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WEEKEND LEFTOVERS: Yeakel’s with Sestak, a Corbett conflict, a Barletta sighting and more Rohrer

In the hustle-and-bustle of our late-week traveling, here’s a few items that slipped by pa2010.com Central.

Lynn Yeakel, who came close to knocking off Senator Arlen Specter in 1992, is, not too surprisingly, giving her support to the man who hopes to beat the Republican-turned-Democrat next year. CQ Politics reports that Yeakel will be endorsing Congressman Joe Sestak (D-7) next week.

“I’ve known Joe for four years and he has the character and integrity to represent our party and our Commonwealth in Washington,” Yeakel said.

Of course, the Specter campaign was quick to point out that Yeakel had kind words for Specter when he switched parties earlier this year.

“Obviously, I’m delighted that he’s making this move,” Yeakel told The New York Observer at the time. “I think he’s always been more of a moderate.”

Nice, but she did leave herself wiggle room: “Unless there’s somebody else in the Democratic primary who, for whatever reason, I found myself more in agreement with, I certainly would support him,” she added, saying specifically that she didn’t think Sestak would run.

Meanwhile, friend-of-the-site John Micek got a great tip on a fundraiser for Tom Corbett, where a member of the host committee was none other than Timothy Carson, a vice chairman of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, which is being investigated by Corbett’s office. This should give the Gerlach folks more ammunition for the conflict-of-interest meme, and we’ll be looking into it more ourselves.

If at first you don’t succeed, try again, then try again. That’s what Hazleon Mayor Lou Barletta might be thinking, as he considers whether or not to run against Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-11) for a third time. Most pollsters and political-watchers expected Barletta to unseat Kanjorski last year before a wave of Obama supporters helped push Kanjorski to reelection. Now we read that Barletta will decide whether to make another run later this month.

And a few days after we reported that state Representative Sam Rohrer (R-Berks) seems more and more likely to run for governor, The Inquirer reports that he’ll be making his big announcement Nov. 17.

Correction: The headline for this article originally stated that Lynn Yeakel would be endorsing Arlen Specter. As the article reported, she plans to endorse his opponent, Joe Sestak.

November 7, 2009 at 7:06 pm

--Dan Hirschhorn

Tags: Arlen Specter, Joe Sestak, Lou Barletta, Lynn Yeakel, PA0-11, Paul Kanjorski, Sam Rohrer, Tom Corbett

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