You could say Greg Sahd is moving forward by looking backward.

Elected chairman of the Lancaster County Republican Committee just 17 days ago, he's begun tackling some of the party's lingering issues — a top vacancy at headquarters, sagging finances from a lengthy legal battle and signing up more new voters.

It's a lot to chew on.

But Sahd, who has been spending long days at headquarters, has tapped an all-star cast of senior advisers to help right the ship. You might recognize some of them: former U.S. Rep. Bob Walker and retired state lawmakers Gibson E. Armstrong, Noah Wenger and Jere Schuler.

"These former public servants have over a century's worth of public service experience and service to our Republican Party," said Sahd, a former county treasurer who lives in Manheim Township.

"Rather than reinventing the wheel, these former public servants will have much to offer in terms of advice and counsel and contributions to the party," he said.

Something in the water?

What is it about Lancaster County that makes candidates say such silly things?

The latest politico to stumble over his own words here is Tom Corbett. The GOP gubernatorial hopeful suggested in Elizabethtown last week that some laid-off workers prefer collecting unemployment to getting a job.

And that wasn't the only time he's said such a thing in Lancaster County. In March, while visiting CareerLink in the city, Corbett said the decision to extend unemployment benefits was serving as a disincentive to go back to work.

"What I see here are people looking for jobs, but that's only 10 percent" of the unemployed, Corbett said at the job-search and training center. "What about the other 80 or 90 percent?"

Corbett isn't the only one to contract foot-in-mouth disease during a campaign stop here.

Gov. Ed Rendell got in trouble in 2006 for dissing seniors who like to gamble. The governor, meeting with the newspaper editorial board, said some have "gray lives" and find joy in gambling.

Praising Arizona

Pennsylvanians support the nation's toughest law on illegal immigration, in Arizona, by a nearly 2-1 margin, a new Quinnipiac University poll found.

The survey of 1,367 resident showed 52 percent support the law, compared with 27 percent who do not; 47 percent want lawmakers here to adopt a similar measure. The poll's margin of error was plus or minus 2.7 percent.

"Pennsylvanians like the Arizona law and don't like President Obama's decision to ask the courts to throw it out," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the polling institute.

This week, Corbett joined eight other state attorneys general in signing a brief in support of the Arizona law.

Political people

Matt Parido will leave his post as Manheim Borough manager in late August to take a position with Republican state Sen. Lloyd Smucker and the Senate GOP.

Parido, 37, of West Lampeter Township, has worked in Manheim for the past year and a half.

Previously, he worked for the Lancaster Housing Opportunity Partnership and spent eight years with the City of Lancaster — four years as director of housing and neighborhood development and four years as assistant to former Mayor Charlie Smithgall.

tmurse@lnpnews.com