Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Joe Sestak announces he is running for Senate

FOLSOM—Congressman Joe Sestak officially entered the race for Senate Tuesday morning, ending his long march toward a primary showdown against Senator Arlen Specter next year and setting up what will be one of the most high-profile races in the country.

Sestak has toured all 67 counties in Pennsylvania drumming up support and has been exchanging barbs with Sen. Arlen Specter (PA-?) for months. My favorite was Specter's criticism of Sestak joining the Democratic Party "only" in 2006 so he could run for Congress. The irony of that statement is that Specter switched party's a few months ago because he said he couldn't win a Republican primary against Pat Toomey. Many of my Republican friends would say that he has been a Democrat at heart for a long time. Toomey welcomed him to race.

"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."

Toomey has an op-ed in today's Inky announcing that he would vote to confirm Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court. I'm sure that is going over well with the abortion hot heads and gun nuts that make up the GOP primary electorate.

Here is the welcome video from Sestak's website.





Check The Pennsylvania Progressive for video of his speech later in the day. He also has a Facebook page.

You can meet Joe Sestak in Scranton tomorrow 1:30pm at Tripp House, 1011 N Main Ave, Scranton, PA 18505

Other candidates in the race are Republicans

Peg Lusik

Larry Murphy

Robert Townsend

and Democrat

Bill Kortz

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good luck Joe - it would be the ultimate face job for snarlin arlen to LOSE in the primary after he fled a race he'd lose on the GOP side.

Great reason for term limits

Professor Milburn Cleaver, OPA said...

There is no greater gift for a politician than an opponent who had to fight off a primary challenge. The Admiral will be a worthy opponent for Mr. Specter. I forsee a very close race for the nomination and in the end a crippled Democratic nominee. As Mr. Obama's numbers go south only 6 months into his term, we can only imagine how unpopular he shall be in 16 months. Whether Sestak or SPecter is the nominee, one thing is for certain, he will be avoiding the President like the plague. Of course, the real winner in this scenario is Mr. Toomey, all but written off at the height of Obamamania. He is for all intents and purposes the next junior Senator from Pennsylvania. It shall be refreshing to have some sensible economic minds in the congress for the final two years of the Obama presidency. Perhaps we will begin to cut pork instead of expanding it.
In short, students, it is not a question of whether Mr. Obama has failed, but the breadth and extent of his failure.
Class dismissed.

Big Dan said...

National news website Raw Story:

KOOKY GOP senator hopeful would jail abortion doctors.

OOPS! That's OUR Pat Toomey (R-PA) !!!!!!

GOP Senate prospect: I would send abortion doctors to jail