Since Gib backed out of this upcoming race it is a wide open field. Rumor has it that MT Commissioner Carol Simpson is testing the waters, backed by Dale High.

At the present time Steve MacDonald and Paul Thibault both have the name recognition to be top contenders, however, party support will go to Thibault as MacDonald has "dissed" the county politboro and the local MT committee too many times and as a result has very little support within the party structure.

This is a wonderful convenience and has shown great leadership on MacDonald's watch. Yet, it is just a reflection upon how poor government management is in general when the simple action of an elected official selecting and paying outside consultants public money to computerize records becomes something newsworthy and out of the ordinary (but unfortunately, it is). This activity is ho hum and standard practice everywhere else.

What would really be newsworthy is if the staff reductions that occurred as a result of MacDonald's streamlining actually flowed through to the taxpayers. But these employees were simply transfered to other job duties within the county government bureaucracy and remained on the payroll. The reduction in office space is still there in the courthouse and being heated, air-conditioned and paid for by the taxpayers.

The significant budget savings created by the staff reductions (offset initially by the cost of the computerization) looked good on MacDonald's budget sheet but were quickly gobbled-up by the quickly growing county government bureaucracy.

I hope these newsworthy actions on behalf of MacDonald were conducted for the benefit of the county residents first and his political motivations second ... but only Steve knows how that question is prioritized.
It is too bad that when MacDonald was a MT Republican Committeeman he could not find the time to support any of the conservative school board and commissioner candidates (the real reformers) who were losing local elections by razor-thin margins (less than 3%). Those green-colored special interest group progressive bipartisan blended Repubican & Democrat candidate "Friends of Township Schools" yard signs were plastered all over his yard during those contentious elections that put the first registered Democrats (and more RINO's) onto the Manheim Township School Board.

From a fiscally conservative MT resident sick of seeing the school board not being accountable for INCREDIBLE amounts of waste and inefficiencies .... gee, thanks a bunch Steve.

I guess multi-million dollar local level "reform" is not as important as computerized county records.

High is not supporting Thibault?????

NO. NO No. I do not intend for this to be a bust on Wenger - rather - to show that you are not representing the REFORM record of McDonald.
I'm not trying to Represent McDonald's reform record. GOPintegrity and RR have done a good job with that. And, for the record, I do not have a personal issue with McDonald. My point is, like RR explained, McDonald's reforms in the Deed's office, while important, are not all that newsworthy. Anyone could have done the same thing and should have.
However, his support of Baldwin and others makes his "reform" record somewhat questionable. You can't have it two ways, either you think Harrisburg is broken or you don't. If you do, you cannot lend your support to payjackers while at the same time declaring that the Harrisburg culture is in need of repair.
All told, I think McDonald would make an OK Senator. That is not to say, however, that there will not be a better choice emerging. We will have to wait to see.

He gives generously to all pro-development like-minded candidates, from both parties. Dale can afford to hedge his bets.

Correct. But do most elected officials actually rise above the lowest common denominator and actually do something (anything) better than the rest? No. Not very often. In the area of professional expertise, running a public service with taxpayer money, MacDonald has shown motivation and leadership, and should not be criticized for this.

However, on the local level, when he was a committeeman and in the position to work and fight (for no personal financial gain) to get fiscal conservatives in control of a brutally wasteful school system, Steve was conspiciously "missing in action". And worse yet, by failing to enter the fray he was siding with the progressive, liberal, big spending group who's mantra was (and still is); "Money should never be an issue of discussion when the education of our children is at stake".

If education "reform" means throwing more unaccountable public money at it, then I guess, during those local election cycles, he was a modern day Manheim Township "reformer". As was Roy Baldwin.