Here he is folks.  Click on this link to see your next governor.   http://www.flickr.com/photos/eyesawfoto/2692011345/page2/

(Thanks to Nonac, whose flickr file provided this image)

Crowd to Dan:  “BOOOOOOO!!!!!!!”

Spotlight hogger Dan the Dictator was also booed as he rode in a car down the route for the Steelers victory parade a few days after the Super Bowl.  Steeler Fans clearly do not love Dan. 

“BOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!”

Tom Paine finds it a little pathetic when politicians jump in front of the camera to try to get a little undeserved glory when a local sports team does well. 

Dan the Dictator found out the hard way that this ungracious act can have unanticipated negative consequences. 

At the pre-Super Bowl pep rally at Heinz Field, the County Diminutive was introduced to address the crowd, some 30,000 strong.  He was loudly and vociferously booed.  This occurred some 13 months after the Drink Tax was imposed and a month after he claimed, to an out of town reporter, that the Drink Tax was a non-issue in Allegheny County. 

The booing was so vicious that Tom Paine’s correspondent, an ardent anti-Drink Taxer, confessed that she was “embarrassed” for him. 

“Dan, it’s called the law of supply and demand . . . .  Let me explain.”

We all know that Dan the Dictator is a CPA and an attorney, as well as the smartest guy in any room not occupied by Barack Obama.  Now we also know know definitively that the County Diminutive is no economist. 

Dan the Dictator has continually claimed that the Drink Tax has had no negative economic impact in Allegheny County.  While a ridiculous claim on its face, it is made more ridiculous by figures released by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. 

The LCB has released its wholesale purchase figures to licensees from 2008.  The figures show that licensee purchases of beer and wine in Allegheny County were down in 2008 were down 4.2% from 2007 — thats $1,973,596 less than the previous year.  In the meantime, licensees in the five counties surrounding Allegheny purchses 4.2% more wine and liquor than the previous year.  Statewide, licensee purchases were up by .5%.  

Put another way, the increase in sales in the five surrounding counties accounted for 59% of the overall state increase. 

Wholesale wine and liquor are the raw materials in a restaurant and tavern’s final product, the retail drink.  If wholesale sales are down, so are retails sales.  The long and the short:  patrons are manifestly choosing to frequent restaurants and taverns in neighboring counties to Allegheny rather than in Allegheny County itself. 

Milton Friedman, we beseech you.  Come to Pittsburgh and give a lesson or two in Econ 101 to our County Diminutive.