Critique of "The ‘Pennsylvania Pattern’: Chalk It Up to Human Nature"

 Peter A. Brown, the assistant Director of the Quinnipiac University Polling institute and former political journalist and white house correspondent, is now writing for the Wall Street journal. In his article The ‘Pennsylvania Pattern’: Chalk It Up to Human Nature, he makes an argument that a democratic candidate has a chance to win the Governor election of Pennsylvania even though it would go against the “Pennsylvania Pattern.” According to the pattern, which started in 1946, a republican served for 8 years as governor, then a democrat for 8 years, now it’s a republican’s turn to serve as governor.

His argument is directed toward democratic voters, stating that republicans are more likely to vote than democrats are, polls show that independent voters are leaning more toward GOP and it’s much easier to get people (republicans) to vote against something then it is to get them to vote for something. By informing the audience that the republicans are wining because of simple problems, that are easily fixable, keeps the attracted to his argument and makes it grow in the back of their mind. Brown says that “if Pennsylvania Democrats believed that history predicts the future, none of them would even have bothered to run for governor this year,” backing up his argument that the Democratic candidates think that they have a chance to win also. He also says that even when a republican is governor, Pennsylvania has not backed a Republican for presidency since 1988; maybe that’s not what the people of Pennsylvania want in office.

 Brown makes assumptions that it’s in human nature to blame the governor for things that go wrong in the state, and people get tired of even the most successful politicians, which his argument relies on.  He defends the current Governor of Pennsylvania Ed Rendell, who is a Democrat, calming that governors are “vulnerable to targeting by angry constituents because of the chief executives’ decisions on items like the state budget, taxes and high-profile emotional matters such as immigration, abortion or gay rights,” indirectly telling the audience that it’s not his fault for the states issues.

Brown does not make a strong argument; he doesn’t give any solid evidence that republicans are more likely to vote than democrats are, that’s just a wild assumption he makes. He also blames the “Pennsylvania Pattern” on human nature, claiming that voters get tired of their governor and blame them for the problems of the state, when in fact that might not have anything to do with the way the people feel about the current governor. His argument is not very convincing to me, but it might get more democratic voters to cast a ballot. The polls are the evidence, and they are showing that the voters are leaning to Corbett (republican) over Onorato (Democrat) 48% - 38%, which means that the chance of the Democratic party to win is not likely.

The ‘Pennsylvania Pattern’: Chalk It Up to Human Nature