‘Why lie to me?’ Senate race rivals attack carpetbaggery

HARRISBURG, PA. » The title of “Pennsylvanian” may not carry quite the cachet of declarations of fighting socialists or getting tough on

China, but it’s increasingly the go-to weapon for Republican primary candidates in one of the nation’s premier U.S. Senate contests.

A wide-open race for the swing-state seat being vacated by two-term Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania has attracted wealthy and well-connected transplants, and homers Jeff Bartos and George Bochetto are seizing on it.

Bartos, a real-estate investor

from suburban Philadelphia, derides the transplants as “political tourists” and repeatedly reminds audiences he is a “lifelong Pennsylvanian.”

Bochetto, a Philadelphia lawyer who has lived in the city for 45 years, suggested that his out-of-state rivals shouldn’t bother spending millions to try to convince voters they really are Pennsylvanians.

“They should be honest

about it and just flat out say, ‘Look, I haven’t lived in Pennsylvania and I’m not a citizen of Pennsylvania, but I’m coming in because there’s a provision in the Constitution that allows me to do so,’” Bochetto said in an interview. “And that’s fine. But why lie to me?”

And spending millions they are: Carla Sands, Mehmet Oz — the heart surgeon best known as the host of TV’s “The Dr. Oz Show”

— and David McCormick are on the air across Pennsylvania, pursuing a Senate seat that is practically out of reach for Republicans in the blue states they are fleeing.

It’s not clear yet whether carpetbaggery will be a pivotal issue, or whether Pennsylvania’s Republican voters — in an increasingly nationalized political environment — care how deeply their elected representatives are tied to the state.