Montco race may prove to be a national bellwether

On a recent rainy afternoon, Leslie Richards, Democratic candidate for Montgomery County commissioner, ducked into an Ardmore train station hoping to squeeze in a little campaigning.

Clad in a jaunty pair of rain boots, she greeted tired and wet commuters with a broad smile and an extended hand. Most swept past, stopping only to flash her an uncomfortable grin.

After months of attending parties with eager supporters and stops at nearly 70 community events, the day's encounter with the largely uninterested masses left Richards slightly frazzled, yet undeterred.

"Now, I feel like a real politician," she quipped.

For Richards and other candidates in Philadelphia's suburbs, September marks the beginning of a fall slog of glad-handing, small-talking, and backslapping, in what is shaping up to be a defining election across the region.

Despite their reputations as traditional GOP strongholds, Montgomery, Bucks, Delaware, and Chester Counties have shown signs in recent years of varying Democratic gains.

And despite a resurgence of Republican fortunes after the GOP success in 2010's congressional elections, Democrats are looking to candidates like Richards as their best shot at winning control in years.

In Bucks County, Democratic candidates hope to end more than two decades of Republican rule on the three-seat commissioners' board. Samuel Stretton, the Democratic candidate for district attorney in Chester County, has for weeks harangued Republican opponent Thomas Hogan for a chance to debate.

And in Delaware County, the Democrats hope to put one of their own judicial candidates in the courthouse for the first time ever.

Results of those races could provide a glimpse into which way the state leans heading into next year's statewide and presidential elections, political watchers say.

Nowhere is interest greater than in Montgomery County, where Democrats hope - for the first time in county history - to wrest control of the board of commissioners away from the GOP.

Three seats are up for grabs, two for the party whose candidates receive the most votes, with one seat reserved for the top vote-getter from the losing party.

Already, the race has taken cues from state and national debates. The top issues? The economy and financial insecurity among the electorate.

Despite decades under one of the most tightly functioning GOP machines in the state, Montgomery County's voter registration numbers have slowly tipped Democratic. In 2008, the Democrats took the majority. Their gains have grown ever since.

Last year, the county was one of only four statewide - including Philadelphia and Delaware Counties - to go for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dan Onorato.

"This election will show where the voters' heads are at," said incumbent Commissioner Bruce L. Castor Jr., who is running this year with Jenny Brown, a township commissioner from Lower Merion. "This will be the most important election in Pennsylvania this year."

The Democrats have put up Richards, a township commissioner from Whitemarsh, and State Rep. Josh Shapiro (D., Abington), viewed as a rising star in the party.

"I think the average voter thinks that the Democrats are to blame for the budget problems at the federal and state level," said Castor. "The trick is convincing them that it's Democrats that screwed up the local government, too."

Earlier this month, his campaign released a scathing report on Montgomery County's fiscal shape, noting that in the last five years, the county's cash reserves have dwindled precipitously while its debt obligations have grown.

"The county's finances are in critical condition," Brown told reporters last week.

She and Castor propose to establish a county debt ceiling, adopt a strict policy on cash reserves, put government check registers online, and require annual five-year financial forecasts.

Shapiro and Richards have countered with promises to not raise taxes, to review all county investments and operations for fraud and inefficiencies within their first 100 days, and to publish county spending records online.

Staking the race on fiscal matters could work to either side's favor.

In Brown and Castor's case, the bet is that Montgomery County voters fall in line with the national electorate's general belt-tightening mood - the same frame of mind that swept tea party-backed Republicans into a U.S. House majority in 2010.

Traditionally, though, Montgomery County Republicans - while fiscally conservative - have eschewed some of the national party's fervor when it comes to ideology. Shapiro and Richards aim to persuade voters to blame the party that has presided over county government for decades for any current financial woes.

"The same organization has led the county for years," Shapiro said. "And there are a whole lot of cobwebs."

Both sides have seven more weeks to make their case - leaving a year for the rest of the state to parse what the outcome means for Pennsylvania's political future, and the nation's.