Specter Likely to Pull it Out

Although I would not be the least surprised if Joe Sestak wins today's primary battle against Arlen Specter for the Democratic nomination in the 2010 US Senate race, I expect the end of the day will see Specter hanging on by as many as four points.

Neither candidate has polled a majority since the race began in earnest (which is a Philadelphia suburb), leaving a swath of undecideds out there right up to yesterday's most recent poll. Generally, undecideds in these kinds of races tend to break for the challenger, and I suspect that will also be the case today.

Offsetting that, however, is the GOTV. Any one of Specter, the Obama machine, the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, the Ed Rendell machine, and the Pennsylvania Unions may boast of enjoying one the most effective GOTV forces this side of Mason-Dixon. Together, as they are for Specter, it is an awesome juggernaut that can situate Specter to compensate for the undecideds going to Sestak.

Up against that is the weak Sestak statewide campaign, which didn't even manage to put an office in all of the key regions, much less a GOTV effort. This morning Sestak's campaign distributed a list of party locations for this evening. I think they have half a dozen in the entire state, most within 100 miles of Philadelphia. Nothing in the Northeast beyond the Lehigh Valley -- the Poconos, Wilkes Barre, Scranton, Northern Tier, all but ignored tonight and throughout hte campaign.

But for the snippet of video showing a creepy Specter boasting about switching parties to "enable me to get re-e-lect-ted", Sestak's family-run campaign would have left him where he was a few months ago -- down 20 points to a mean spirited, Iraq-supporting, Anita Hill bashing, Thomas-supporting, Kagan-opposing-now-supporting, half-deaf, party-switching, octogenarian Republican recovering from cancer.

This race should not have been close. Sestak should have had it sown up months ago. The main reason he didn't was his stubborn insistence of using his family to run their first statewide campaign. Ignoring offers of assistance, office space, and personnel tendered by Democratic faithful before he even announced a final decision to run, his campaign has been the poster child for why one needs to switch staff when moving from a local district race to a statewide effort.

Of course, Sestak's anemic debate performance didn't help -- but an experienced staff could have better trained him for the event.

So, when Sestak is suddenly out of a job, it won't be Arlen Specter's fault, or President Obama's, he can just look around the Thanksgiving table for the reasons.

By the same token, if he does manage to hold off Specter and win this, no credit is due to his campaign staff. If they knew how to do their jobs, this would not have been a nail-biter depending on poor turnout in Philadelphia for success.

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Official Web Pages for Pennsylvania's New Members of the 110th

Jason Altimire, PA-4
Joe Sestak, PA-7
Pat Murphy, PA-8
Chris Carney, PA-10

All of these new members of the House had their fully-functioning web pages up and running at least a week ago.

Bobby Casey, Jr., is the only new member of the Pennsylvania federal delegation who hasn't bothered to get his official web page up and running. But, give him a break, what with his fire-brand calling for "more study" on ethics reform, and preparing those scintillating first words on the Senate floor, he's a really busy guy these days.

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First Words

Introducing an irregular feature, the first words spoken on the floor of Congress from our newly-elected Representatives and Senator. So far, Pat Murphy and Joe Sestak have put their immortal words into the permanent record of the United States Government (Casey hasn't even gotten his website working yet and, shockingly, hasn't said a word on the record):

Pat Murphy, PA-8, January 9, speaking in favor of PAYGO:

Mr. PATRICK MURPHY of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise today as an original cosponsor of this vital measure.

Mr. Speaker, this vote is about one of the most important issues facing America today, fiscal responsibility.

PAYGO is straightforward. If Congress is going to buy something, we need to figure out how we are going to pay for it. That is what the small business owners, farmers, and families in the Eighth Congressional District of Pennsylvania do every single day.

If the Mignonis in Bristol want to expand their store, they have to roll up their sleeves and figure out how they are going to pay for it. When the Russos of Fairless Hills started saving for their daughters' college tuition, they had to figure out how they were going to pay for that.

Mr. Speaker, this is exactly what we are voting on here today. If you or I have a good idea, we are going to have to roll up our sleeves, just like the Mignonis and the Russos, and figure out how we are going to pay for it first.

As most of you know, I have a 6-week-old daughter, Maggie. Maggie and every other newborn born in America are saddled with $28,000 in debt. That is immoral. Voting ``yes'' to implementing PAYGO is the first step toward getting our fiscal house in order.

Joe Sestak, PA-7, January 9, in favor of HR 1 -- implementing 9/11 Commission recommendations:

Mr. SESTAK. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this bill, H.R. 1.

If 9/11 taught us anything, it is that the leadership we most need in this Nation today is not a leadership to lead us out of a crisis, but rather a leadership that prevents such crises from ever happening.

Today is about offering such leadership. As a Nation, we have been fortunate to have wars away from our shore, ``over there.'' But after 9/11, we saw that we now face a war here at home. And 2 1/2 years ago a bipartisan commission provided 41 recommendations to prevent another attack on U.S. home soil.

Few argue that the commission's recommendations are wrong. But so far their implementation generally rates Fs, Ds and incompletes. And so this legislation ensures that we will win at home by having a homeland defense that says to our adversaries, Today is not your day.

I had the honor while serving in the military of leading our youth in harm's way overseas. But 5 days ago, I became responsible for a new set of citizens, the constituents of my district. When I think about how to serve them best, and to turn their hopes into accomplishment, our foremost duty is to provide for their security this time here at home.

Our Nation needs the tools to be secure: training that can prevent a crisis and first responders with seamless communications among Federal, State, and local levels.

Today as we debate, we are reminded of what John F. Kennedy once said: ``The hour is late, but the agenda is long,'' which is why we must act now to implement these long overdue recommendations.

So as we look at ourselves in the national mirror and say we are better than this, we can and we must change for a more secure America. We then can look our constituents in the eyes, Mr. Speaker, knowing that we did turn their hope into accomplishment here at home. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution.

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Help Joe Sestak - Take Action by 7pm TODAY!

From the Sestak Campaign:

Despite what you may have read recently regarding the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) pulling its support from my opponent (the sitting Vice-Chairman of the Armed Services Committee), the NRCC has not. This morning, the NRCC placed a new negative attack ad against me. This is a fight to the end!

I simply need additional funds today to "push back" and to place my ads in greater rotation through election day -- to maintain our lead in the polls! My ad buy is being placed tomorrow, thus your funds today are critical.

Please contribute $25, $50, $100, $250 to ensure victory on the 7th:
http://sestakforcongress.com/take-action/contribute/

Second, Senator Kerry, who has been a tremendous supporter of my campaign, is holding a one-day contest that ends today at 7 p.m. on his website. The two House candidates with the largest number of votes will be selected to have an e-mail blast sent out on their behalf to Senator Kerry's 3 million donor base.

With your vote for me on Senator Kerry's website, we have the possibility of raising additional funds to offset this latest negative attack by the RNCC and my opponent. I would be honored if you would vote for me.

Please vote: http://www.johnkerry.com/action/youdecide/

We are almost on the verge of victory, in what has already been an incredible out-pouring of support from you. I know it is alot to ask, but if you could see your way to take action on the two steps above, I would be extremely grateful.

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"Had Enough"?

It started right at the beginning -- George Washington had one, so did John Adams, Jefferson offered "Jefferson and Liberty", Lincoln had "Lincoln and Liberty", and who could forget "Jimmy Polk of Tennessee"?

And now we have Chris Carney's newest addition to the American campaign song tradition:



John Laesch, taking on Hasert, has also joined the song fest with this one:



And then there's good ole' Charlie Brown looking to boot John Doolittle:



Add to those, Jerry McEnerney, Robert Rodriquez, David Roth, Joe Sestak, and more.

While each iteration isn't exactly original, watching them seriatim, as I did, one realizes that they are all right on point -- the reasons to throw these bums out are all the same. The paradigm of the republican control of our government is the lock step/close ranks/stop thought tactic of control. The same sort of bad thinking and dirty politics which enabled and protected the likes of Foley, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush as they have systematically set about to destroy our government, our world standing, our military, our environment, our economy . . . . .

Yeah, I've had enough.

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REAL Momentum -- Sestak and Lois Murphy on the Move

Yesterday came the news that the respected conservative political analyst Stuart Rothenberg had thrown the Casey err, Carney-Sherwood dust up for PA-10 into the tossup/tilting R category.

Today it seems that a couple of other Republican Congressmen are battling to retain their seats against "upstart" Dems. The Rothenberg Political Report has placed the PA-6 PA-7 battle between incumbent Republican Curt Weldon and Vice Admiral Joe Sestak in the pure tossup category.

Similarly placed in the pure toss-up list is Lois Murphy's PA-6 campaign against incumbent Jim Gerlach.

This is Murphy's second bid for the seat; she lost a very close race the last time out. Joe Sestak is in his first political run.

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Feingold's Progressive Patriot Fund - "Pick a Candidate" Vote

Two Pennsylvania candidates are on the list -- Joe Sestak and Pat Murphy:

Milwaukee – US Senator Russ Feingold today announced the Progressive Patriots Fund will hold another installment of its popular “Pick a Progressive Patriot” online contest. As with past contests, people will be able to cast a vote for their favorite candidate on the Progressive Patriots Fund website.

This, the sixth round of the “Pick a Progressive Patriot” contest, will feature 12 candidates for congress. Past events have featured congressional, gubernatorial and state legislative candidates. The candidates featured for this event are: Joe Sestak (PA – 7), David Gill (IL – 15), Tim Barnwell (TX – 26), Phyllis Busansky (FL – 9), Carol Voisin (OR – 2), Chris Murphy (CT – 5), Nancy Skinner (MI – 9), Patrick Murphy (PA – 8), Patty Wetterling (MN – 6), Larry Kissell (NC – 8), Ed Perlmutter (CO – 7), and Jim Hansen (ID – 2).

Voting will begin today, at www.progressivepatriotsfund.com and will run through Wednesday, August 23rd. Winners will be announced on Thursday, August 24th. The candidate who receives the most votes will receive a $5,000 contribution to their campaign.

“Today marks the beginning of our sixth round of online voting for the next ‘Progressive Patriot,’” Feingold said. “These contests let the people decide who we should support financially and I'm proud we’ve been able to support more then 35 key Democratic campaigns across the country with this program. Democrats have a historic opportunity to bring a much needed progressive majority to all levels of government this November and the Progressive Patriots Fund will continue to work toward that goal."

Past winners of the “Pick a Progressive Patriot” are John Courage (TX-21), Bill Winter (CO-06), Rich Olive (IA-5 Senate District), Jerry McNerney (CA-11), and Phil Angelides (CA Governor).

Feingold formed the Progressive Patriots Fund to promote a progressive reform agenda and support candidates across the country. More information is available at the newly redesigned www.progressivepatriotsfund.com.

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