He's someone who's walked, talked and acted like a liberal throughout his career. Among other things in this campaign, he's endorsed repeal of the uniformity clause so that we can have a progressive income tax, not something that the conventional brand of consultants would advise him to do.

So here's another unconventional idea I hope someone will ask him about tonight. (Unfortunately I can't be there.) What would he think of financing a "costing out" study to show what it would take to fully fund "essential services." Let's change the subject from how far we can cut taxes, to what we can get for our taxes if we utilized them to get the full range of services the people of the Commonwealth need. Ask him if he thinks that's a way to get out of the right wing framing most of our elections get trapped in.

Does it need better schools to compete with neighboring New Jersey, New York, and Ohio?

Why not dedicate future income generated from natural gas extraction not just for environmental protection (which is completely necessary for natural gas extraction simply to go on, along with specific regulation to protect drinking water), but also for education?

Why not dedicate future natural gas tax revenue to funding a systematic switch from funding schools at the local level to funding schools at the state level?

Why not zero in on the per-student funding formulas of the best districts in the state and use those as funding formulas for every district in the state?

Why not make all schools in the state as much like the best schools as we can?

Why not shift taxation away from sales taxes and toward natural gas extraction taxes?

(Progressives can finally say with honesty, "Where else are they going to go?" PA has more natural gas than anywhere in North America).

Make that shift first, and a shift toward a graduated income tax will be easier to sell.

Just adding this to a thread about the Governor's race. Today's column, http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/82768677.html, on Sunday's article about how Rendell "sucks" was funny. Of course if I wanted to laugh I would watch Comedy Central, which I do. But when choosing political leadership, although humor is nice, it is only nice when it comes from a laughing with us not at us mentality. And this guy has been laughing at us for far too long, as have far too many politicians and their patrons. Our Governor practices pay-to-play but calls it "suck". He has expanded predatory business practices (allowing casinos to provide easy credit, exempting casinos from the city's smoking ban, etc.) as favors to his donors (I mean friends). What really sucks is that the (D) Party Machine in this state will likely get behind the Governor's choice for his successor, Dan Onerato, the anti-choice (and casino supporter) from Allegheney County. Will candidates for governor embrace this corrupt governing approach or publicly distance themselves from it?