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State Treasurer Enters Pennsylvania Governor's Race with Populist Jab

State Treasurer Rob McCord (D) struck a defiantly populist tone in his gubernatorial campaign kickoff Tuesday, saying that Gov. Corbett has pursued policies benefitting corporations and “the 1 percent” while cutting education and safety-net spending that benefits the working class.

State Treasurer Rob McCord (D) struck a defiantly populist tone in his gubernatorial campaign kickoff Tuesday, saying that Gov. Corbett has pursued policies benefitting corporations and “the 1 percent” while cutting education and safety-net spending that benefits the working class.

He promised to “evict” Corbett and said that Democrats are much better stewards of the economy than the “dumb Republicans who try to govern by talking points, never created a job in their lives, don't know how markets work, don't know how pensions work, never touched anything more than crony capitalism.”

McCord, 54, spoke to a crowd of about 100 supporters at Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell. Among them were dozens of members of Teamsters Local 107 and the Laborer’s Union. Henry Nicholas, president of Philadelphia-based Local 1199c of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees said that his union was throwing its weight behind McCord.

The Corbett campaign did not seem impressed at the new entrant. “Rob McCord joins a crowded field…that continues to push the same failed tax-and-spend agenda that resulted in a $4.2 billion budget deficit and double-digit unemployment,” said campaign manager Mike Barley.

McCord, who lives in Bryn Mawr, is the eighth Democrat to declare for the party’s primary to take on Corbett, who polls show is vulnerable. He joins U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz, also of Montgomery County; businessman and former state Revenue Secretary Tom Wolf of York County; former environmental secretaries Katie McGinty and John Hanger; Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski; Cumberland County minister Max Myers; and Lebanon County Commissioner Jo Ellen Litz.

Caroline Cournoyer is GOVERNING's senior web editor.
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