Ed Rendell

THE Daily News is not the only media outlet assuming that Ed Rendell will win today's gubernatorial race, although it was the only one to say so out loud, which should surprise no one. Two weeks ago, I spoke with a reporter from the nation's leading political magazine. Its upcoming cover story will be on the new governors elected this week. Apparently, this election may yield the biggest crop of new state chief executives in memory. The story revolves around Ed Rendell, because everyone assumes he'll win, and because he's expected to be the best-known of the new governors.

AFTER SEVEN YEARS of Tom Ridge and one of Mark Schweiker - and the Republican philosophy of the less government the better - where does the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania stand? Right near the bottom in chart after chart comparing the commonwealth to other big states in the vital areas of jobs, population growth and education. Come the general election in November, Pennsylvania needs at least one gubernatorial candidate who will provide bold, visionary leadership. Someone who sees Pennsylvania not only for what it is, but for what it can be. In the Democratic primary for governor, only one candidate fills the bill: Ed Rendell.

WHEN ED RENDELL took office as only the sixth Democratic governor in Pennsylvania in 100 years, he surely wasn't expecting his path to be strewn with roses. Republicans dominated the Legislature, and they rarely show a soft spot for Philadelphia. Still, it was clear Rendell wasn't prepared for the bruising battle over his first budget. When the budget finally passed after a grinding nine-month standoff, it gave Rendell only a little of the education spending he wanted, and none of the economic stimulus or property-tax relief he had campaigned on. The state deficit was then $2 billion.

KATE Michelman and Leslie Anastasio (OpEd, April 9) are right on Ed Rendell's being the only choice for those who support the rights granted to women under Roe vs. Wade. A woman's right to choose hinges on the precarious 5-4 bloc in the U.S. Supreme Court. Even if that bloc remains intact, who's to say that our conservative state legislature will not attempt to pass further restrictions? Arlene Lee, Holmes, Pa. It is unusual in a primary for Democrats to have such a stark contrast in candidates as Bob Casey Jr. vs. Ed Rendell this year.

HARRISBURG - A scant four days have come and gone since Ed Rendell passed the reins of state government to his successor. But he has already busied himself with something he hasn't done in more than 30 years: trying to make some money in the private sector. To that end, Rendell said Friday that he had taken on a part-time job. He signed a contract to be a visiting fellow with the Brookings Institution, the Washington-based think tank that conducts research and education in governance, foreign policy, the global economy, and other areas.

The dreary day after found Edward G. Rendell back in his shabby campaign office, littered with half-empty jugs of white wine, paper cups and tattered Rendell-for-Mayor posters, fielding phone calls and pronouncing the battle well fought. He was discouraged, disappointed, tired, drained, but not, he said, bitter or regretful. "We ran a good campaign, a great campaign, and I wouldn't have done anything differently," Rendell said yesterday. "I don't think that much went wrong.

Ed Rendell, the former district attorney who wants to be the next mayor of this woebegone city, keeps saying that nobody cares anymore, that nothing works in Philadelphia, that people have lost faith in City Hall. He said this several times during the televised debate with Wilson Goode, and he said it a half dozen times on the campaign hustings one evening last week. He said it so many times that I think he might really believe it - and not without good reason. He started out a night of campaign appearances the other evening at Messiah Lutheran Church, at Broad and Roosevelt Boulevard.

In little more than seven months, the most effective big-city mayor in America will step down. I ask Ed Rendell and his well-heeled supporters to pave the way for him to take on a more daunting challenge than he confronted eight years ago. Rendell should become point man in a nationwide campaign to enact the strictest gun-control legislation in the free world. Let the movers and shakers of Philadelphia who have contributed tens of millions of dollars to Rendell's campaigns step up one more time and put up the seed money to fund an organization whose goal is to disarm America.

SUBJECT: The Sam Katz candidacy. It is clear that the city regressed significantly after the era of Ed Rendell. It must have broken his heart to throw support to John Street knowing that he didn't have the stuff to sustain the Rendell momentum. Street sent a clear message in his opposition to tax cuts and his handling of the Convention Center union mess that he is merely a caretaker and not the visionary Philly needs to continue what Rendell started. Had it been Street rather than Rendell facing financial crisis, Philadelphia would certainly have been bankrupt by now. Even though Rendell temporarily staved off the demise of Philly, a second Street term could accelerate the regression begun in his first term.

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell writes a weekly sports column for the Daily News from a fan's perspective.   LET ME BEGIN by admitting that I love Andy Reid. I think he is a terrific guy and he has given us 12 years of football that has been exciting and very successful. What Andy has accomplished would be the envy of almost every NFL city with the possible exception of Boston. Sure, he makes some decisions that leave all of us perplexed and he appears stubborn and unwilling to change.

President Obama should "man up" and take a stand on same-sex marriage, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell advised Tuesday on MSNBC, predicting that no political harm would come from supporting it. "If he believes in it, he should say he's for it," Rendell said later in an interview with The Inquirer. "If he's going to do it eventually, he should do it now. Say his piece. Too many people in public life are afraid to say what they believe. " Obama has said that he opposes legalizing same-sex marriage, but that his view is "evolving" and that he supports equal civil rights for gay couples.

OLD CITY is where developer Michael Yaron built his small empire in the last decade. The former Israeli soldier came to the United States with nothing, earned a doctorate from the University of Oxford in England, and later rubbed shoulders with some of Philadelphia's most powerful people. But as he walked alone the other afternoon past his buildings on North 3rd Street and on Arch, the narrow streets seemed to be closing in on him. Yaron and three others recently were found guilty of federal wire- and mail-fraud charges in a $2 million kickback scheme to get lucrative asbestos-removal contracts at a New York hospital.

Former Gov. Ed Rendell says he wouldn't risk his reputation for money, but that is exactly the impression he gave by linking himself to a shady organization that, whether he agrees with it or not, is listed as a terrorist group by the State Department. But Rendell isn't alone. Others who have spoken out in support of the group of Iranian rebels called MEK, short for Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, include former Homeland Security Director and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, former National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones, former CIA Director Porter Goss, and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

In the following edited exchange, former Pennsylvania Democratic Chairman T.J. Rooney and former Republican Chairman Alan Novak considered the advantages and drawbacks of difficult primary contests such as the one currently taking place for the Republican presidential nomination. Alan Novak: We both have a strong belief in the role of the party in politics and in the importance of the party in getting candidates elected. That being said, the question is always this: Are primary challenges to those candidates a good thing or a bad thing?

In the last eight months, former Gov. Ed Rendell has been to Paris four times and Geneva twice. He's also joined rallies at the Capitol, White House, and State Department - all on behalf of a new cause he admits he knew little about until recently: the fate of a militant Iranian exile group living in Iraq called MEK, short for Mujahedeen-e-Khalq. He's been compensated for making speeches in support of MEK, designated by the State Department as a terrorist group, and pictured in ads and online videos that seek to get that designation lifted.

THE GAME OF musical chairs that has marked the complex dealings of rich guys who want to buy the Daily News, the Inquirer and philly.com has gotten more complex. Now it appears that a group headed by businessman Lewis Katz, onetime owner of the New Jersey Nets, and philanthropist H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest, once chairman of the Philadelphia Art Museum, has entered into an agreement to negotiate for the purchase of Philadelphia Media Network Inc. And it may be that Ed Rendell, who put together the original group of multimillionaires to bid on the company, is out as the ringleader.

A group headed by the businessman Lewis Katz and the philanthropist H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest has entered into an exclusive agreement to negotiate for the purchase of The Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, and Philly.com, according to sources close to the process. Lenfest, in an interview Wednesday, said he was asked by former Gov. Ed Rendell to take over as chairman of a group of political and corporate leaders assembled to bid on Philadelphia Media Network Inc. (PMN). The group also now apparently includes Raymond G. Perelman, the Philadelphia philanthropist whose individual bid to buy the media outlets last month was rebuffed.

A group headed by businessman Lewis Katz and philanthropist H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest has entered into an exclusive agreement to negotiate for the purchase of The Inquirer, the Daily News, and Philly.com, according to sources close to the process. Lenfest, in an interview Wednesday, said he was asked by former Gov. Ed Rendell to take over as chairman of a group of political and corporate leaders assembled to bid on Philadelphia Media Network Inc. (PMN). The group also now apparently includes Raymond G. Perelman, the Philadelphia philanthropist whose individual bid to buy the media outlets last month was rebuffed.

The bids to buy Philadelphia Media Network Inc. are in. At least, that's what former Gov. Ed Rendell told a political blogger before an appearance on MSNBC on Friday, according to a blog post on the Politico website. Rendell told the blogger, BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith, that bids to buy the parent company of The Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, and Philly.com "went in today," according to the post by Politico media blogger Dylan Byers. Rendell did not return phone calls for comment.