Staff photo by Larry McDevitt Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Corbett talks with 7-year-old J.P. McGrath during a rally Saturday at Good Will Fire Company in West Chester.
WEST CHESTER — Tom Corbett urged his Republican supporters for his gubernatorial campaign to work hard to get out the vote Nov. 2 and bring his team to victory.
About 200 Republican regulars from around Chester County gathered in the parking lot of the Good Will Fire Company at noon Saturday to greet their candidate at a small rally.
Holding Corbett signs aloft they chanted back their disapproval of the administration of outgoing Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell to their candidate' questions, as Corbett responded to them, "I didn't think so."
Corbett criticized the administration for enormous increases in state spending that have thrown the budget off and increased state debt.
He said the work of Republican workers was critical to win the state over.
"Make sure you are not complacent," he said.
Political polling shows the race between Corbett and Democratic candidate Dan Onorato, the Allegheny County chief executive, has tightened in recent weeks.
"We expected that," said the Republican candidate.
He noted Democrats outnumber Republicans by some 1 million voters in Pennsylvania and that his campaign workers must reach out to independents and Democrats who feel the same way as Republicans about the direction of the state.
Corbett, the state's attorney general, charged the state has lacked a vision for the future during the last eight years, and that Pennsylvania must be set back on track for the future.
He revisited a frequent campaign theme that Pennsylvania universities educate young people only to have them leave the state for better opportunities elsewhere.
"Our schools are producing great students. They leave. We want to keep them here," he said.
While campaigning, Corbett, a lawyer, said he likes to poke fun at himself for his relative lack of experience using modern technology. To make his point Saturday about how all Pennsylvanians must change with a changing world in this regard, he called upon his grandnephew Ryan Plesco, a ninth-grader at Central Dauphin School District in Harrisburg.
Ryan was tagging along Saturday during his granduncle's campaign events to gather information for a school report. When he files it, Corbett said, the student must "do a Power Point."
"Think about that!" he said.
Afterward, Ryan told a reporter he had attended a veterans breakfast in Mechanicsburg before the Chester County event and was going to another event Saturday in Montgomery County.
Ryan said being with the campaign has given him important insight about the election for governor that he can use for his school report on the topic.
Chester County Sheriff Carolyn "Bunny" Welsh hosted the campaign event in the expansive parking lot outside the bays of the firehouse. She introduced U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts, R-16th of East Marlborough, and members of the GOP's slate of candidates from the county running for state office.
Pitts urged the crowd to help elect Republican candidates to the state General Assembly to give Corbett a legislature with whom he could work. His list included state Senate Majority Leader Dominic F. Pileggi, R-Chester, whose district wends across southern Chester County and parts of Delaware County.
Picking up on Pitts' lead, Pileggi said it is important for campaign workers to bring in Republican votes from southeast Pennsylvania to help elect Corbett governor.
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