BREAKING: Pa. Legislator Says Something Nice About Philadelphia

We don’t mean to be overly snarky here, but we were listening to NewsWorks’ interview with Pa. Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman this morning when something remarkable happened — he said something nice about Philly.

And it was even prefaced with an admission that non-Philly legislators tend to pick on our city! The exchange came in a conversation about higher-ed funding:

“As a Republican, we’ve made a living over the years picking on Philadelphia. I don’t think there’s any question about that,” he said, with a laugh. “But we’re as successful as they are. If Philadelphia is a tremendous, thriving city full of opportunity and cultural advances that communities from around the state and around the country want to come see, that’s good for everybody in the state.”

Corman actually started his college career at Temple University, living on Broad Street in North Philadelphia, but he ended up graduating from Penn State’s Main Campus.

“That’s a long story. As I like to tell people, I had my fun at Temple, and I got my education at Penn State. I’ll just leave it at that,” he said. “When you talk about a rural county boy headed to the big city, there’s a whole lot of education to happen there.”

Hey, wouldn’t it be nice if Philly and the rest of the state could stop using each other for target practice? Thanks to Corman’s words, we now know it exists somewhere — somewhere — in the realm of possibility.