jody’s parents) ran the Fallon for a spell during the 1980s when the boys were part of the Neil Turner wrestling program at Lock Haven University.
Sage Karam started well back in the pack at Indy and moved from the low 30s to finish ninth in his first try there.
He wrestled at Nazareth and was successful there but left the program before the PIAA postseason this past winter to concentrate on his racing; at this point sounds like a good career move.
