Monday, June 21, 2004
Pennsylvania operations prepare full-force effort to sway undecided voters.
HARRISBURG (AP) -- The two men in charge of George Bush's and John Kerry's presidential campaigns in Pennsylvania are as different as the candidates themselves.
Tony Podesta, who manages Sen. Kerry's fledgling Democratic organization in the state, is a principal in one of Washington's busiest lobbying firms and a nationally connected political operative who has worked on presidential campaigns for more than three decades.
His lower-key counterpart in the Republican president's re-election campaign is Guy Ciarrocchi, 39, a former top staffer at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia and veteran Pennsylvania GOP activist who is on the payroll of a presidential campaign for the first time.
Despite their contrasting backgrounds and personal styles, the two lawyers will play instrumental roles in shaping strategy, recruiting volunteers and signing up voters as they compete in a tight race in one of the most important battleground states in this year's election.
Democrat experience
Podesta, 60, is an old friend of former President Bill Clinton and the brother of former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta. He managed Clinton's successful re-election campaign in Pennsylvania in 1996.
A fast talker, Podesta has worked as a paid staffer or volunteer on so many Democratic presidential campaigns -- McCarthy, Muskie, McGovern, Ted Kennedy, Carter, Dukakis -- that he sometimes mixes up their chronological order. He attended his first national convention in Atlantic City, N.J., in 1964, the year of Lyndon Johnson's landslide victory over conservative Republican Barry Goldwater.
"I've been working on presidential campaigns full-time since 1968," the Chicago native said in a telephone interview from his Washington office.
State Democratic leaders give Podesta high marks.
"He was my first choice" for Kerry's state campaign manager, said Gov. Ed Rendell. "He's an adult, he's smart, he's articulate, and he's a good leader."
"He's got great instincts," said former Lt. Gov. Mark Singel, who got to know Podesta during Clinton's 1992 campaign.
Republican newcomer
Ciarrocchi -- he pronounces it chir-ROCK-ee, and jokes that even his relatives cannot agree on how to say it -- was born and raised in South Philadelphia. He has been active in GOP politics since he was a teenager.
He held state and national leadership positions in the College Republican organization in the 1980s and was a paid staffer on Sen. John Heinz's 1988 re-election campaign. He ran unsuccessfully for the state Legislature in 1992 and became friends with Sen. Rick Santorum while he was running for his first term in 1994 and needed a place to sleep while campaigning in southeastern Pennsylvania.
"For a while, my house in South Philadelphia was his home away from home," Ciarrocchi recalled.
But Ciarrocchi's experience in presidential politics has been limited to volunteer roles at the county and local levels. He was not the Bush-Cheney campaign's first choice to manage the important Pennsylvania campaign.
First choice
Harrisburg public-relations man John O'Connell, whose Bravo Group has done advance work for the president on his Pennsylvania visits, was offered the job first. O'Connell said he turned it down because the demands on his time and energy could strain his business and his year-old marriage.
"It was just a bad time in my life to go do that," O'Connell said.
Ciarrocchi acknowledges having similar concerns about the rigors of the job. Unless he is traveling outside the state, he commutes between the campaign office in Harrisburg and his home more than an hour away in Chester County to maximize his time with his wife and children.
"I had very mixed feelings," he said, "because I clearly wanted to help, clearly wanted the president to win, but I know what's involved and I have three children -- (aged) 10, 7 and 3."
Ciarrocchi also served as chief of staff to then-state Sen. Melissa Hart -- now a U.S. representative -- for two years before joining the archdiocese in 1996 as its director of public affairs. He took over the campaign in March.
Promising rookie
Robert Asher, Pennsylvania's national GOP committeeman, and O'Connell said Ciarrocchi has what it takes to run a successful campaign.
"He's a very decent human being. He's very good on detail ... He gets along well with people," Asher said.
The Kerry campaign has yet to open its Pennsylvania headquarters, although Podesta said it will be located in Philadelphia, the state's Democratic hub, and other offices are planned in at least Pittsburgh, Scranton-Wilkes-Barre, Erie and Harrisburg.
The state Bush-Cheney headquarters is a basement office suite in downtown Harrisburg, where Ciarrocchi directs a staff of 11. Fifteen other campaign staffers will be spread among an equal number of "victory centers" that the Republican State Committee will operate around the state.