Yesterday, centrist/establishment Pennsylvania senator, Bob Casey, joined all the other centrist/establishment figures who are trying to destroy Joe Sestak's career. Casey endorsed the latest anyone-but-Sestak candidate, establishment's 6th choice, Katie McGinty. Let me amend that-- McGinty is the establishment's anyone-but-Sestak-except-Fetterman candidate. The establishment types-- think people like Rendell and Chris Matthews-- have been desperate to turn their sinking ship around after the latest polling seems to indicate McGinty isn't battling with Sestak for first place but with John Fetterman for second place! One prominent Pennsylvania Democrat told me today that he was "surprised it took him [Casey] this long to decide to go down with the establishment ship."The Harper poll showed that Sestak's support has been solid and unshakeable despite all the poison Chuck Schumer has been spreading about him. (One has to wonder when Schumer has time to do anything else since attacking progressive Democratic candidates seems to be a full-time job for him.) In January, Sestak was leading with 33% and that is still where his lead is today. The big disaster was that as Democrats got to know McGinty better, her polling numbers collapsed. Widely considered an unserious puppet of Schumer and the Pennsylvania party bosses, her respectable 28% second place plummeted down to 17%, just two points ahead of Fetterman, who went from an 11% in January, when he was barely known, to a 15% today now that's more people are getting to know him. It's always good for a relatively new candidate like Fetterman to see an increase in support as he introduces himself and, conversely, it's really bad for a candidate like McGinty-- so identified as the establishment shill-- to be out introducing herself and to lose over half her support. Her campaign is basically on life-support, which is why Schumer, Brady and Rendell forced Casey to publicly make an idiot of himself this week by endorsing her.Fetterman is doing best in the western part of the state-- where it's really a race between him and Sestak (and McGinty and the corrupt party bosses behind her aren't a real factor)-- and among the most progressive voters. Sestak continues to have the strongest image of the three candidates among likely Democratic primary voters. Image-wise, Fetterman has all the momentum., his favorables at 27% up from the 7% he had in the January poll. He's still mostly unknown to Democratic primary voters, especially outside the Pittsburgh area.Sestak seems to have taken Casey's endorsement of McGinty in stride and has pointed out that it's no surprise that the DC establishment is fearful of an incorruptible and independent-minded senator like him (or Fettermnan, for that matter) in their midst. He wrote to his supporters that when he met with one of the Senate's Democratic Party bosses-- people are guessing Reid but this is such a Schumer-trademarked exchange that I would bet anyone (ten to one odds) that Sestak was taking about Lizardman-- the boss tried, figuratively, to mount and dominate him the way he's mangled to do with sniveling, weak Democrats like Al Franken, Martin Heinrich, Tim Kaine and Jon Tester. He wrote, "When a Senator once said, 'Sestak, whenever I tell you anything, the only answer is to be YES,' I could only think how a sailor might view me if he were ever to see me agree to such a command as his commanding officer-- and as assuredly a Pennsylvanian would shake her head, also, if I were ever to agree." Especially for some clownish party hack from New York!
With Bob Casey’s endorsement of my primary opponent today, it completes an all-inclusive rejection by Washington DC’s and Pennsylvania’s Democratic politicians of what I believe in, and stand for.I don’t think it can just be about me (although I know I can be challenging). Bob Casey is too nice a man for that. Nor can it be my voting record or courage in standing up for the right votes at all times, as I unhesitatingly did-- from Obamacare to the Economic Stimulus bill.It certainly isn't my ability to work within the establishment... for it was the Democratic Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer, who called me the "most productive" Congressman.And after servicing 18,000 constituents who flooded my District office for help up to 9 p.m. seven days a week during the recession, even my Republican district voted to re-elect me by 20 points despite my having no time for any media ads.I’ve doubted it was my refusal to "sit down" from running against Senator Specter after the Party leadership initially asked me to run against him in 2009 before he switched parties to become a Democrat. After all, that was 7 years ago.And I’ve doubted it was my refusal to pay "street money" to the party machine or my refusal to take lobbying jobs from the consultant class. For while our newspapers are filled too often in Pennsylvania with stories of self above service, there are nice people in office, like Bob.There aren’t many veterans in Congress, and none who served 31 years and was a flag or general officer-- except me. Perhaps that’s why… I never grew up in politics.I grew up under the principle of being accountable for the men and women I lead-- it was always about them, above service to any officer senior to me.
So, again, a man of personal integrity and a sense of honor and ethics like Joe Sestak isn't going to roll over for a self-important, two-bit hack like Chuck Schumer, not even under threat of Schumer recruiting some sad puppet like Katie McGinty to run against him.Now Schumer spends his time not just trying to raise money from his bankster allies for the hapless McGinty but also by personally calling Sestak's donors and demanding they stop contributing to his campaign-- just like what he's been doing against Donna Edwards and against Alan Grayson on behalf of the corrupt establishment Schumercrats in Maryland and Florida, respectively, Chris Van Hollen and Patrick Murphy.
