Jim Quinn radio program

Quinn:
Good Morning, you're on the air.

Caller:
Ah Jim, have you heard anything about the internal Ridge poll, internal to the Ridge campaign? where they're showing Ridge at 45% and Luksik at 30%.

Quinn:
No, I haven't heard about that at all

Caller:
Well my understanding is, and this is second hand, that Ridge is furious that that leaked out. That was their own campaign poll.

Quinn:
Their own campaign poll showed Ridge at 45 and Luksik at what?

Caller:
30, three-zero percent.

Quinn:
The last I heard I think it was about 12.

Caller:
Oh well, you know, the Gazette was running something from before she started advertising.

Quinn:
Ah!

Caller:
The polls in general, the metropolitan polls which Luksik has been taking, they've been in around 30.

Quinn:
Well look, we're about to impeach a president for lying are we not?

Caller:
Right

Quinn:
Well Tom Ridge has lied.

Caller:
Well why elect a governor again that has been lying to us all along

Quinn:
Well I'll tell you Tom Ridge has not only lied about his position on the second amendment but, you know, in the case of outcomes-based education you can't chalk this up to spin, it's not spin, it's a flat out lie, he said he got rid of OBE; and he did not, he just gave it a different name and then went full speed ahead with it.

Caller:
Right, and then there's the matter of the Governor's club. I don't know how many of your listeners are even aware of that?

Quinn:
Well tell us about it.

Caller:
It was a story done by Robert Zausner in the Philadelphia Inquirer a few months back but essentially many of the people who have contributed $25,000 or more to Ridge (for his campaign) have had no-bid government contracts (Pennsylvania contracts).

Quinn:
Well a lot of politicians have these quote unquote clubs. George Bush had the president's club. That entitled you to sit at a luncheon with the president or whatever else, but you're telling me that a no-bid contract is part of this deal?

Caller:
Yes.

Quinn:
That's blatantly illegal is it not?

Caller:
Well it would seem, yeah? But it doesn't take a lot of brains to tie the two things together. ... <commercial break>

Quinn:
You know the guy who called a few minutes ago saying that there was an internal poll, that the Ridge camp..., now I don't know if this is true or not, but if there is an internal poll that indicates that Tom Ridge is at 45% and that Peg Luksik, the independent conservative candidate, is at 30 some odd percent, that's pretty close.

You know the Democrats have done us a real, real service here, by putting this Ivan Itkin out there and then not doing anything with him because nobody knows who Ivan Itkin is, literally nobody knows. I mean Itkin's numbers have got to be somewhere in the single digits.

Now one of the things I was afraid of from a third-party candidate was that this is the year that the redistricting is done. and the Democrats would love to run the state government, and they would love to have a Democratic governor because they'd love, you know have a large hand in the redistricting and that way they could eliminate a couple of Republican seats in Washington. and screw us for another ten years. And see, my fear was that if you let a third-party candidate bleed off the votes then you're gonna end up with a Democrat.

Well, it looks like it's safe to go ahead and vote for Peg Luksik on all counts, not only your own personal passion and feelings but also, it doesn't look like Itkin is going to be able to get arrested here.

Rose:
Well, ahem, if you remember I was the one who gave you persuasive arguments for voting for Peg Luksik.

Quinn:
I think they were more than persuasive arguments. I think they were brutality and intimidation and fear. [Laughter] That argument ran on this radio station, how long did we go at that?

Rose:
A week.

Quinn:
At least a week. But I'll tell you what. I finally came to my Epiphany on that. out of fear and intimidation, no actually out of logic.

Rose:
Thank You

Quinn:
And you're right. Because, if you say to yourself, I can't vote for the third party candidate because I'm afraid that the other side is going to win, what you're doing is shifting the responsibility for this tragedy to yourself and the responsibility lies with a Republican party that supports someone who is as much of a Democrat as Tom Ridge is.

Rose:
That's my argument exactly

Quinn:
And you're exactly right. I defer to you on this one, you were right all along, but I did put up a pretty good fight, though, didn't I?

Rose:
Well it was OK.

Quinn:
You won't even give me credit for that.

Rose:
At not one point did I feel threatened by your argument or your questioning me of mine, no.

Quinn:
Alright, well anyway, just send any comment on this, send it to "Rose is right", care of channel 97, Pittsburgh 15220

Rose:
That was an important discussion that week.

Quinn:
Yes it was, it was a very important discussion but the bottom line is that even the element of fear regarding a Democrat is now removed because this guy is just nowhere, and you know maybe this is what is causing a lot of people in the polls that they are going to vote for Luksik rather than Ridge because that element of fear is removed here. If indeed that poll is true, there's a real chance of a major upset here.

October 7, 1998 - Pittsburgh