As many of you are aware, 6-term Republican incumbent John Peterson announced a surprise retirement recently in this large, rambling, mostly rural district, which has been such a safe seat for the Reds that Peterson ran unopposed more times than he had a challenger.
Both parties have been scrambling to identify a candidate, and some more of the speculative possibilities ducked out yesterday.
Some background on the story can be found here for those just noticing this district's prospects in the 2008 cycle:
http://www.swingstateproject.com/...
Anyhoo, yesterday some more of the dominoes pondered the numbers, and made their decision, according to my local paper:
http://www.centredaily.com/...
To summarize for those with no time to follow the link, the Republican widely viewed as the best and obvious candidate for the Reds, state senator Jake Corman, had already declined. That opened speculation about the state representative whose district overlaps much of the same territory, Kerry Benninghoff, R-171.
Benninghoff has now declined. The Republicans still have one top-tier candidate hesitating in the wings, State Sen. Joseph Scarnati, R-Jefferson County, president pro tempore of the state Senate, but the third tier is now rumbling with excitement and some of them are throwing their hats into the ring.
The article linked above indicates that youthful businessman Matt Shaner, 28, Howard Township health care professional G.T. Thompson, 48, county Republican Party chairman; and former county commissioner and College Township Councilman Chris Exarchos, 63, are either pondering or are in.
I know absolutely nothing about Thompson. Shaner is an extremely conservative member of the Santorum wing of his party who was not even able to capture his party's nomination for the state legislature, last time. And Exarchos is a local elected official and party hack who is rapidly wearing out his welcome even among Republicans. His most recent stunt was to lose the Republican nomination for a local office and then turn around and run an aggressive, costly, and unsuccessful bid for it as an independent (Lieberman-style, except he lost). These two are bottom of the barrel.