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Standing before one of his gleaming recycling trucks, Scott Wagner, proud businessman and brash state senator, announced his Republican bid for governor today. A multimillionaire who owns municipal recycling and trash companies among other ventures, Wagner vowed to beat Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf in the 2018 general election. "I'll be the next governor," Wagner told reporters inside a truck maintenance facility of his York County-based Penn Waste Co. "Take it to the bank." Wagner, 61, is the first Republican out of the gubernatorial gate in his attempt to become the second wealthy York County businessman to win the state's top executive office. Wolf did it in 2014. Wagner criticized Wolf's business resume, saying Wolf inherited his family business while he built his from scratch. "If you are here today and you don't know much about me, learn as much as you can, check me out and you'll learn I have a story of starting businesses, working with people, providing leadership [and] being actively involved in my community," Wagner told the crowd of about six dozen, including his family, employees, state lawmakers and the public. In March 2014, Wagner made history by being the first write-in candidate to win a state Senate seat. He has used that maverick victory to fuel his own agenda — and reputation — in the Legislature. Before taking office, Wagner vowed to carry a baseball bat for Senate caucus meetings, and took a Harrisburg television reporter for a helicopter ride over public schools he derided for spending too much money. Wolf, in the Lehigh Valley today for events including a taping of WFMZ-TV's "Business Matters" show, offered little when asked by host Tony Iannelli, president and CEO of the Greater Lehigh Valley of Commerce, to size up Wagner. "We believe in a democracy, and someone will be chosen, and that's the way it works," Wolf said. Afterward, Wolf said he looked forward to the 2018 campaign "having fruitful debates and moving forward. [Wagner's] a conservative; I'm not, so we have different ideas." A Wagner-Wolf match-up would be jumping to conclusions, however. The names of other wealthy Republicans or state lawmakers also are being bantered about in GOP circles and the media: •U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-3rd District. He is the owner of Butler County car dealerships and natural gas holdings, plus stocks and trusts he co-owns with his wife, Victoria, congressional financial disclosure statements show. Kelly, who played football at the University of Notre Dame, was elected to Congress in 2010. Thomas Qualtere, a spokesman for Kelly, said he is "actively exploring" the possibility of a gubernatorial run. •Paul Mango. He's a healthcare consultant and the Pittsburgh office director of the global consulting firm McKinsey & Co. He is a 1981 West Point graduate who holds a master's of business degree from Harvard University. Mango's name surfaced this week in The Philadelphia Inquirer. •Former Lt. Gov. and Bucks County native Jim Cawley. He is president and CEO of the United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey. Other possible GOP candidates include: Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, R-Centre; House Majority Leader Dave Reed, R-Indiana; and House speaker Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny. If elected, Wagner said he'd try to lower or eliminate school property taxes, a vow other politicians have made, but on which they have come up short. Wagner said he'd tame the state's spiraling public pension of about $60 billion in part by allowing natural gas drilling on state forest and park lands and by earmarking royalty money to pensions. He'd also consider ways to financially leverage state lands through timbering. Wagner, a staunch opponent of tax increases to close a perpetual deficit hole and add more money to programs, declined to pledge not to raise taxes, as GOP former Gov. Tom Corbett had done in 2010. "A pledge is a promise and I won't make promises,' Wagner said, adding a tax increase would not be necessary if the state spent within its means and changed its operations. If elected, Wagner said, he'd roll back the state's gasoline taxes and replace them with higher vehicle registration fees. But he did not know how that switch would impact the state's ability to pay for road and bridge repairs, which was the basis for the 2013 gas tax increase under Corbett's administration. One of Wagner's supporters, State Rep. Seth Grove, R-York, said he did not think the Legislature would change the 2013 gas law. The gas tax is paid by those who drive more frequently on roads, while a user fee would impact "little old ladies" who do not drive as often, he said. Still, Grove said, Wagner deserves credit for imagining ways to reinvent government. And Wagner's existing ties to lawmakers makes him the early GOP front-runner in Grove's view. "Scott and I don't agree on everything politically," Grove said. "I think he has the nexis to change Harrisburg to make it work." Wagner's decision to announce so early could force other candidates to act sooner than they would like, or to scare them away, said Christopher Nichols, a veteran Republican campaign consultant in Harrisburg. But being first doesn't equal victory, he said. Voters are not paying attention and neither are county party chairmen, who next face 2017 municipal elections. Wagner is a major player in the upcoming election, said Chris Borick, Muhlenbeg college political science professor and pollster. But, he said, Wagner will need to build name recognition outside his main base of south central Pennsylvania. "When you have resources, that [name recognition] can change quickly," Borick said. "See Tom Wolf." When Wolf, the owner of a kitchen cabinet distribution company and a one-time Revenue Department secretary, announced his candidacy in 2013, it barely registered across the state. But in the winter of 2014 he went from nobody to the top of the Democratic ticket by spending $10 million of his own money on well-crafted folksy commercials featuring his Jeep and his family. Wolf rode the commercials' success to primary victory and then beat Corbett, who suffered from record-low approval ratings due in part to school funding cuts. Read the original article here.