Jan 17, 2015 4 min read

One spitball that is lobbed frequently at veteran lawmakers is that they are “career politicians.” The rest of the script usually goes something like this: “Rep. (fill in the blank) has spent (fill in the blank) years in (fill in the blank), and has never run a business, has never met a payroll and has never created a job.”

In a couple of days, Pennsylvania is going to find out whether someone who is almost completely untouched by the mud of the political process – someone who is, in fact, not a career politician – will be an effective leader of the commonwealth for the next four years.

Tom Wolf’s decisive victory over Gov. Tom Corbett in November was noteworthy in Pennsylvania’s history because it marked the first time an incumbent governor lost a re-election bid, and it also shattered the predictable pattern dating back to World War II that had the two parties handing off control of the governor’s mansion every eight years. But Wolf’s ascension is also unprecedented in its demonstration of the power of money and media. Wolf, a Democrat, had no name recognition as a result of time spent in the Legislature, Capitol Hill, or in a city hall. His only previous political experience had been as secretary of the Department of Revenue for 19 months. Instead of relying on a résumé, Wolf was able to tap the considerable fortune he had amassed as the CEO of a kitchen-cabinet manufacturer to blitz the state with advertising and win the Democratic primary by drowning out his opponents. Given the unpopularity that stubbornly lingered around Corbett for much of his tenure, Wolf’s election was virtually a fait accompli.

Now that the 66-year-old number-cruncher from the private sector will be at the head of the state’s sprawling bureaucracy, Wolf will have his work more than cut out for him. The first order of business after he is sworn in Tuesday is dealing with a budget deficit that is expected to be about $2 billion in 2015-16. Facing a Legislature with strengthened Republican majorities, it will test Wolf’s deal-crafting abilities to arrive at something that will satisfy the constituencies that propelled him to the governor’s office in the first place.

Then, Wolf must find a way to push his ambitious proposals through the Legislature, the foremost being a 5 percent severance tax on natural gas drilling, which Wolf said could raise $700 million per year and he would earmark mostly for education. Whether or not such a tax would yield that kind of windfall is an open question, however, thanks to tumbling energy prices and fluctuating production levels.

Wolf would also like to scrap the flat, 3.07 percent state income tax and replace it with a tiered system that, in his estimation, would be more fair and put more change in the pockets of low- and middle-income residents. We’re not betting the farm that this will actually come to pass, but perhaps one way Wolf could move it forward is by acceding to the wishes of Republican lawmakers and privatizing the state’s antiquated system of wine and liquor sales or, at the very least, modernizing it by allowing more stores to open on Sunday and have more latitude when it comes to prices.

We also hope Wolf will be serious about confronting the state’s growing problem with pension debt, which is becoming an increasingly weighty ball and chain for state government, municipalities and school districts.

In four years, Wolf will presumably face voters again, and it will be up to them to judge whether this unproven politician is just what Pennsylvania needed, or whether he will be lumped together with Corbett as another “one-term Tom” who found the state’s problems beyond his powers to solve.