DeWeese calls Hopkins 'empty suit'

WAYNESBURG -- Just minutes late Thursday night after securing a victory most thought wouldn't happen a few months ago, Bill DeWeese had a few parting shots for his Republican opponent Greg Hopkins.

Hopkins, whom he narrowly defeated in 2006, ran an "aggressive, abrasive" campaign, the House Majority Leader told reporters as throngs of supporters celebrated around him.

But when people scrutinized him they realized they didn't like what they saw.

"He was an empty suit," said DeWeese, who called Hopkins' debate performance "pathetic."

Preliminary results posted on the Department of State's website show DeWeese won 54.6 percent of the vote, earning roughly 2,000 more votes than Hopkins. He won 52.7 percent of the vote in 2006, about a 1,000 more votes than Hopkins.

The longtime lawmaker had taken heat from Hopkins during the summer when 12 former and current members and staffers of his House Democratic Caucus were charged in connection with "Bonusgate."

DeWeese said he thinks his opponent counted on him being charged with a crime before Election Day.

"When that didn't happen, he slandered and denigrated me, inferring I was" part of the scandal.

It was Hopkins attempts to lump DeWeese with the 12 charged in Bonusgate that seemed to infuriate DeWeese the most, and the majority leader made it clear he thinks those attacks backfired.

In the kind of rhetorical waterfall that sometimes characterizes his speeches on the House floor, DeWeese said Hopkins forgot about the firefighters, school board members and township supervisors in Greene County that know he's a good man.

"All he did was denigrate and castigate me," DeWeese said.