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Joe Sestak to challenge Arlen Specter in primary.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  May 27th, 2009 at 06:01 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

It’s not ‘official’, but unless Sestak is sufficiently a practical joker as to send his supporters handwritten phony fund-raising notes, it’s happening. Guess that means that Arlen Specter is going to have to face a tough primary battle after all.

Meanwhile…

Moderate Pa. Republicans warming to Toomey

Moderate Republican leaders have stopped publicly pushing to recruit a less-conservative alternative to front-runner Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race, a sign that he has begun to calm concerns about his electability.

Toomey has redoubled efforts to court skeptics in the party establishment in the two weeks since former Gov. Tom Ridge declined to enter the race for the GOP nomination despite the pleadings of prominent moderates.

Karma. It’s what’s for dinner.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

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COMMENTS

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  • AceInTX
  • http://www.ssce.net/Web-Articles/Web-articles-indexed-authors.html#authors-l JLenardDetroit

    in the Primary of course…. new direction for Operation Chaos to take in PA…. Like Moe says, Karma – time to pay back Democrats for all their meddling in our Primaries.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    Specter will have Democrat establishment support.

    I think we should let the Netroots spend their own money helping Sestak, let the DSCC spend its own money helping Specter, and pour our time and money into guys like Toomey, Rubio, and DeVore.

  • http://www.ssce.net/Web-Articles/Web-articles-indexed-authors.html#authors-l JLenardDetroit

    If Toomey is unchallenged (and he SHOULDN’T BE) people should cross over to vote for disreSpecter in the Democrat Primary as Operation Chaos had people voting Clinton against Obama last time….

    None of us are gonna be dumb enough to waste our money with/on him.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    We should back whoever’s losing, to force a bitter recount. :-)

  • smagar

    What are the chances of the Rs picking that up?

  • smagar
  • The_Rebel

    to either put up or shut up. He claims to want a more moderate Republican party. Toomey, as head of the Club for Growth, was instrumental in targeting moderate Republicans for defeat. If Powell can’t or won’t push for an alternative moderate candidate here in PA, then he should be a good general, and just fade away.

    Mind you, I don’t want any such alternative candidate. I just want the press to call him out when he fails to turn his rhetoric into action.

  • AceInTX
  • http://www.ssce.net/Web-Articles/Web-articles-indexed-authors.html#authors-l JLenardDetroit

    to have an absolute TIE in votes between them leaving absolutely NO CHOICE but a recount to occur to determine a winner would be so much fun…. Beyond that, I wonder if a Primary Recount (too lazy to bother to do the search) has occurred and how there would be time to put it through courts (as we’d like to see them do to themselves) before the General Election would be so great!!!!

  • DavidSage

    I despise Specter, but let’s be realistic. He’s an incumbent Senator that historically has been popular in Pennsylvania, and he wins every general election handily. Odds are, if he’s the Democrat nominee, it’s very likely he’ll win. Also, for whatever stupid reason, independent voters seem to swoon at politicians that switch political parties, probably because they themselves can’t make up their own mind.

    Republicans in Pennsylvania need to mobilize an Operation Chaos 2.0 to make sure Specter doesn’t get the Democrat nomination. This isn’t something we can just leave to chance and hope Democrats see what a lying snake Specter is. If Democrats think they’ll have an easy win with Specter, they’ll back him.

    Ensuring a Sestak win would be a far better use of resources than trying to take Specter head on in a general election. Sestak is a MUCH weaker candidate in the general election against Toomey and we need to use that to our advantage.

  • IJB

    The record for party switchers in Primaries is not great, and Specter has already T’ed off a good portion of the Nutroots which make him a marked man.

    I think anyone with decent liberal (and union) bona fides should pretty easily beat Specter in a (closed) Dem Primary.

    Two, I’m not sure that I agree that Specter will be harder to beat – the guy’s got a record, and if the economy is as in the tank as I expect next year, Specter’s vote for things like the bailout and the stimulus will be very, very unpopular, esp. with “independent” voters. (True, I’m sure Sestak voted for the same things Specter did, but Specter’s role in those were much more public and prominent, which makes it that much easier to tie them around Specter’s neck!) Combine that with the fact the Specter turns off hard-core Leftie ‘nutroot’ types, and I could easily see him going down in a general even easier than Sestak would, despite Specter’s likely fundraising advantage.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    I don’t.

  • http://www.ssce.net/Web-Articles/Web-articles-indexed-authors.html#authors-l JLenardDetroit

    in the Primary and drive all the Democrats crazy about how many Republicans crossed over to screw things up and have disreSpecter challenged in court… would be so fun…. With disreSpecter having won so close I think Democrats would just stay home for the General Election or at least skip voting in that race being irked at disreSpecter about as much as we all are.