HARRISBURG, Pa. -- Republican Mike Fisher and Democrat Edward G. Rendell traded pokes at each other Monday over a recurring issue in this year's governor's race: gambling.

Fisher, the state attorney general, issued a release Monday in which his campaign manager criticized Rendell's statement in a speech that he would support bringing video keno gambling to Pennsylvania as a possible source of revenue for programs for the elderly.

Rendell's camp responded with a release pointing out that Fisher voted to allow video poker in bars in 1990, saying the Republican was trying to distance himself from his record.

Rendell, the former mayor of Philadelphia, made mention of keno, a game typically played in restaurants or taverns, during a speech at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Public Health on Friday.

Keno is a game in which players customarily pick 10 of 80 possible numbers, hoping to match them against winning numbers chosen randomly by the state lottery's computer. A new game takes place every five minutes.

A spokesman for Rendell said he mentioned keno in response to a question about funding for the state Pharmaceutical Assistance Contract for the Elderly, known as PACE.

"Ed was not making an official proposal," the spokesman, Dan Fee, said Monday. "What Ed was doing was listing possible things to look at to ensure the financial condition of the PACE program."

But a spokesman for Fisher's camp said the proposal was not an isolated one.

"I think it's part of a very large plan to bring gambling to every corner of Pennsylvania," said the spokesman, Kent Gates.

Gates said allowing such widespread gambling along with riverboats and casinos would devastate businesses, hurt lottery revenues, risk increased crime and work to "destroy the moral fabric of Pennsylvania."