Is Chaos Reigning in the 48th Senatorial Race?

There were some interesting developments this week regarding the 48th State Senate District. When we last left you Senate Majority Leader David "Chip" Brightbill went down to defeat on election day by about a 2-1 margin to Mike Folmer. This was one of the nastiest races in state history, maybe even worse than the one Bob Casey ran against Ed Rendell in 2002. A staffer's cat was killed, Folmer's ex-mistress was rolled out to spew her venom, and thousands of negative ads and mailers drowned voters.

Rumors have been swirling that both parties could field independent candidates. The Fly Under the Dome reports that Sen. Jubilerer's main man Mike Long (hat tip to GrassrootsPA.com) is threatening to run as an independent Republican. Democrats uninspired by the efforts of John Liss may also field an independent, according to my information. My source on this is very reliable.

Kori Walter of the Reading Eagle chimed in on this race in his column this morning. He writes about the state of the Liss campaign and notes how some Democrats would like to replace Liss with a stronger candidate. His column came out of a conversation John had with Kori last Saturday. Kori spoke with me about it at the same event, commenting on a meeting held in Lebanon last week by Democrats to discuss the race.

Kori, as usual, hit the nail pretty squarely in his column. I would like to mention though, that the meeting in Lebanon was entirely positive and was about discussing strategy and how to win this election and was not about replacing the candidate. That subject never came up.

What's interesting about these two articles though is how both parties seem uninspired by their candidates and how others are seeing that as an opening for independent runs. This could be very interesting.....