The incumbent Senator from Pennsylvania appeared to have a "senior moment" this weekend at the PA Progressive summit when he curiously trotted out onto the stage, interrupting his primary opponent, Rep. Joe Sestak, who was still delivering his remarks.
What makes this episode even more remarkable is that Specter insisted that he and his opponent speak separately. While all the gubernatorial candidates debated one another, the Senate candidates did not; Specter’s people did not want their gaffe-prone candidate to share the stage with Sestak.
I can see why...
The last couple of weeks have not been kind to Arlen. This latest foot-in-mouth moment comes just days after he was forced to apologized to Rep. Michelle Bachman for repeatedly telling her to "act like a lady" during a radio debate. How anyone could manage to make Michelle Bachman look sympathetic is beyond me, but Arlen seems to have pulled it off – and for many the episode harkened back to Specter’s disgusting treatment of Anita Hill during Clarence Thomas’s confirmation hearings.
If you thought Martha Coakley and Creigh Deeds were bad candidates, hold onto your seatbelts...
In addition to having an inept candidate, Specter's campaign infrastructure cannot seem to get the most basic shit right. In the 4th quarter of this year Specter actually spent more money than he raised – and he managed to do it without airing a single television advertisement.
Mr. Specter spent about $1.2 million in the last quarter _ $100,000 more than he brought in, whereas Mr. Sestak appeared to be husbanding his more limited resources.
At least Specter's consultants are getting paid well...
If Specter wants any hope of holding onto his Senate seat, he needs to run the perfect campaign – and he ain’t even coming close. The bottom line is that the people of Pennsylvania do not like Arlen Specter anymore. Sestak has a far better chance of beating Toomey.
Toomey leads Specter by 9 points, 49 to 40, with 8% undecided and 4% preferring some other candidate. Toomey leads Sestak by 8 points, 43-35, but with 16% undecided and 6% preferring another candidate. The pool of persuadable voters doubles if Sestak is the general election candidate.
The candidates' favorable/unfavorable numbers also show Sestak in a much better position than Specter to win in November. 43% of voters view Specter favorably, versus 54% who view him unfavorably. Only 3% are undecided, which is entirely predictable since Specter has been Pennsylvania's Senator for 30 years, has 100% name recognition, and virtually everyone has an opinion about him already. On net, Specter is in the red at negative 11% favorability - a horrible position for any incumbent in an election year.
By contrast, Sestak's favorability numbers zero out at 37-37, with a whopping 27% who don't know enough about the Congressman to form an opinion. I think this suggests that Sestak is in the better position, because introducing yourself to voters is a much easier task than having to repair voters' existing negative perceptions about you. That's a problem that can easily be solved through better fundraising and the assistance of Pennsylvania's party machine.
....
While there is much that voters still don't know about Joe Sestak, there is very little that voters don't know about Arlen Specter. Sestak still has much room to grow, whereas Specter does not. As anti-incumbent sentiment abounds in the 2010 electoral climate, Democrats would do much better to retire the unpopular incumbent in favor of the dark horse challenger.
In the wake of the Massachusetts election, you’d hope that PA Democrats would be smart enough to realize that running 30 year incumbents who have come to embody the Washington establishment is not a savvy move.
It made sense to me that Obama, Rendell et al. would rally behind Specter when they needed his vote to make 60 for health care. I disagreed with it, but it made sense. But why we continue to hear calls from the PA Democratic Party for Sestak to drop out is beyond me.
Let’s hope that PA primary voters have the good sense to make their own decisions and nominate a candidate who can win on November. Because Arlen Specter doesn’t stand a chance...