Blue America Welcomes Two Old Friends Today: Joe Sestak And Ned Lamont

Yesterday Arlen Specter was back at his old media home, Fox News, singing a new tune, dancing the Lieberman shuffle, calling the GOP "a party of obstructionism." Well, he's got that right; they are. And until consistent polling showed that a right-wing extremist, Club For Growth head Pat Toomey, would kick his ass from Chester to Erie and from Waynesville to Carbondale in the Republican primary, Specter was very much a part of that obstructionist machine. Staring into the eyes of political mortality, Specter cut a deal with the White House to jump the fence and "become" a Democrat. He made the purely opportunistic switch on April 28. And here he was two weeks later on Meet The Press letting Pennsylvania voters know exactly what kind of a "Democrat" he would be:



Today he was calling his old colleagues obstructionists on the exact same issue for doing precisely what he was doing, although he has also bragged about how he will also vote with Republicans against Employees Free Choice. (The only difference is that he takes even more in thinly-veiled bribes from the Medical-Industrial Complex--$4,266,393, the most of any member of Congress who didn't run for president-- and Big Insurance--$1,058,655-- than most of them do.) Oh... and there's one more difference: Admiral Joe Sestak. Joe Sestak's constant pressure on behalf of working families has pushed Specter away from his unswerving support for his corporate donors. Petrified of being defeated in the Democratic primary, Specter sounds like he's almost a Democrat.

It was in the spring of 2006 that Blue America first started following Admiral Sestak as he sought, successfully, to dislodge another corrupt Republican barnacle obstructing progress in Washington, Curt Weldon. He was one of the first candidates our PAC ever endorsed and we have been immensely impressed by something that has distingusihed Rep. Sestak from almost all the other members of Congress we've worked with. He is a critical thinker who seems to relish a debate of ideas. We don't always agree on every single issue but he never gets all brittle and uptight when challenged and he is always eager for input and eager to go through the thought processes that led him to make a decision. If there's one thing I've learned since starting Blue America, it's that no one is buying a member of Congress with an endorsement and no member of Congress will agree with you on every single vote. (Barney Frank once famously said even you wouldn't agree with you on every single vote.) What we do look for is someone with a sterling character who is open-minded, courageous and with inherently progressive sympathies. That's why we've continued to support Joe Sestak and why we asked him to come over to Crooks and Liars today for a live chat. He'll be joining us this afternoon at 3pm (PT), 6pm back in Pennsylvania. And he's bringing along another ole Blue America friend, Ned Lamont.

When I spoke to Rep. Sestak on the phone last week about the health care debate, he was very forceful. "I'm going to have a very difficult time if I'm asked to vote for a bill that doesn't have a public option," he began. "I support a public option so that individuals are no longer stuck in insurance markets with no choices and no competition to bring down costs... I want to end unfair rationing by insurance company executives, like the small business owner who came into my District office because to complain about not being able to purchase insurance for herself or her employees because she had ovarian cancer ten years ago... As vice-chairman of the small business committee, I understand the need to reduce health care costs for small businesses. Only 62% of all small firms (less than 200 employees) offer health insurance, as compared to 99% of large firms. When they do offer insurance, it costs roughly 18% more than for larger employers."

Specter, on the other hand, has been all over the map on health care, just like he's been on every other contentious issue, especially when it pits his constituents against his corporate donors. In March right-wing extremist Rick Santorum wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer that Specter is also fighting President Obama’s bid for more government-run health care. The senator’s conference room still features his famous Rube Goldberg chart, which contributed to the collapse of Clinton-care in 1994.” Quite different from the way Snarlin' Arlen is trying to portray himself just half a year later.

•The Real Arlen Specter voted for billions of dollars in cuts from the budgets of Medicare and Medicaid [2005 Senate Vote #114, 4/28/2005; 2005 Senate Vote #363, 12/21/2005]

•The Real Arlen Specter voted to cut Medicare by $270 billion and Medicaid by $182 billion in a single bill [HR 2491, 10/28/95, #556]

•The Real Arlen Specter cast the deciding vote to decrease spending on Medicare and Medicaid in order to provide tax cuts to the wealthiest 1% of Americans [S 1932, 12/21/05]

•The Real Arlen Specter voted to pay for President Bush’s tax cuts with $69 billion from the Medicare Trust Fund [H Con Res 83, 04/05/01, #79]

•The Real Arlen Specter voted against permitting negotiation with pharmaceutical companies to lower the cost of prescription drugs covered under Medicare [S Amdt 214 to S Con Res 18, 3/17/2005].

•The Real Arlen Specter voted against increasing its funding for SCHIP [2007 Senate Vote #292, 8/1/2007]

•The Real Arlen Specter voted against expanding SCHIP to include low-income pregnant women [S Amdt 258, 3/11/03]

•The Real Arlen Specter voted to oppose fully funding SCHIP and instead supported President Bush’s tax cuts to the rich, 53% of which went to the richest 1% of Americans [2005 Senate Vote #337, 11/17/2005].

If you'd like to sign up as a volunteer or donate to Joe Sestak's election fund, you can do it on his website

UPDATE: Obama's Got A Problem

Howard Fineman at Newsweek puts Obama's Pennsylvania dilemma into perspective:

arack Obama and Ed Rendell were delighted when they convinced Sen. Arlen Specter to switch parties earlier this year. But now that coup falls into the category of "be careful what you wish for," because the president and the governor of Pennyslvania have a problem on their hands: Arlen Specter. Here's the problem: Specter is up for re-election next year, and he was promised the full campaign backing of Obama and Rendell-- not just in the general election but in the primary next May, if there was one. Well, there is one, and it is shaping up as a fierce one, against Rep. Joe Sestak, who represents the Philly suburbs. Specter, a notoriously tough and nasty campaigner, will expect his two big backers to support him to the hilt. And Specter, a 79-year-old cancer survivor with enough fortitude for the three of them, has leverage: he's the "60th vote" in the Senate. Read one way, Specter has no choice but to support Obama down the line; read another, Specter has the power, should things get ugly, to snarl the president's legislative agenda.

We haven't run many NRSC ads but this one makes too much sense to pass up: