{"id":191988,"date":"2009-05-27T23:01:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-28T04:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/05\/27\/sestak-to-challenge-specter-in-primary\/"},"modified":"2009-05-27T23:01:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-28T04:01:00","slug":"sestak-to-challenge-specter-in-primary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/05\/27\/sestak-to-challenge-specter-in-primary\/","title":{"rendered":"Sestak to Challenge Specter in Primary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>TPM has broken the story that <a href=\"http:\/\/tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com\/2009\/05\/exclusive-sestak-intends-to-run-for-senate.php?ref=fpa\">Rep. Joe Sestak intends to challenge Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania Senate primary<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\"><p>Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) is privately telling supporters that he intends to run for Senate, TPMDC has confirmed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It appears that all that is left is <a href=\"http:\/\/tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com\/2009\/05\/sestak-pending-blessing-from-my-family-i-intend-to-run.php\">discussions with his family<\/a>, who I figure are pretty much onboard, or it would not have gone this far.<\/p>\n<p>I think that the family thing is largely a smokescreen for him pulling out if Rahmbo (Barack) pushes too hard.<\/p>\n<p>This is an interesting race.  Sestak is by no means a particularly liberal Congressman, but his pressure has <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">already<\/span> pushed Specter closer to the Democratic mainstream.<\/p>\n<p>I support his bid for a number of reasons:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Spector is a weasel, and a primary challenge will force him to appeal to the Democratic Party base, particularly to labor.<\/li>\n<li>Spector is a weasel, and even if he weren&#8217;t this &#8220;clearing the decks&#8221; for incumbents is bad for the party and for the nation.  It creates a sense of entitlement among incumbents.<\/li>\n<li>Specter is a weasel.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In any case, I have added the &#8220;Draft Sestak&#8221; fund campaign to my <a style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\" href=\"http:\/\/www.actblue.com\/page\/40yrs\/\"><span style=\"font-variant: small-caps;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Act Blue Page<\/span><\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TPM has broken the story that Rep. Joe Sestak intends to challenge Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania Senate primary: Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) is privately telling supporters that he intends to run for Senate, TPMDC has confirmed. It appears that all that is left is discussions with his family, who I figure are pretty much &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[998,1000],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-191988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress","category-elections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191988"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191988\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}