Pennsylvania's political establishment spent the weekend in Manhattan schmoozing and boozing at parties around town, capped by a lavish black-tie dinner at the posh Waldorf-Astoria.
This annual junket has been going on since 1899, and is a good time. But it seems odd that an event organized by Pennsylvanians for Pennsylvanians is in New York.
Nothing against the Big Apple. It's one of the great cities of the world. It just seems that public officials who work to bring jobs and tourists to Pennsylvania should spend their money here. (Most fund the junket out of campaign coffers, which, of course, get filled by corporations and lobbyists.)
Granted, the annual bash is run by a nonpartisan nonprofit known as the Pennsylvania Society - though plenty of backroom business gets done there. And the event has always been at the Waldorf, so there's tradition. But just because it's always been done that way isn't a great argument.
Pennsylvania taxpayers and businesses would benefit by having the money spent here, and perhaps by having the event moved around the state.
Folks elected to serve the people of Pennsylvania would certainly send a better message by partying in Pennsylvania, and not at the Waldorf in Manhattan.