State Treasurer Robert P. Casey Jr. is feeling a lot of pressure to run against U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum next year from people at the highest levels of the national Democratic Party.

A lot of top local Democrats would love to see him run, too.

Politics, U.S. Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski, D-Nanticoke said, is all about timing, and the timing is perfect for Mr. Casey to run for the Senate.

"He's at the right place, he's the right man, at the right time," Mr. Kanjorski said just before watching Mr. Casey sworn in as treasurer Jan. 18 in Harrisburg.

Mr. Casey, if elected -- and Mr. Kanjorski is more certain than others that it would happen -- would gain the stature of a rising star within the Democratic Party. Mr. Kanjorski said Mr. Casey could be like Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, whose stirring speech revved up the convention last summer.

Lackawanna County Democratic Party Chairman Jerry Notarianni knows what he would do if he were Mr. Casey.

"You run," Mr. Notarianni said. "I hope he runs. I think he'll beat Santorum and do a good job. I think it's a good opportunity for him. If he loses, he's still state treasurer and he did what the national party asked him to do."

Mr. Notarianni and Annette Palutis, the chairwoman of the Lackawanna County Federation of Democratic Women, worry that history is against Mr. Casey if the 44-year-old Scranton Democrat skips the Senate race to concentrate on a planned second run for governor in 2010.

Pennsylvanians elect governors every four years. But every eight years since the 1950s, it's a governor from a different party.

Assuming Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, wins a second term next year, history would favor a Republican in 2010.

Mr. Casey could still run for governor sometime after 2010 and be in a stronger position to win because he's a senator, Mr. Notarianni said.

"I think he has a better chance at this than at being governor" after Mr. Rendell, Mrs. Palutis said, referring to the eight-year cycle.

Scranton School Board President Todd J. O'Malley thinks the timing for Mr. Casey to challenge Mr. Santorum next year will only improve as the war in Iraq drags on.

"Rick Santorum is the poster boy for everything that's wrong with America today," Mr. O'Malley said. "I think in a year or a year and a half, George Bush is gong to be like an anchor around Rick Santorum's neck."

One Democrat said Mr. Casey should sit it out.

"I think he can be more effective for the people of the commonwealth as governor," county Recorder of Deeds Evie Rafalko-McNulty said.

By Friday, Mr. Casey was still pondering a run, but had made no decision.

If he ran and won, he'd be Pennsylvania's first United States senator from Lackawanna County. The last from Northeastern Pennsylvania was John I. Mitchell of Tioga County (not the famed labor leader), who served from 1881 to 1887.

The others are Samuel McKean of Bradford County, 1833 to 1839; David Wilmot of Bradford County, 1861 to 1863; and Charles R. Buckalew of Columbia County, 1863 to 1869.

Richard Brodhead, who served from 1851 to 1857, was born in Lehman Township, Pike County, but moved to Easton at age 19 and made his fame from there.

James Cooper, who served from 1849 to 1855, lived 18 years of the middle part of his life in Schuylkill County, but was born and died in Maryland.

Count the last two if you like, but we're not.

By Roderick Random, Scranton Times, Jan 29, 2005

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