If you haven't been hibernating in a cave for months or living on the internat'l space station you are probably aware that 1) Arlen Specter switched parties, becoming a Democrat and 2)Joe Sestak refused party pressure and is challenging him for the Democratic nomination on May 18th. All nominating petitions and signatures have been notarized and handed in in Harrisburg. The last day was this Tuesday (March 9th). What you may not be aware of is that a third man managed to scrape up 2000 signatures, making this theoretically a 3-way race.
Joseph Vodvarka, a Western PA businessman from Allegheny Co. has managed to scrape together enough signatures to qualify for the Democratic ballot. He advocates making English the National Language and claims to be a conservative Democrat. Vodvarka is an NRA member.
His opponents are Democrat, turned Republican, turned Democrat Arlen Specter and ret. vadm and two term congressman Joe Sestak. While Vodvarka doesn't have wide spread name recognition, the presence of a third candidate could tip the balance in a really close race. Probably a footnote, but both the Florida Bush v. Gore race and the Franken-Coleman race in Minnesota were effected by having another candidate in the race, due to the really close margins of the two front-runners.