Blogger, Michael Gaudini posted what he calls a comparison of Tom Corbett and Dan Onorato to help readers get a grasp of what these two candidates have to offer. It is a good read and the link below will take you to it. It is a fairly detailed listing of bullet points that covers many areas such as government reform, jobs, health care, agriculture, etc. What is interesting however, is what it does not cover, such as civil rights issues.
In this blog post, I’ll try to compare their stances to reach a better understanding of what each plans to bring to the table if elected governor.
It isn’t clear how or why Michael ordered the bullet points as he did, nor is there any commentary of what it all means. Still it is a great base from which to begin looking at these two candidates, and I appreciate the work that went into his post. What would help the reader however, is if he would cite where he found his information. That may be a lengthy bibliography, but would have been an invaluable resource. If all bullet points contained a hyperlink to where the info came from- imagine how useful that would be as a means to fact check, but also place these bullet points in context. (note: some do contain links).
Gaudini has paid attention to civil rights/social issues in other posts. For example, in a comparison of Sestak and Toomey, he lists stances on abortion and gay and lesbian issues. There is a note on that blog post- most of the information comes from the candidate’s campaign web sites. This may explain why civil rights issues do not show on the Corbett/Onorato post. Campaign sites are designed with an intended audience and purpose. They are not a bad source of information, but may not display the whole picture. Still, many bloggers do not do even half this level of research, so Gaudini is really to be applauded.
Many of my readers are very interested in LGBT issues, so I want to add some commentary there. Corbett’s views on LGBT issues are found in his questionnaire to the PA Family Institute. He opposes HB 300, a non-discrimination bill, as well as he supports a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. Onorato does not support a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, supports civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships, and supports fully inclusive non-discrimination protections in employment, housing and public accommodations.
What you said is true.
Really great to finally find a blog I can relate to. Just my kind of thing.
And almost a year later…the makeup pf local and federal govt. has changed. I wonder if Republicans in Pa can continue the surge in 2012?
Good question. I suppose time will tell.
Thanks for your comment and again, for all the work pulling the info together! I'm looking forward to seeing how we agree, disagree and converse on any commentary.
Thank you for the kind words! The information on that blog was taken from the candidates' websites and policy papers. I plan to do my own commentary in a separate blog post to keep my opinions separate from the stances. I've added a note at the beginning to show where I got the information; apologies that it was absent before. I'll definitely check out that questionnaire you mention and hopefully other sites, to add to that blog entry.