N.Y. Candidate Actually Admits Attending Penn

Things are heating up in the 99th Assembly District race in New York state.

Oh, I know, you were wondering, “How could things get any hotter?” Well, they just did, thanks to a little bit of bickering over a certain degree. Your characters in this race are democrat Ken Harper and Republican Greg Ball.

Ball said a note that appears after Harper’s name, stating that the Democrat graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1982 with a bachelor’s in English, is false.

“Ken Harper has perpetuated the lie that he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania,” Ball said. “Records clearly show that Ken Harper has never graduated.”

Both a university spokesman and Harper confirmed that fact yesterday. Ron Ozio, director of the school’s media relations, said Harper attended the institution, but that there was no record of him having received a degree.

Harper said he “never represented himself to anybody, even from way back when” that he had a degree from Penn. He said there’s nothing in his campaign literature saying otherwise.

“I went to college for four years and studied English,” Harper, 46, said. “I didn’t get a B.A. I never said I graduated.”

Harper said he was three credits short of graduating — and didn’t finish because he ran out of money. (Wouldn’t you have found time to go back in the past, oh, I dunno, 24 years?)

Anyway, though, Mr. Harper has given me an answer to a riddle I’ve been wondering for a while. What’s worse than graduating from Penn with a B.A. in English? Doing all the work and not getting a B.A. in English.

Assembly candidates spar over college credentials [The Journal News]