Seeing these two back to back showed how different they were.
After the debate, I asked some others what they thought. The consensus opinion I got was that Sestak came off stiff, rehearsed and over coached. He droned on reciting talking points.
On the other hand, Specter spoke more conversationally and knowledgeably about the long list of progressive votes he made over the years. The most prominent labor leaders in the state were at the table in front of the stage, and Specter was chummy with all of them and the battles he waged on their behalf.

Sestak came off pretty good, until Specter was there to provide contrast.

Specter made a point of standing the entire time (Sestak had been seated). While Specter thinks well on his feet, I think part of it was a power-move on his part to address the age/vitality issue.

It was clear that Specter had a DEEP command of the issues and his reasoning for legislation he had passed.
On the question about whether he would support a Constitutional Amendment defining the role of corporations as not equal to people. Specter quipped, “Support it? I’m in the process of writing it.”

There are still a lot of progressives who won’t forgive Specter for Anita Hill. But, tonight, Specter made more inroads that Sestak did.

BTW, Sestak and Specter both tried to fake it, when asked if they used Twitter and tweeted.

Sestak claimed he actually tweeted, but when the moderator asked him for his Twitter handle, Sestak responded with “Joe”. The moderator asked him again, got the same response, and remarked that he’s seemed surprised that Sestak could have secured “joe”.
Sestak actually has two twitter accounts. sestak2010 and joesestak. If he actually posted, he would know that.

When it was Specter’s turn with the same question, Specter kept insisting he “twitted”, despite the moderator using the verb “tweet” and correcting Specter. Specter then made some joke that it was his Kansas speech pattern.

Except for Josh Shapiro, who hosted a panel on social media, the candidates don’t know a tweet from a twat.
They do know that some short statements they make go online, that some people read them, and that their staffers do the data entry.

It was just funny watching both of them bluffing.

Sestak’s progressive facade is beginning to wither and decay. It is becoming evident to the common man that he not a true champion of progressive causes, but rather a charlatan whose sole aim is to advance his own narrow ends. The question, again, must be posed: has Representative Sestak enhanced the well-being of his 7th District constituency? Have his constituents truly benefited from his supposed efforts? If not, why should he be elevated to the U.S. Senate?! Whose interests (aside from the interests of lawbreaking labor union chieftains), has Sestak really advanced? What is remarkable about the Sestak candidacy is its audacity. This man, who has accomplished nothing in 3 years, has the audacity, the temerity, to seek a higher office. His arrogance is beyond belief.

Hater-
Obama had the audacity of hope. Sestak just has audacity.
Anyway, so I was able to partially confirm some of the stuff you’ve been saying. It’s still unclear all the details, but I got independent corroboration on a name that matched the name you gave Dan. I didn’t read the particulars in the documentation, I’ll leave that to Dan. However, I did put Dan in touch with my separate source, who should be able to fill in a few more pieces of the puzzle.
At the conference, there were two ironic remarks made by one of the seminar presenters about campaigns. The first was in reference to a campaign treasurer, he said “Otherwise known as the defendant”. It had nothing to do with Sestak specifically, but was just part of the discussion of pitfalls. The other remark was about staff running your campaign, he said “You don’t want to use your brother or sister for a big campaign”. Again, a coincidence. He was just saying how family is fine for a local township race, but for a serious race you want to hire professionals.

I’m glad that you took my advice to contact Dan. I’ll leave the details of what Dan finds to Dan’s reporting. I’m only able to confirm that I heard corroborating information that there has been an investigation.
I don’t know if the investigation was concluded.
I don’t know if wrong doing was found.
I don’t know if any wrong doing was criminal (versus bad bookkeeping)
I don’t know if any wrong doing was on the part of Sestak, or confined to within the union.

Basically, I don’t want to declare a legal conclusion without seeing the full documentation/evidence. But, this is likely to be a black eye once it becomes public.

I have to say, this does come as surprise. Even though I consider Sestak to be dishonest and untrustworthy, he always struck me as too anal to take such a risk for stuff where there would be a record or a paper trail. In 2006, they were very cautious to do everything by the book for fear of Weldon catching them in a mistake. (In retrospect, I think they did a lot of things wrong from ignorance. I doubt they tracked all the receipts and in-kind contributions from people buying pizzas for office or lending them extra computer equipment, due to the utter chaos.)
Maybe he got cocky or desperate this time. Maybe the union initiated this. Hard to say, but not out of the realm of possibility.

Hello there, Mr. Diano. Unfortunately, the…er..G-Men do not share your sentiments. They do not believe that the controversy stems from ineptitude. They now strongly suspect that the campaign in question knew exactly what it was doing. No, Im not kidding. Yes, I recognize that this is shocking. What is so distressing is that were it not for the efforts of one man, the 7th District incumbent would never have been exposed. And this individual has inflicted far more damage than the 7th District incumbent (and the union to which you refer) realizes. Perhaps this individual would be amenable to speaking with you. I will inquire.

Progressive summit? Who is the progressive, either of them? Toomey? Or none of the above?

In 1999, Congressman Toomey voted to repeal the Depression Era Glass Steagall Act:

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1999/roll570.xml

So did Senator Specter:

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=106&session=1&vote=00354

Admiral Sestak was not a Member of Congress at the time. Which of these three candidates will take the initiative and either admit a mistake in voting for repeal (or criticize the others’ votes) and, above all, put Glass Steagall back in place where it belongs. Or, are all three of these guys in bed w/ the bankers?

Hater-
Ineptitude wouldn’t surprise me, because that’s par for the course.
Since I don’t possess the additional information at your disposal, I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I’m posting under my own name, so I can only report what I’ve heard or seen, and I have to delineate my speculations from the known facts.
My sentiment is to get all the facts, as I hope the G-men are doing.

It sounds to me that even if the G-men can’t prove intent, but there was any kind of wrong doing, and this goes public, the voters will draw their own conclusions about who knew what. Long before the gavel fell on Fumo’s case, the public drew it’s own conclusion. (Although it that case it was less a question of “if” but rather of “how much”.)

I’d really like to see Dan get the scoop on this story. It will be a big boost for the site as a serious news source.

THE GATEKEEPERS OF THIS WEB SITE DELETED MY COMMENTS ABOUT SPECTER AND TOOMEY VOTING TO REPEAL THE GLASS STEAGALL ACT IN 1999, AN ACTION THAT RUINED OUR BANKING SYSTEM. WHY IS PA2010.C0M AN UNDEMOCRATIC SITE? WHO CONTROLS IT? LET’S HEAR FROM DIANO AND OTHERS ON THIS.

Wiseone-
From Wikipedia:
“The final bill resolving the differences was passed in the Senate 90–8 (one not voting) and in the House: 362–57 (15 not voting). The legislation was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on November 12, 1999.”

You can’t single out Toomey or Specter for blame on this (unless they are against restoring it now).

Clinton still should have vetoed it and made them vote on it again. But, that vote was an overwhelming bi-partisan majority.

If Sestak pretends he would have voted against it at the time, he’s full of sh^t. Sestak’s got no credentials to back up a “what if he had been there” scenario. Show me how many votes on MAJOR legislation with that big a bipartisan majority, where Joe Sestak voted with minority and made the right vote. (If this were a bet with an over/under line of 1, I’d bet the under.)

Hey WiseOne,

As editor of pa2010.com, I can personally assure you that no such comment was deleted. I looked back at our comment database and didn’t see it. But we’ve been having a few glitches here and there, and you’re not the first person to encounter this problem.

Nonetheless, my sincerest apologies that it didn’t post.

Open dialogue is critical to us. If you’re ever having trouble getting a comment through, please feel free to e-mail me the body of it at editor@pa2010.com. I’ll be happy to make sure it gets online.

Sorry again.

Dan Hirschhorn

David,

You said re: repeal of Glass Steagall in 1999:

“You can’t single out Toomey or Specter for blame on this (unless they are against restoring it now).

Clinton still should have vetoed it and made them vote on it again. But, that vote was an overwhelming bi-partisan majority”.

You have got to be kidding! Are you saying that Toomey and Specter should not be held accountable for their votes because they voted (wrongly, in my view) with the majority? What ever happened to the notion of leadership? Statesmanship? Both seemed to exercise bad judgment. This is not to say that Sestak would have voted against Bill Clinton’s dumb idea to repeal a law that worked well for 60 years though.

WiseOne-
I think it was a bad idea all around. There were serious economists who had it wrong and their was legitimate debate on the level of regulation and the ability of the markets to self-correct.
Alan Greenspan himself finally backed off of his previous advocacy for such policies, so it’s not like there wasn’t intellectual support for what turned out to be a disastrous policy.

My point about the singling out is that top Democrats signed off on this, so a bottom Democrat shouldn’t get a free pass because he wasn’t around for the vote and is trying to use 20-20 hindsight.

If Specter is clearly in favor of restoring Glass-Steagall,and Toomey is against it, then it’s a key issue for the Fall. For the primary, if Sestak gets the edge on Specter ONLY if Specter doesn’t want to reinstate the policy.

My point is that based upon the voting at the time, the most reasonable assumption is that Sestak would have voted for the repeal as well.