Joe Sestak For WHAT?

Joe Sestak, a retired Navy admiral who represented Delaware County, Pennsylvania for two terms in the U.S House of Representatives and went home to become a professional failed Senate candidate, is running for President.

Of the United States.

I won't say anything satirical - or anything at all - about this, because Joe Sestak has already satirized himself.

Two more Democratic presidential candidates to look at before I'm finally done . . .

(Oh yeah, Tim Ryan dropped out.  Yawn.)

Debate Demerit

Count me out when it comes to the double header of Democratic debates happening this week.  I'm pretty much ready to vote for whoever gets the Democratic presidential nomination, and in oberving the various candidates, I've concluded that, except for a few outliers such as Bernie Sanders and a handful of opinion poll one-percenters, they all pretty much see things the same, they merely see them from a different point of view.  And I am tired of all the internecine squabbles among them.  Though, I do have to say something about the latest issue, that being Joe Biden's comments about having to work with segregationist senators to get anything passed, back in the 1970s.  He didn't mean to say they weren't horrible guys or that he agreed with their racist views. He just said he had to work with them to get things done.  On the other hand, he probably shouldn't have talked about how he and they were "civil" to each other in order to overcome their differences.  Biden only reminds people of how chivalric and gentlemanly Southern Democrats of yore comported themselves, with their cultured drawls and their polite manners, yet hey were rabid racists who advocated any means necessary to keep blacks down.

Anyway, I already have a presidential candidate for 2020, and that's the ultimate nominee.  Which likely won't be Joe Sestak.  Let me get another candidate out of the way.  Sestak, of course, is a retired Navy admiral who served two terms in the House of Representatives, representing Delaware County, Pennsylvania.  He not didn't qualify for the double debate, he announced his candidacy three days before the debating was to commence.  Sestak will likely cite his military experience as an asset, and he's a good left-of-center guy on domestic issues, but his unfashionably late start will ensure his premature end as a presidential contender.  Also, mainstream Democrats have not forgiven or forgotten him for defeating incumbent Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter in the 2010 Democratic U.S. Senate Democratic primary, only to lose to Republican challenger Pat Toomey that fall. (Sestak's 2016 comeback failed at the primary level, and Toomey was re-elected.)  With that sort of track record, he isn't going to get very far.  Hey, I like the guy, but I'm afraid Sestak just can't win.               

More Politics As Usual

Some quick observations of what passes for political discourse in America these days. . . .

President Obama has started targeting House Republican leader John Boehner in his campaign speeches for the Democrats, now that it's finally become apparent that he can't just ignore Republicans in Washington the way they're ignored in Chicago. Some have criticized Obama for personalizing the midterm elections by trying to make Boehner that bad guy when you have folks in the House like Mike Pence of Indiana and Michele Bachmann of Minnesota who are beyond bad. But Boehner would be Speaker of the House if the Republicans were to take control, and he'd have more power than Pence or Bachmann, so what's Obama supposed to do - bash the underlings in the House Republican caucus and ignore the naysayer at the top? Obama's new strategy may not reverse Democratic losses, but it could stem them.

Meanwhile, in the U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania, Joe Sestak is learning how many voters are turned off by the liberal views he espouses, as polls show him consistently behind Republican Senate nominee Pat Toomey. Although Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell, a Democrat, likes and respects Toomey, he know s that the "fruit loops" (to borrow one of his own phrases) in the Republican party will control the agenda if they take back the Senate, and as reasonable as Toomey is, a Senator Toomey wouldn't be effective in a Republican caucus guided by loonies. Rendell hopes to make this clear in his efforts to help Sestak, and he believes Sestak can win if a) enough voters realize the threat to their economic interests a Republican Senate would bear and b) turnout in the Philadelphia area is up tremendously. Voters in the central and northern parts of the state just aren't interested in Sestak's agenda.

Meanwhile, Ed Schultz is helping Republican David Vitter in his bid to win a second term as a U.S. Senator from Louisiana. How is the progressive Schultz doing this? Well, you see, every time Schultz announces on his show his intention to bring up the subject of Vitter's disgusting sex scandals, his idea is to address it in the Rapid Fire Response segment of his show, where he asks a liberal pundit and a conservative pundit for their opinions on the subjects. Twice he's meant to ask his panel about Vitter; twice he ran out of time before he had the chance because discussion on his other chosen topics for that segment ran too long. As much as I would like to hear right-wing pundits like Heidi Harris or John Feehery defend David Vitter in that segment, it's obvious that Schultz has to devote a longer, more detailed account of Vitter's crimes elsewhere in the show, even if this means no conservative commentary in Vitter's defense. Because sometimes, as Edward R. Murrow once said, there is no other side of the story. And no one can excuse Vitter for his sins. Note to Ed Schultz: Get Charlie Melancon back on your show immediately.

Keystone Kaper

Joe Sestak, the Pennsylvania congressman who recently upset incumbent U.S. Senator in the Democratic Senate primary this spring, is the poster boy for the progressive movement's insistence that the best way to get liberal policies enacted is to elect truly progressive Democrats, rather than stand by establishment moderates like Specter or Arkansas's Blanche Lincoln. Sestak beat a White House-back incumbent Democrat based on the passion of liberals to get things done on their agenda, not a corporate Washington agenda.

Well, it might not work out so well. Polls have consistently shown Sestak (above) and economic arch-conservative Republican Pat Toomey in a dead heat, but one poll has shown a Toomey surge. Sestak's own internal polling shows Toomey ahead by two points - ahead within the margin of error, perhaps, but still ahead. As Philadelphia talk radio host Michael Smerconish noted, it's pretty embarrassing to be behind in your own internal polling, but the Sestak campaign has made a point to demonstrate how Toomey lead is marginal enough to keep the race competitive. Senator Specter, who despises Toomey, has pledged to help Sestak keep the seat in a Republican column that Specter himself abandoned.

But here's the problem. Consider these Senate races. Sestak is running strong in Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, progressive Democrat Elaine Marshall is putting up a spirited fight against Senator Richard Burr in North Carolina. In Iowa, Democrat Roxanne Conlin hopes to put Senator Charles Grassley's political career before a death panel of voters. The most recent polls give the Democrats anything resembling a chance only in Pennsylvania and suggest that picking off incumbent Republican senators elsewhere is a pipe dream. And if present trends continue, Pennsylvania may be lost.

So I have just one question. If progressive candidates are what the Democrats need to hold the Senate, how come so many of them aren't progressing with the voters?

Still, you have to give Sestak credit for his efforts, as this New York Times Magazine article shows.

Primary Concerns

Several primary elections to nominate candidates for public office are being held in several states tomorrow, but the two biggest primaries gaining attention are the Democratic primaries for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania and Arkansas.

In Pennsylvania, Senator Arlen Specter is in a dead heat with Delaware County congressman Joe Sestak for the right to run for Senate against Republican Pat Toomey in November. Specter, who became a Democrat last year, is one of the last two Republican senators elected on Ronald Reagan's coattails in 1980 (Iowa's Charles Grassley is the other) that gave the GOP its first Senate majority since 1954. Now Specter is running with the support of President Obama and Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell to preserve the Democratic majority.

Sestak is claiming that Specter changed parties for political expediency and doesn't share the core values of Pennsylvania Democrats, though Specter has union support and also provide a necessary vote for health care reform. But Specter did vote for Clarence Thomas's confirmation to the Supreme Court in 1991 - about as popular with rank-and-file Democrats as hot cocoa in Ecuador. Though Specter was the most liberal member of the Senate Republican caucus until he switched parties, he was still a Republican, and he supported other judicial nominees from Presidents named Bush. Though Obama has thrown his support to Specter, he has wisely eschewed the opportunity to campaign for him. Which makes sense, considering what a huge asset he was for Martha Coakley in Massachusetts.

Specter is slipping a bit but he can't be counted out, especially when the polls show a huge groups of undecided voters making the election to close to call. Although progressives are excited by and eager to support Sestak, polls show that Specter would have a better chance of defeating Toomey, a Tea Party darling. I'm not endorsing either candidate. If I were a Pennsylvania resident today, and if I were voting in the primary, I'd toss a coin in the voting booth.

In Arkansas, the case is more clear-cut. Incumbent senator Blanche Lambert Lincoln, a conservative Democrat who has taken campaign money from big business and helped kill the government insurance option in the health care bill, has angered Bill Halter, the state's lieutenant governor, Bill Halter, to run against her in the primary and claim (with considerable justification) that she doesn't speak for and vote in favor of ordinary Arkansans. So I endorse Halter. Halter is running behind, and Lincoln has the support of Obama and former President (and former Arkansan) Bill Clinton, both of whom clearly prefer to stick with the devil they know rather than the devil they don't know. But the undecided share of likely voters could also swing tomorrow's result either way, and it promises to make for as spirited a primary there tomorrow as in Pennsylvania.

But how much enthusiasm on the left will translate to victories tomorrow? And would Sestak or Halter, if nominated, be mainstream enough for general election voters in November? That's my worry.