Tom Corbett's Troubled Tenure in Pennsylvania

PHILADELPHIA — WHEN you boil it down, as a political writer my job is to talk to people.

Over the years, I have developed a roster of sources — ex-politicians, political consultants, lobbyists — on whom I rely to get an honest, no-spin reading of what’s up in Pennsylvania. Usually, I find them to be discerning and insightful, which is another way of saying they tend to agree with me.

But when I call to talk about the state’s big race, between the incumbent Republican, Gov. Tom Corbett, and the Democrat, Tom Wolf, they are quick to change the subject. They tend to refer to the Nov. 4 election in the past tense, though it’s still two weeks away.

“It’s over,” one of them told me and promptly switched to talking about the miserable showing of the Phillies, who went from champs to chumps in a few short years.

So, come to think of it, has Governor Corbett. The former state attorney general, elected governor in 2010, is trailing Mr. Wolf, a self-made millionaire, by 15 to 22 points in the latest polls. From all indications, he is about to become the first incumbent to lose re-election since 1974, the first year that governors in Pennsylvania were allowed to seek a second term. A political footnote.

Adjectives swirl around the governor’s name like petrels. Beleaguered, endangered, hapless.

The pornography scandal is the most recent example of why the adjectives seem to fit.

Just as the governor was spending millions trying to convince voters that he is a solid, competent guy, out popped a revelation that state officials had a sort of an unofficial club that involved trading pornographic photos and videos. They did it using government emails on company time. How dumb is that?

It started while Mr. Corbett was attorney general, and it involved officials in his department, some of whom moved on to become aides and department heads when Mr. Corbett became governor. At the time, he was just beginning his investigation (irony alert) into child sex abuse charges involving Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant football coach.

There is no evidence that Mr. Corbett participated in this swap club. He has denied knowing anything about it, and people believe him. To put it another way, he was clueless, which does not rhyme with competent.

The governor certainly looks competent. With azure eyes and a crown of white hair, he is central casting’s ideal governor. Unfortunately for him, this is not a movie. He has taken actions that seem to have thoroughly ticked off voters from east to west in this vast state. (Mr. Corbett’s troubles are his own; other Republican incumbents in Congress and the State Legislature are expected to win re-election.)

Normally, central Pennsylvania would be pro-Corbett, because he is anti-tax and pro-business and because... well, he is a Republican. Not this year. Many remain enraged over Mr. Corbett’s handling of the Sandusky case. It’s not about Mr. Sandusky himself, a serial abuser of boys, who will die in prison, but about the firing of the beloved head coach, Joe Paterno, and the casting of Penn State football into the pit of disgrace.

Mr. Corbett has been trying to pivot away from blame for Penn State’s travails, but pivoting is among the things he does not do well. After the Sandusky indictment, the governor used his position on Penn State’s board of trustees to recommend that they quickly agree to a brutal N.C.A.A. report on the case and accept severe penalties and sanctions. Then, about a year later, he sued the N.C.A.A. in federal court, saying it did not have the right to punish Penn State. The suit was dismissed.

Then there is same-sex marriage. The governor was dead set against it (and in one “Did he really say that?” TV interview compared it to incest). The state fought a lawsuit to overturn the state’s ban. When a federal judge ruled for same-sex marriage earlier this year, Mr. Corbett decided not to appeal it. Opponents were angered; advocates, stunned and delighted. Almost everyone else saw it as a bald attempt by the governor to pivot to the middle.

In eastern Pennsylvania, the governor is in the doghouse because of nearly $1 billion in cuts he made in state aid to education in his first year. Philadelphia was hit particularly hard: Thousands were laid off, schools closed, services cut to the bone. The state’s largest district fell into a swoon from which it has yet to recover.

Suburban schools have suffered from state cuts, too, with school services down and local taxes up. The soccer moms are not amused.

It’s not much better for Mr. Corbett, a Pittsburgh native, in western Pennsylvania, where people tend to be partial to hometown candidates. I called one of my usually reliable sources in Pittsburgh and asked, “Do you think Corbett could win out there?” He laughed and snorted and said, “Are you kidding?” I took that as a no.

Governor Corbett is not a dumb man. He did a good job as a prosecutor, and in the Sandusky case he acted without fear or favor. As governor, though, he fails at the fundamentals of communication, which, after all, are a fundamental of politics. He comes off as distant and disconnected from voters, who in turn have come to the conclusion that he is not a good leader. Once that belief is lodged in the psyche of the electorate it is hard to shake.

It does not augur well for the beleaguered, endangered and hapless Tom Corbett. Not at all.