POLITICAL NOTEBOOK TWO STAR Edition

• Published in: Pittsburgh post-gazette (Pittsburgh, Pa. 1978)
• Main Author: JAMES O' TOOLE, ED BOUCHETTE, FRANK REEVES AND JOHN M.R. BULL
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Pittsburgh, Pa Pittsburgh Post - Gazette 24.10.1999
• Subjects: DeFazio, Marsha
• ISSN: 1068-624X

The total registration for the county going into next week's balloting is 883,412. That represented an increase, since the primary, of 3,332 Democrats, 2,222 Republicans and 2,471 independents or members of third parties. [Mark] Wolosik said it was the first time in his memory that the third party category had topped a major party in new registrants. David Hamstead, the county's GOP chairman, put a positive spin on the findings. Many of the new independents, he speculated, were the children of Democrats who no longer identified with the party of Roosevelt but whose vestigial loyalty prevented them from migrating all the way to the GOP. Four years ago, when Republicans Larry Dunn and Bob Cranmer opposed Democrats Mike Dawida and Coleen Vuono, about 447,000 votes were cast, a turnout of 48.1 percent. People in and out of the campaigns have observed that there seems to be relatively little excitement about this race, but Wolosik said he expected that to change, at least a little. Referring to the barrage of television advertising scheduled over the next 10 days, he said, "Either they're going to start thinking about it on their own, or they are going to be forced to pay attention because it's going to be in their face." There was a buzz of anticipation in the Wecht campaign Tuesday night when Kordell Stewart was expected as the featured guest at a fund-raising reception at the University Club. But, alas, from the Democrats' point of view, Stewart was a no-show.