As Ed Rendell barreled through southeastern Pennsylvania on his campaign bus Saturday, he sat down with The Daily Pennsylvanian for an interview. The following are excerpts from that interview. The DP was unable to schedule an interview with Republican candidate Mike Fisher.
DP: They said back in January that Casey was going to beat you pretty easily, and now you're 20 points ahead and it's three days until Election Day.
ER: Well, I'm not ready to say that it's over... But... I think first of all... I got some assists from outside forces. When I started out the campaign in January of 2001 this state had a good economy.... Since January of 2001, not only did 9-11 occur and we dealt with all of the emotional and financial aftermaths of 9-11, but the economy nosedived dramatically.... I think 9-11 made people put a premium on experienced leadership. Both of those things I think were enormously helpful in my primary campaign with Bob Casey, who is a bright and able man but who I think appeared, compared to the experience I had leading the city back, appeared to be inexperienced and young and not a strong and decisive leader.... I think people in the primary underestimated the depth of affection for me and the pride that people in southeast Pennsylvania had in the accomplishment of turning this city around and, as Bob Casey is fond of saying when he's campaigning for me, if he had known that almost one out of every two votes cast on primary day would come from southeast Pennsylvania, he wouldn't have run.... So I think the people who made me underdog didn't understand that dynamic.... I think the reason I've done so well in the general is that we got a lot of momentum from the primary, number one. Number two, I've run a positive campaign in both the primary and general, with detailed positions on issues and I think people appreciated that.... I think the detailed specific proposals that we've made were one of the two reasons that I got in both the primary and the general almost all of the editorial endorsements. I think those editorial endorsements are very, very important, particularly when I get to the Johnstowns and the Eries and the Pittsburghs and Harrisburgs because it's almost like saying, "We know this guy's from Philadelphia, folks, but we've listened to him, we read what he had to say, we know what he did in his time as mayor, and he's the best choice for Pennsylvania."... Again, in the end, I think I won the primary and I'm leading now, because we had a good story to tell... the story of turning Philadelphia around....
DP: You talk a lot about how you were able to get so much done in Philadelphia from 1991 to 1999, but there was a Democratic City Council. How are you going cope with a Republican legislature?
ER: ...[E]ven though there was a Democratic City Council, it had a two or three-decade tradition of warring with the mayor. And I came in and by hard work, by meeting with councilpeople individually, by treating them with respect, by communicating with them early on, no surprises, by sharing credit, I was able to build a coalition between the mayor's office and Council... I think the same skills that allowed me to break through those barriers will allow me to communicate with a Republican legislature if that's what happens on Election Day....
DP: Why is your opponent talking so much about the tax return issue?
ER: It's ludicrous. ...[S]ince March, the most detailed filing of all was available for anyone to see, and that was my wife's ethics report as a federal judge, which is far more detailed than an income tax return....
DP: How do you intend to cut all this money from the state budget?
ER: Pretty much the same we we cut money from the city's budget.... I remember in 1991, when I was running for mayor, the finance director of the city, a very respected woman by the name of Betsy Reveal, she testified before City Council on a bill to raise the wage tax. She testified that the [Wilson] Goode administration had taken every nickel of waste, and every nickel of increased productivity savings, out of the budget.... The next year, we came in and cut spending by 11.5 percent and eliminated the biggest deficit the city ever faced, without raising taxes.... In Harrisburg, they're singing the same tune, but it's BS. There's plenty of stuff to cut.... We purchase $6.2 billion of goods and services.... Each department buys individually. If we leverage our buying together, we'd save 5 or 10 percent on our purchases. For prompt payment of bills, there's a 10 or 15 percent discount in the commercial world. If we just promptly paid our bills, $6 billion worth, that's a $700 million savings right there.... We've got state employees... who are married to each other and they're both on the same health plan. They don't need to be because in a health plan your spouse gets coverage. We should do what we did when I was mayor: we bought them out.... I'm going to do an employee bonus program where any state employee who comes up with an idea that we didn't have in the fold, an idea that cut rates or increased productivity or enhanced revenue collection, they will get 10 percent of the savings in the first year that we use the idea with a cap of $100,000.... We don't collect taxes well enough. When I became mayor, we eliminated a fourth of our deficit by collecting taxes better....
DP: Pennsylvania has some of the strictest abortion-control laws. You've said you won't allow any new laws. Do you intend to work to eliminate some of the existing laws?
ER: The problem is, if you open it up, then you're opening up a Pandora's box. The only thing that I would try to clarify is the section of the act that makes it unclear whether we can do stem-cell research in Pennsylvania....
DP: Can you explain your stance on gun control?
ER: I am someone who believes that there's no ideological answer to gun control. I believe that the NRA is right that we need stepped-up law enforcement.... I also believe that they are wrong about not having stronger laws to cut off access to handguns on the part of criminals. I favor the one-gun-a-month legislation that's passed in Virginia and South Carolina....
DP: What do you think of John Street's job so far as mayor?
ER: I think substantively John's done a very fine job.... He may not do the PR as well and the public part of the job as people would have hoped, but in the end, the proof in the pudding is, has he done a good solid job in improving the city and I think the answer is yes.
DP: When you were mayor, is there something else you could have done to help out the Philadelphia School District?
ER: No. I mean, we did everything from suing the state three times for funding to increasing funding for education by $71 million a year....
DP: Are you getting a salary from Penn for the classes [you are teaching next semester]?
ER: Yeah. I always have. I have to look at the state ethics law to see if I can accept a salary.
DP: Because of the grants from the state to Penn?
ER: Yes....
DP: One of the things we've heard a lot about during this campaign is stopping the brain drain. Penn students are probably the worst offenders. How would you encourage them to stay?
ER: It's not a question of increasing the quality of life, because I think we've done that... it's creating the type of businesses and corporations that offer steady career growth for college graduates.... I want to broaden our research and development tax credits dramatically, I want to give young companies the ability to sell their net operating losses to older companies and get cash infusions.... I want to do as we did in Philadelphia, create Keystone Opportunity Zones around the campuses so that some of the bright young graduate students and college students who have ideas for their own businesses don't take those ideas to the Silicon Alley or the Silicon Valley or Chicago....
Interview conducted by Daily Pennsylvanian staff reporter Caryn Tamber.
