Way to Go Brad Koplinski

I think it’s definitely worthwhile to take moment and give credit where credit is due. Harrisburg city councilor, Brad Koplinski has set an impressive campaign pace.

The Koplinski campaign for Lt. Governor just announced that they have campaigned in every county in the state. Nick Field with PoliticsPA has the scoop.

Koplinski said he intends to visit every single county again before the primary election next spring. The other purpose of this expedition, besides of course trying to get elected, is that Koplinski is pledging to turn the Local Government Advisory Committee, which is chaired by the Lt. Governor, into a more effective organization.

No other candidate for any 2014 statewide offices can claim this distinction, though I bet John Hanger comes close.

Not only has Koplinski wined and dined the locals at every county fair he can find, he has racked up quite a few endorsements along the way. PoliticsPA again;

The first endorsements in the Democratic primary for Lieutenant Governor are in. Harrisburg City Councilman Brad Koplinski rolled out a list of more than 100 supporters.

The full list is on the site and you should check it out. These are wide ranging, but it does matter. When the time comes for voters pull the switch for such a low information race, Brad simply having been there will make a difference for him.

Brad has also made it clear that he is actually interested in what it is the Lt. Governor does, aside from Presiding over the Senate and being second in the state line of succession Koplinski has spoken a lot about his role at the head of the Local Government Advisory Committee. Here is him wonking out with progressive Jon Geeting at Keystone Politics;

Infrastructure is a huge problem for local governments. We got this transportation funding advisory study that recommends about $2 billion in maintenance, but it’s just for the state roads, it doesn’t really touch the 27,000 miles of local roads. There’s very few County roads in this state. Most of the County responsibility is bridges, which is important, and I didn’t know this until recently but we have all these structurally deficient bridges – what that means is,  when they build a bridge they build it so it can hold 140,000 lbs, but over time there’s some wear and tear on it, and then they say it can only hold 80,000 lbs. Not a problem, but then it gets to the point where they have to start lowering the weight restrictions on it – that’s when it become structurally deficient. So maybe it’s 60,000 or 40,000 – still safe but [pause] something’s bound to happen. It’s going to be like what happened in Minneapolis.

This will obviously contrast with Lt. Governor Cawley’s own record, but also the other Democrats in the race who have not said much to date. There is a lot more to the campaign and I said, the low information surrounding Lt. Gov votes could favor a candidate with star power, but right now congratulations are in order. Lets hope he keeps up the hard work. Well done Brad!