Pennsylvania 2010 Senate Primary Race - Sestak and Specter

It is now official. Joe Sestak, one time Admiral in the Navy and now a Pennsylvania congressman representing the 7th district, announced that he will run against one time Democrat, then Republican and now Democrat again, Arlen Specter in 2010's Pennsylvania Senate primary race.

This promises to be an exciting and bruising primary. Pass the popcorn - this is going to be fun. The liberal Joe Sestak versus the "whatever" Arlen Specter is a study in contrasts. Specter is going to rely on his relationships with President Obama and Democratic leaders much like he did in the 2004 primary against Pat Toomey. Only then, the leaders that came to his aid were George W. Bush and Rick Santorum. Specter prevailed by less than 1% to a congressman who was hardly known outside his district. So much for loyalty.

The Specter camp has fired the first salvo as noted by philly.com:

"He hardly deserves a promotion since he has missed 105 House votes this year, which is the worst attendance record of any Pennsylvania Congressman," Specter Campaign Manager Christopher Nicholas said in a statement. Sestak "should explain why, when Pennsylvanians are working harder, he can barely show up for work," Nicholas added.

The GOP needs to personally thank Arlen Specter for providing needed ammunition against Joe Sestak should he prevail against Specter. Perhaps a candy gram would suffice. Then again, the candy may be hard for Arlen's dentures to handle. Let's stick to a Hallmark card.

President Obama is now put into a precarious situation. Does he support Specter, after encouraging him to switch parties and embracing him, does he support Sestak who is closer to him on almost every policy issue, or does he just stay out of the way? All 3 choices have potential negative consequences. Obama can dial up George W. Bush and ask him how he was repaid by Arlen after going to the mat for him in 2004, thus alienating many of the conservatives who represent the base of the party.

While it is very early, I am going to go out on a limb and predict that Joe Sestak will help Arlen Specter retire next summer after Sestak defeats Specter by double digits. Pennsylvania is a state that responds well to grassroots efforts - see Ed Rendell's primary run in 2002 against Bob Casey as exhibit A. Sestak, who will never be confused for a centrist, will not be outworked. He has traveled to all 67 counties and is building support the old fashioned way - by meeting people. In contrast, Specter, by publicly carrying Obama's water on health care reform, is earning the enmity of the people. Republicans and Democrats in Pennsylvania agree on almost nothing. The one thing they do agree on is that they both dislike Specter as evidenced by a poll from the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall College and reported by the Philadelphia Daily News on June 25, 2009:

Specter's party switch, announced April 28, has hurt his job-performance ratings among Democrats as well as Republicans, according to a telephone survey of 498 registered voters, conducted last week by the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall College. Back in March, before the switch, roughly half the voters in each party said that Specter was doing an "excellent" or "good" job in the Senate.

Those numbers have plunged in the latest survey. Whereas 57 percent of Democrats gave him good or excellent ratings in March, only 46 percent rate him as highly now. Among Republicans, 49 percent rated his job performance as good or excellent in March, and only 18 percent gave him those ratings last week. "Even more troubling for the senator is that the proportion of state residents who believe he deserves re-election has declined from 40 percent to 28 percent," said the poll's director, G. Terry Madonna.

"I think what he's got going is the worst of both worlds," Madonna said. "Republicans have fallen away from him because he left his party, and Democrats are unhappy with him for lots of different reasons. . . . Voters have a lot of uncertainty about what he is likely to do."

In contrast to the bruising battle ahead for Sestak and Specter, the Republican candidate, former Lehigh Valley congressman Pat Toomey, has virtually a clear field if one discounts a fringe challenger like Peg Luksik. Toomey's status has grown and his message is very simple; give the people more of their own money and stay out of there way. All of a sudden this notion has become very popular with Americans as noted by Obama's plunging poll numbers over the last 6 weeks. Clearly, Toomey will be the winner should the Sestak and Specter race turn ugly. This is as likely as Rosie O'Donnell finishing an entire chocolate cake in one sitting. Toomey's strategy is evident in the following quote related to the Sestak v. Specter race from today's philly.com:

"Pennsylvania Democrats will make an important choice between Joe Sestak, a consistent liberal who really believes in his values, and Arlen Specter, a career political opportunist who believes in nothing but his own reelection," the campaign of Pat Toomey said in a statement.

That is absolutely brilliant. In one fell swoop, he labels Sestak a government controlling, tax and spend liberal and Specter as unprincipled. The general election for Pennsylvania's 2010 Senate race will be a treat to watch no matter who the Democratic candidate is in the end.