TOM CORBETT swears that he didn't plan it this way.
The state attorney general says that he didn't time his probe of state General Assembly corruption to peak during his campaign for governor this year.
Corbett said that people often don't believe this: He didn't even think about running for the Republican nomination until 2009, after winning a second term as AG.
But here he is, the front-runner in the May 18 primary, in a year when Republican electoral prospects look good statewide.
Corbett cites a few broad reasons for his run: The state budget is out of control; the tax climate needs to be more business-friendly, and Pennsylvania must stop the exodus of young people heading for other states.
He flatly rejects any discussion that he should have stepped down as the state's top prosecutor while the "Bonusgate" probe led to charges against Democratic and Republican politicians and staffers in the state House.
"The difficult part for me is, everyone assumes I'm a typical politician, whatever that is," said Corbett, who was a township commissioner and U.S. attorney for the western district of Pennsylvania before becoming Attorney General.
Corbett - born in Philadelphia, raised in Pittsburgh, working in Harrisburg - has a political style tilted more toward pragmatism than partisanship.
There is one recent high-profile potential exception.
His office joined a lawsuit filed by several state attorneys general, all but one a Republican, challenging President Obama's health-care reform bill.
Corbett insists that the lawsuit is based only on the legislation's requirement that the uninsured purchase health insurance.
"The lawsuit is about this: Can the federal government tell the people of this country what you have to buy, what you have to purchase," Corbett said. "And I don't believe it can."
The lawsuit's timing can be seen as politically convenient - Corbett stakes a national position that appeals to conservative GOP voters. That comes as state Rep. Sam Rohrer, a Berks County Republican, portrays himself as the true conservative in the primary.
Corbett said that he does not oppose health-care reform but wants it done at the state level. He has not studied the Massachusetts health-care-reform plan on which the national model was based.
On education, Corbett supports the early-childhood efforts pushed by Gov. Rendell.
"I believe in spending for pre-school," he said. "That's a long-term investment. The state has to have the patience to see that investment pay out."
Corbett touts a plan to reform the state's government, but it does not include any limits on campaign contributions or regulations for lobbyists.
Here he practices pragmatic politics, not pushing an issue if he doesn't think legislation can pass in the General Assembly. Corbett says he would, as governor, sign into law legislation that would set the same limits on campaign contributions as are set in federal elections. But he doesn't expect that to happen.
"I don't see that getting to the desk," Corbett said. "I'm trying to do what a governor is going to be able to do within the first six months."
