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Greg Sargent asks — is the White House bracing for and Arlen Specter loss? Is that why Joe Biden won’t do last-minute events with Specter?
Bob Schiefer said so on the CBS Philadelphia affiliate station (video):
SCHIEFER: I’ll tell you in all candor, I have been told on background and so forth that the White House is preparing for a Specter loss here and that the President doesn’t want to be associated with that. Now I’m not sure what kind of an on-the-record answer you’d get from the White House, but that seems to be what people are saying on background.
It may have something to do with the numbers that Quinnipiac is seeing:
The Pennsylvania Democratic Senate primary goes down to the wire with U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak taking 42 percent of likely primary voters to Sen. Arlen Specter’s 41 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll conducted through Sunday night and released today.
With 16 percent undecided and 25 percent of those who do back a candidate saying they might change their mind, the race is too close to call.
Looks like rain tomorrow, which would help Sestak and hurt Specter. Specter’s voters are less motivated and thus less likely to turn out. Also, local Pennsylvania Democratic party workers can’t switch gears and suddenly start loving the guy they’ve been fighting for the past three decades just because Ed Rendell snaps his fingers. They are the ones who do the grunt work of turning out voters on election day.
I’d say things look pretty good for Sestak right now.
h/t Scarce
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I’m lost here Jane. Why on earth would PBO care who wins a Dem primary? They are both Dems right? So how does a Specter loss hurt the President — other than making him look like an idiot for supporting Specter I guess.
You know a person might start to think, that Obama is just champing at the bit for Rethugs to take back Congress. Where is the love for Democrats? Why isn’t he out there saying what a great thing this is for democracy and for Democrats in general by having an engaging debate?
I don’t think Obama is as smart as everyone says he is. He appears completely incapable of recognizing the political opportunities that keep dropping into his lap.
Make phone calls for Sestak
http://joesestak.ning.com/page/call-now
At the time they did the deal they thought that having Specter as the 60th Senate vote would make a difference. Because health care passed through reconciliation with 50 votes, I’m not sure how much value it was to them ultimately.
With the idiots running the Dem Party at the moment I doubt 100 votes would have made any difference ; )
All anybody needs to do is remember Specter’s appalling behavior during the Anita Hill hearings. Thanks to Arlen Specter, Clarence Thomas is a Supreme Court Justice. IMO, that’s reason enough to vote against him.
Another big vote tomorrow is the TX Bd of Education;
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/48615
I absolutely agree. Arlen is disgraceful and as two-faced as anyone can get.
Ruth, Nice to see you….this idiocy got a rundown on
The View this morning. Yipes
Sestak signs are everywhere in southeastern PA. Specter signs are nonexistent.
Single Shot is toast.
Good point. And let us not forget the JFK Magic Bullet, generally credited to Specter (according to Wikipedia, anyway – wink)
Looking forward to seeing his sorry mug kicked to the curb.
Specter and Sestak both voted for FISA and retroactive immunity from prosecution for the telecoms after they illegally helped the government spy on us. Sestak was interviewed on our local public radio station (WHYY) and sounded as though he was talking down to us. I think Specter has more sway in D.C., so I’m voting for him. We need a third party.
And Sestak will have done it without the support of the powers-that-be in DC. Take that, Mr. President.
I stand corrected when I said that Specter was to blame for a bad Supreme Court Justice. In truth, he’s to blame for 3 bad Supreme Court Justices. In the 2004 primaries, Snarlin’ Arlen sold whatever tiny remnants of a soul he had left to Rick Santorum in exchange for an endorsement.
Yep won’t make DNC happy but then I don’t care.
I predict that should Spectre lose, he’ll resign on the spot, too embarrassed to return to DC and face his colleagues. Thus subjecting PA to an expensive and unnecessary special election, or more appointed-Senator drama.
He just doesn’t care about anybody but Arlen.
I think he will go back to DC if he loses. The question is which side of the aisle will give him a standing ovation. :)
I don’t find this too surprising. Most of the people who vote in primaries are committed partisans. Sestak would have had more difficulty catching up to an establishment Democrat but I don’t think anyone seriously believes Specter IS a Democrat.
my emphasis
Arlen Spectre made that very clear to anyone and everyone in 1964. Absolutely amazing that Pennsylvania selected and elected him as a Senator, for so many years.
People are tired of the status quo.
Agree with tinman that people are FED UP with the status quo. Arlen, like many pols, has done *some* “good stuff,” but has done his share of over the top crap stuff, as well. Why people in PA keep voting him is a mystery, other than that inertia seems to have happened a lot in the past.
I guess one of the things that has been “good” about the Tea Party is that I think it’s shaken some of the population awake enough to start questioning some of these long time pol. hacks and say: whatever are we voting him or her in for AGAIN? What have they done for me in the past several years? If anyone asks that last question, they are mostly going to conclude that the answer: NOT MUCH.
Besides Specter is 80. I don’t want to sound age-ist (being a certain age myself), but seriously: enough is enough. Trow da bum out!
As for BHO not wishing to “associate” himself with a LOSER… please, spare me. BHO is the biggest loser, but whatever…
Take a look at Greece. There unlike in the US politicians argued as the financial crisis got worse. If Specter and Snow didn’t quickly vote for the stimulus the US would look like Greece,
http://www.thenextright.com/davidfarrar/personae-non-gratae-collins-specter-and-snow
US leadership in the world is needed but it won’t happen if more and more people believe that the only way to get something during the Obama administration is to kick him as hard as one can.
Van Jones once Green Job advisor is now a renounced professor and author, of course Olympia Snowe job got saved after Obama talked Specter into changing parties, leading the Republicans to decide to stop terrorizing her.
But the perception is that only Obama’s enemies benefit from his bring us together policies.
I admit if I was voting for a local official I would vote for someone who would be there to fill out their term. But let’s try to stop the shrinkage into a more and more unhappy world.
Get to work for Specter and click on,
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/48461
Whatever makes the DLC/DNC unhappy makes me happy.
Shorter version, “Let’s keep rewarding bad behavior by establishment Dems, okay?”
I don’t believe kicking the Obama admin will achieve desired results, I don’t believe NOT kicking the Obama admin will achieve desired results. The Obama admin is a lost cause. 2008 was a wasted election.
Granted, if I was an insurance or pharma shareholder I might feel differently.
And don’t forget that Sestak supports Obama’s Afghanistan policy and Spector does not. Sestak is an Obama clone – an empty suit. He will pee on your shoes and tell you it’s raining.
Has Specter voted against funding or taken any other steps to suspend operations in Afghanistan?
They’re all empty suits.
Yeah I think if you were a health insurance or pharma shareholder, or even from Wall St., you’d feel differently.
I don’t care who wins this, it’s obvious to me both are faux Democrats, as usual.
I sure hope enough of us stick to our guns and make the Democrats accountable this fall, I know I will.
Am I allowed to say that at this site now?? Unsure anymore.
That’s a REAL good point. Thanks for reminding me; I’ll get up even earlier tomorrow.
Do you really think the country would be better off under President McCain and Vice President Palin????
I cast lesser of evils votes for 30 years. No more.
I am a progressive leaning independent NOT a Democrat. I will not vote for a Republican and I will not vote for a Democrat unless I honestly believe they deserve my vote.
The reason progressives folded like a cheap tent to support the Senate HCR package is because there are more Dem partisans than actual progressives in their ranks. You can save your fear mongering (“would you rather have President McCain) for someone else.
To answer your question, I don’t believe a Republican president would bel substantially different than what we ended up with.
That fear mongering card seems to be the only card the partisans can play now.
They need to realize at some point more and more Democratic voters will want more reasons to vote for the Democrats than he/she isn’t a Republican.
I don’t think the policies would be substantially different either way.
Still seems to work for many. I can’t tell if they’re simply naive or have been bought and paid for.
The word Magic Bullet keeps coming up @10 here and at other sites.
Specter wrote “Passion for Truth”. Someone please publish it as an e-book. It’s discussion of J. Elgar Hoover and the Secret Service hiding information from the Warren Commission isn’t in susink with its Single-Bullet conclusions.
Lee Harvey Oswald had a huge number of left-wing credentials,and the Cuban air force was under high alert after Kennedy was shot, bracing for a US attack.
The Miami Cuban community was claiming Castro shot Kennedy even before he died.
We now know that the people in the Fair Play for Cuba committee thought of him as an FBI spy, and he palsy waltzed with a lot of right-wingers. Hoover hid the fact that he had a FBI contact assigned to him that he was reporting to or being regularly questioned by.
It is clear to me that had the Warren Commission followed the false leads to Castro in a world where the non-Cuban born Americans had no idea there were CIA assassinations, there would have been another Cuban missile crisis.
This doesn’t excuse Specter in more recent years. However,
an American was framed before the US entered World War I, for a shipyard explosion, when the government knew that Germany blew it up. The Government knew that George Koval stole the atomic bomb, not revealed to the American people until the Russians gave him a medal of honor,
http://www.nina.com/vboard/archive/index.php/t-5643.html
The government executed Julius and Ethel Rosenberg knowing full well that Julius never stole any important secrets and Ethel had no idea what was going on. Their children have yet to receive any compensation from the US government.
I hope Specter works on getting compensation for them, and would like to see a forum where Specter discusses how the conclusions of his book, “Passion for Truth” don’t fit in closely with the evidence presented.
Kinkos won’t scan a copyrighted book unless Specter’s lawyer is involved, and armaturly published e-books could be hundreds of dollars for the first few books.
Why can’t people ask him questions instead of hurling insults his way?
RichardKanePA.blogspot.com
Your response is as confused and Rambling as Arlen’s latest commercials. He can’t decide whether to attack Joe, grovel to Fast Eddie and BO, or look “Senatorial” in his glass high-rise settings. Aside from his long-time jewish-establishment backers in the city and inner suburbs, there’s really no one who wants him back. What sway does he hold in DC? He has NO committee chairmanships!
Arlen is NOT a Democrat, and the actual Democratic voters – as opposed to the Dem. Machine who trade on favors – are going to vote him OUT, tomorrow.
Now that Scheiffer’s remarks are all over the blogosphere, I keep waiting for pushback on the story from the White House. But so far, the silence is Deafening…
And oh yeah, Joe Biden is right here in Philly this afternoon to speak at his daughter’s graduation from Penn – and NOT doing any Specter-backing appearances! That tells you something right there.
That tells me a lot, thanks.
If I had been in a coma for the past 16 months and woke up today I might think that McCain was president. Health benefits taxed, Guantanamo still open, wars in Iraq and Afganistan, DADT still in place, Miranda about to be scrapped, an inadequate stimulus package causing continued lack of jobs, corporations sucking the life and money out of the middle class, a Supreme Court nominee open to preventative detention, etc. I am going to do everything that I can to punish this duplicity by the Democratic Corporatocracy short of voting Republican. Fool me once shame on you. And as W said “Fool me once you can’t get fooled again”.
No 16 month coma would make me think McCain is actually President. McCain used to sing “Bomb bomb bomb Iran”, and his comments on Castro seemed to be heading toward war.
If the underwear and Times Square bombing attempt occurred under Bush, Bush would have called for “tough” new legislation.
Sometimes I wonder is Obama is just not slowing down the downhill plunge as the poor get poorer and rich richer, but I hope for more and usually actually expect it.
jfk magic bullet specter.
dirty corrupt incumbents.
the wall street bailout bill.
official government 9/11 scam
Another big vote tomorrow is the TX
Bd of EducationSchool Book Depository.Stay on topic. :o)