Throwing the Bums Out

How a small-town businessman sparked an anti-incumbency movement in Pennsylvania--and what it means for national politics.

Shira Toeplitz from the December 2006 issue

div class="bodytext"> p class="Flargetextsubheads"> span class="c1">Russ Diamond, a businessman from Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, put up just $182.47 last year to launch PACleanSweep.com, a site dedicated to defeating every single incumbent in the Pennsylvania legislature. It’s safe to say his money has been well spent. During the previous decade, no more than five legislators had been voted out of office in any election year. But in this year’s May primary, 17 sitting lawmakers, including two Senate leaders with more than five decades of experience between them, were denied the chance to stand for re-election. The 17 defeated lawmakers, plus the 30 members who announced their retirement following the same wave of public outrage, added up to almost a 20 percent turnover for the next legislative session. And there’s still the general election in November to come. o:p> /o:p> /span> /p> p> span class="c1">The precipitating event happened in the wee hours of the morning on July 7, 2005, when state lawmakers voted themselves pay raises of up to 34 percent. Since that bill was passed, Diamond, a former Libertarian Party candidate for various offices who runs his own sound engineering business, has recruited almost 100 candidates, all of whom signed a pledge that if elected they would not take the pay raise. Diamond, an average-sized man in his early 40s with a thick Central Pennsylvania accent, decided to run as an independent for the governor’s mansion. o:p> /o:p> /span> /p> p> span class="c1">Diamond’s gubernatorial campaign turned out to be a bust, but his larger crusade has been a tremendous success. His efforts show that even if a third party is doomed to failure, a third political