By Tom Infield

Inquirer Staff Writer

Reform state government! Clean house! To a man, the candidates vying to succeed Gov. Rendell are heeding the mood of Pennsylvania's electorate and promising to change the culture of Harrisburg.

But the same old political interests are financing their campaigns, according to an Inquirer analysis of campaign reports for 2009.

Unions are with the Democrats; banks and insurance companies are behind the Republicans; and lawyers are working both sides.

To be sure, there are new faces among donors with something at stake in the election. Convenience stores want beer laws relaxed. Drillers want to extract natural gas, untaxed, from the vast Marcellus Shale.

With no limit in Pennsylvania on the amount of money that donors may contribute, six-figure largesse is not uncommon. Altogether, the candidates still in the race reported raising $8.8 million.

Republican Tom Corbett, who as state attorney general is responsible for enforcing the election laws, received $180,000 last year from Kim Pegula.

Her husband, Terry Pegula, is chief executive officer of East Resources Inc., which has leased hundreds of thousands of acres to extract gas from the Marcellus Shale. Another company executive gave Corbett $25,000.

Overall, Corbett had three donations of $100,000 or more among the $4.2 million he took in last year.

Read the rest of the article here (it is quite lengthy).

Wanna see who's giving money to the governor candidates? Check out this chart. Please pay specific attention to Corbett.