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

(Page 2 of 16)

brand can work wonders. Diamond’s campaign has run candidates in both parties’ primaries and as independents by staking out a single-issue identity. With that small initial investment of $182.47, he successfully built a political identity and sold it to working-class Pennsylvania voters. Nationally, Diamond’s campaign could serve as a model for others trying to overturn entrenched incumbents and bring fresh faces—and fresh ideas—into politics. o:p> /o:p> /span> /p> p> span class="c1"> Jubelirer’s Jubilee o:p> /o:p>
Plans for a salary increase had been circulating in the Harrisburg Capitol long before the summer 2005 vote. In November 2004 Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, was stuck in a legislative battle with a Republican legislature that complained he had yet to deliver on a pay raise. According to The Philadelphia Inquirer , the disagreement culminated in a meeting in Rendell’s office, during which Senate President Pro Tempore Bob Jubelirer—whose wife, a judge, also would have benefited from a pay raise—angrily confronted the governor. Rendell replied that he would not sign a pay raise unless the