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Final sprint: Corbett says race 'boils down to one word'

LANCASTER - Gov. Corbett hopped off his charter jet at the Lancaster Airport Monday afternoon on his final sprint around the state ahead of the election Tuesday.

Gov. Corbett holds a campaign rally at the American Helicopter Museum & Education Center in West Chester on Monday. ( MICHAEL S. WIRTZ / Staff Photographer  )
Gov. Corbett holds a campaign rally at the American Helicopter Museum & Education Center in West Chester on Monday. ( MICHAEL S. WIRTZ / Staff Photographer )Read more

LANCASTER - Gov. Corbett hopped off his charter jet at the Lancaster Airport on Monday afternoon on his final sprint around the state ahead of the election Tuesday.

Joined by U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) and other Republican officeholders and party officials, Corbett told a cheering crowd of about 100 people to help send him back to Harrisburg to fix the pension crisis and continue his low-tax, trimmed-down-government, pro-business agenda.

"This race boils down to one word: Taxes," said Corbett.

Although the audience was mostly older men, Corbett spent several minutes boasting of having been the first Pennsylvania governor to name a woman as his chief of staff, and of having appointed women to half the posts in his cabinet.

"The women in the cabinet control 80 percent of the state budget," Corbett said.

In closing, he turned to a personal story to say how he hoped to make Pennsylvania better for future generations - and to touch briefly on an anti-abortion message.

He told of his 3-year-old grandson Liam, who at two days old was adopted by Corbett's daughter, Katherine and her then-husband.

"Liam's mother chose life," Corbett said, to rousing applause.

One person in the crowd wasn't cheering: Lebanon Levi, star of the reality TV show Amish Mafia, stood in the back and listened quietly. Guards had tossed Levi's camera crew out of the airport building.

Corbett this summer signed on to a letter asking the Discovery Channel to cancel the show because of what signatories believe is a negative portrayal of the Amish.

That didn't sit well with Levi, who appears as a vigilante leader on the show. He said he will vote for Democrat Tom Wolf.

"Corbett is anti-Amish," said Levi, dressed in his trademark black suit and hat. "He doesn't like my business, I don't like his business."

Corbett's election-eve fly-around was briefly delayed when a mechanical problem grounded his original plane. A new jet was brought in to Lancaster to take him to his final stops out west. He'll be in Pittsburgh on Election Night.

When the plane arrived to whisk him off to Johnstown, Corbett turned away from the cluster of reporters, threw his arm around First Lady Susan Corbett and walked with her across the tarmac.

Corbett held a rally at the American Helicopter Museum and Education Center in West Chester before his stop in Lancaster.

aworden@phillynews.com

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