The porn brings on the political pugilism

IT TOOK an old stash of porn to finally push the race for governor in Pennsylvania from a staid exchange of policy differences to a more personal and testy dispute between the candidates.

Democrat Tom Wolf, speaking yesterday in the race's second debate, said Gov. Corbett was responsible during his time as state attorney general for a culture in which several of his former top deputies shared hard-core porn pictures and videos on state computers and email accounts.

Corbett said he wished one of his deputies had sent him some porn so he would have known about it. He later said he was offended by Wolf's "cheap shot."

"That's not my culture and everyone knows that's not my culture," Corbett said. "I can't believe they were dumb enough to send them on public emails."

Attorney General Kathleen Kane displayed for the media last week a selection of the graphic images. Corbett has asked for a complete set of the emails.

Some of the deputies with porn in their archived in-boxes went on to top jobs when Corbett became governor in 2010, including State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan, Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Chris Abruzzo, former Secretary of Legislative Affairs Chris Carusone, former press secretary Kevin Harley (now a Corbett campaign adviser) and Glenn Parno, who oversees oil and gas regulation at DEP.

Wolf defended his comments about Corbett and the porn.

"That's how it works," Wolf said. "The part of leadership in any organization is setting the tone to say that this kind of thing is not permissible."

That was just one of a few testy exchanges in the debate, hosted by CBS3 in their studios and co-sponsored by KYW Newsradio 1060.

Wolf challenged Corbett's claim to have delivered on-time and balanced state budgets, suggesting that the tax-revenue projections were intentionally overstated last year, requiring financial maneuvers to fill those gaps.

"So, you obviously cooked the books to make it look like it was balanced when it wasn't," Wolf said.

"You're accusing me of a criminal act?" Corbett responded. He then suggested that Wolf had used the same sort of maneuvers when he served as revenue secretary for Gov. Ed Rendell.

Wolf later said that some projections were adjusted because of the recession but his office was always "scrupulous" in predicting the state's revenues.

Wolf pointed out in the debate that three credit-rating agencies downgraded the state's debt when Corbett claimed the economy was on the rebound.

"I'm not sure what world you're living in here," Wolf said. "If I had a cash-flow balance in my business the way the state does, there's no bank that would give me a line of credit."

Corbett, trailing by double-digits in the polls, was aggressive in the race's first debate last week and kept up the pressure by interrupting Wolf and questioning him about his answers.

Wolf, flat in the first debate, showed more life yesterday. But he appeared like a man trying to protect a lead, moving swiftly to avoid reporters who tried to question him after the debate.

Wolf eventually returned, blaming schedule confusion for what had been a hasty exit.