Scranton mayor being pushed toward Senate race, aide says

Scranton Mayor Chris Doherty, a candidate for governor, is being urged by some fellow Democrats to give up his gubernatorial ambition and run instead for the Pennsylvania Senate seat to be vacated at year's end by Democratic Sen. Robert J. Mellow, a Doherty campaign aide said today.

While not saying yes or no, Doherty "is listening to what they have to say," said the aide, who was not authorized to give his name for the record.

Scranton, in which Doherty is just beginning his third term as mayor, is within Mellow's 22d Senate District, which includes parts of Lackawanna, Luzerne and Monroe Counties in northeastern Pennsylvania.

Doherty was in Harrisburg to attend a meeting with Gov. Rendell and several other candidates for governor today, when word spread through the Capitol that Mellow, one of the longest-serving members of the legislature, had decided not to run again in November.

For Doherty, the decision whether to run for the Senate could be tough.

He is said to prefer the individual authority that comes with being a chief executive. In the Senate, he would be one of 50 and a junior member, at that.

But in some ways, getting out of the governor's race could make sense; his campaign has been lagging.

He reported having only $95,000 in his campaign bank account as of Dec. 31, compared to $6.2 million for the top Democratic fund-raiser, Dan Onorato. And on Saturday, at a meeting of the Democratic State Committee, he withdrew his name when it came time for party leaders to vote on a gubernatorial endorsement. State Auditor General Jack Wagner won a majority of votes, but fell short of the two-thirds needed for endorsement.

Thomas Baldino, political science professor at Wilkes University, said that barring a major surprise Mellow's seat should remain Democratic after the election. It is a Democratic-leaning district.

He said that Doherty "is not universally popular in Scranton - not universally loved." The same enemies who fought him for mayor might or might not fight him over the Senate seat.

The meeting today in the Capitol was for Rendell to brief the gubernatorial candidates on the proposed 2010-11 budget that he had just made public.

The governor's office said that, besides Doherty, the candidates in attendance included Democrats Anthony Hardy Williams, a Philadelphia state senator, and Joe Hoeffel, a Montgomery County commissioner. State Rep. Sam Rohrer, a Republican, was also there. Onorato, the Allegheny County executive, participated by phone.

Hoeffel said Rendell summarized the budget speech that he had made and promised that "he and his cabinet" would be available to give personal briefings to candidates of either party in state government issues.

"It was very nice and very appropriate," Hoeffel said.