Kyle Sammin

Have a seat and set a spell I have a story for you that has to do with name confusion at the ballot box; while it's not as eye popping-ly devious as what the Democrats have pulled off with the Dan Sullivans' its still worth your time. During the late 1970s and 1980s, Pennsylvania ballots suffered from an absolute epidemic of "Bob Caseys." Voters were so confused that completely unknown candidates won major state party nominations and even statewide office simply by sharing a name with the "Real" Bob Casey Sr. of Scranton, who later had to campaign under the slogan "The Real Bob Casey" just to clear up the mess. In 1976, seeing that the famous Bob Casey was sitting out the election, this completely unrelated Robert E. Casey threw his hat in the ring for State Treasurer. He spent virtually no money and did almost zero campaigning. Voters went to the polls, saw the name "Bob Casey," assumed it was the highly respected outgoing Auditor General, and elected him. Then an ice cream parlor owner and schoolteacher from Allegheny County in 1978 employed the exact same strategy; he ran for Lieutenant Governor in the Democratic primary, spent no money, didn't campaign, and won the nomination because voters thought he was the Scranton politician. He was paired on the ticket with gubernatorial nominee Pete Flaherty. The Flaherty/Casey ticket narrowly lost the general election to Republicans Dick Thornburgh and William Scranton III. By 1986, the real Robert P. Casey of Scranton was ready for his fourth run for governor. To combat the identity theft at the ballot box, his campaign (led by then-unknown strategists James Carville and Pauli Begala) explicitly leaned into the confusion. They branded him heavily as "The Real Bob Casey".