Campaign Manager

"My center is giving way, my right is pushed back, situation excellent, I am attacking. " Those famous words from a French marshal during World War I could easily have come from Republican mayoral candidate Joe Egan yesterday. In an effort to revive his flagging campaign less than a month before the Nov. 5 election, Egan has fired his out-of-town campaign manager and brought in two Philadelphia veterans to try to salvage what looks increasing like a losing effort. Out is John Denny, 28, of the Washington, D.C.-based Eddie Mahe Company.

Former Gov.Ed Rendell on June 5 will release an autobiography wrapped in a political manifesto about what he calls the "Wussification of America. " The book, A Nation of Wusses: How America's Leaders Lost the Guts to Make Us Great, is classic Rendell. He marvels at his own clever political instincts, complains about the attention of the media and waxes wonkish on issues he holds dear, such as investing in the nation's infrastructure of roads and bridges. Some highlights: No Rendell book would be complete without a few bawdy bits.

Mary Ellen Leonard Weinberg, 62, of Haverford, a political activist who helped run campaigns for former Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo and her husband, Martin Weinberg, died of ovarian cancer Sunday at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. Mrs. Weinberg managed her brother Thomas Leonard's successful campaigns for register of wills in Philadelphia in 1975, and city controller in 1979 and 1981. She was his press secretary when he lost his bid for lieutenant governor in 1978. His older sister could boss him around, he said, and pushed him to run for public office.

Tricia Enright, a veteran of several political campaigns, has been hired to manage Democrat Michael Nutter's bid for mayor in November. "She fits into the quirky personalities we have here," Nutter campaign spokeswoman Melanie Johnson said. She added, "Tricia understands we are running an election and are in competition with another candidate. " Enright served in the fall as Gov. Rendell's campaign manager. Among her previous jobs, she was campaign communications director for former presidential candidate Howard Dean.

Gov.-elect Christie Whitman's brother, a top official in her campaign, testified yesterday that Republicans worked hard at "keeping the vote light" in New Jersey's urban areas on Election Day. Webster B. "Dan" Todd Jr. said he advised Whitman on how to curtail support for Gov. Florio in Newark and Camden. He said the campaign devoted "a fair amount of planning and effort" to keeping a referendum on legalized sports betting off the Nov. 2 ballot, fearing the casinos would spend money in heavily Democratic areas to get out the vote.

Before the phone banks are plugged in, the advertising is bought, the literature is distributed and the money is raised, a soft-spoken man recuperating from a knee operation in a converted Chester County farmhouse has a job decision to make. To help Mike Burke decide, U.S. Rep. Peter H. Kostmayer (D., Pa.) recently trekked to his hospital bed to cheer on his recovery. But David Landau, a Seventh District Democrat, interrupted his congressional campaign to drive to Burke's Thornbury Township home.

Bill Scranton's campaign manager, James Seif, said he knew he was in trouble as soon as the words came tumbling off his tongue. In a live call-in show on the Pennsylvania Cable Network, Seif told viewers that Scranton's main opponent for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, Lynn Swann, who is African American, was the "rich white guy in the campaign. " By the end of the show, callers were demanding an apology from Seif, and within an hour Scranton had fired him. His dismissal came at a time when Scranton has been trying to slow Swann's increasing momentum toward capturing the party's endorsement on Feb. 11. "There's no excuse.

The Republican Party's two most prominent African Americans have accused Vice President Gore's campaign manager of playing to racial prejudices when she recently criticized the GOP as uncaring. In letters to Gore the last two days, retired Army Gen. Colin Powell and Rep. J.C. Watts of Oklahoma said they were offended by campaign manager Donna Brazile's singling them out in her criticism of the Republican Party. Brazile, the first black woman to run a presidential campaign, said: "The Republicans bring out Colin Powell and J.C. Watts because they have no program, no policy.

The Ridge administration has awarded two contracts to the Philadelphia law firm of Blank, Rome, Comisky & McCauley, whose lawyers gave Gov. Ridge's gubernatorial campaign more than $200,000 and whose managing partner was Ridge's campaign treasurer. The contracts, together worth $340,000, were approved by Paul A. Tufano, the governor's general counsel. Before joining the Ridge administration, Tufano was a partner at Blank Rome. The decision to retain the firm came during Ridge's first week in office, said Thomas G. Paese, the governor's secretary of administration.

Republican political consultant Edward J. Rollins said yesterday that the successful gubernatorial campaign of Christie Whitman in New Jersey spent roughly $500,000 in "walking around money" largely to suppress black voter turnout. Rollins, who managed the Whitman campaign, said much of the money was paid out to politically active African American ministers and to city Democratic political workers. In both cases, the recipients, whom Rollins declined to identify, were asked to minimize or stop get-out-the-vote activities in behalf of Democratic incumbent Gov. Florio.

Former Gov.Ed Rendell on June 5 will release an autobiography wrapped in a political manifesto about what he calls the "Wussification of America. " The book, A Nation of Wusses: How America's Leaders Lost the Guts to Make Us Great, is classic Rendell. He marvels at his own clever political instincts, complains about the attention of the media and waxes wonkish on issues he holds dear, such as investing in the nation's infrastructure of roads and bridges. Some highlights: No Rendell book would be complete without a few bawdy bits.

President Obama's campaign says it is spending $25 million in Pennsylvania and eight other battleground states to air a television ad that touts his accomplishments and reminds voters of the economic mess his administration inherited. "We're not letting our foot off the pedal," campaign manager Jim Messina told reporters Monday in a conference call. "We have a very simple choice between going forward and going back. " Messina and senior campaign adviser David Axelrod said the new 60-second spot, titled "Go," is part of a broader effort to frame the election as a choice between continuing hard-won progress to climb out of the deepest recession since the Great Depression and what they portrayed as a return to policies that caused the problems in the first place.

WASHINGTON - Mitt Romney will need independent voters in November, but he isn't abandoning his "severely conservative" record. The likely Republican presidential nominee has embarked on an aggressive campaign against President Obama that straddles two sometimes-conflicting political ideologies. On some days, the former Massachusetts governor is a social conservative and social moderate, a right-wing conspiracy theorist and promoter of political compromise. It's an evolving balancing act that, so far, is leaning decidedly right.

THE "LEGACY" campaign for North Philly's 197th District of the state House came up short in Tuesday's primary election for candidate Jewel Williams and her father, Sheriff Jewell Williams, who held the seat for a decade. Jewel Williams, 27, had rejected claims by her Democratic foes that she and her father were trying to confuse voters by making them think he was seeking re-election to the seat he left in January to take his city post. J.P. Miranda, a 26-year-old community organizer who has worked for City Council, the state Senate and Mayor Nutter, held a 458-vote lead over Williams on Wednesday with 98 percent of the vote tallied.

Take a walk down the block of Broad Street just north of Susquehanna Avenue, and it looks as though not much has changed in the state House's 197th District. The large, green awning over the North Philadelphia district office of State Rep. Jewell Williams still proclaims his name in big, white letters. His portrait still hangs in the window below. Two doors down, a banner stretches across the facade above a storefront campaign office. It reads: "Vote Jewel Williams, Democrat, State Representative, 197th Legislative District.

TAKE A WALK down the block of Broad Street just north of Susquehanna Avenue and it looks like not much has changed in the state House's 197th District. The large green awning over the North Philly district office for state Rep. Jewell Williams still proclaims his name in big, white letters. His portrait still hangs in the window below. Two doors down, a banner stretches across the facade above a storefront campaign office. It reads: "Vote Jewel Williams, Democrat, State Representative, 197th Legislative District.

THE TWO Democrats competing in the April 24 primary election for attorney general spent Thursday bashing each other over pending state legislation both oppose. We have a theory about why. With 18 days to go until the primary, Pennsylvania finally has a Republican presidential primary worth paying attention to. And five guys are fighting for the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate race in the fall. So, former U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy of Bucks County and former Lackawanna County Assistant D. A. Kathleen Kane are looking for ways to motivate Democratic voters to support them for attorney general.

WASHINGTON - President Obama collected $45 million for his reelection bid in February, accelerating his fund-raising pace as his campaign frets over an oncoming spending blitz by Republican-leaning outside groups. Obama's monthly haul was nearly twice as much as the $23-million-a-month average he raised during the final three months of 2011 and more than the $29.1 million he raised in January. Yet the largesse still fell short of the $56 million he raised in February 2008, when he was seeking the Democratic nomination against Hillary Rodham Clinton.

HARRISBURG - Seven defendants in the so-called "Computergate" corruption case, including onetime Philadelphia Republican powerhouse John M. Perzel, are scheduled to be sentenced in Dauphin County Court Tuesday and Wednesday. Perzel and six former legislative and campaign aides pleaded guilty last year, with most agreeing to cooperate in the state Attorney General's Office probe. Prosecutors had initially charged 10 people with participating in a scheme to use sophisticated, state-funded computer programs for campaign purposes.

OKLAHOMA CITY - President Obama's victory in Oklahoma's Democratic primary was far less emphatic than is typical for an incumbent president, and his poor showing in more than a dozen of the state's counties threatened to cost him a unanimous renomination. With all the state's 1,961 precincts reporting unofficial results from Tuesday's vote, Obama had 57 percent of the ballot. An antiabortion activist, Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry, had 18 percent and under party rules could lay claim to at least one delegate.