Ouch! He’s in deep trouble. David Diano better sell the farm to help Uncle Arlen out.

The 2 weeks or so before Christmas are a pretty big time for fundraising. This year the Senate was debating health care down to the wire.

The 4th quarter is a tough time to raise money, because you are competing with the 2009 election, Thanksgiving, Christmas, holiday shopping, etc. Workers aren’t spending their year-end-bonuses on candidates.

So, it looks like Specter raised $700,000 and spent $800,000. In that same time period, he also widened his lead over Sestak. So, either Arlen’s doing something right, or Joe’s doing something wrong.

Sestak fans shouldn’t crow until his numbers come out. I expect Joe will probably have a net-gain, because he’s pretty tight with his spending.

However, the net drop by Specter does concern me as a Democrat, because we need to beat Toomey. I’m concerned that it may represent a weakness in the Democratic fundraising apparatus. It might also represent a lack of urgency for the primary, since Specter is the run-away favorite.

As it stands, Specter has 3 times the cash-on-hand as Toomey. At the fundraising pace Toomey has, and what I expect of Sestak, Toomey will pass Sestak by the primary.
If Sestak doesn’t pull out, and causes Specter to waste money in the primary, Toomey’s cash on hand will be ahead of Specter and Sestak combined by the primary.

The current “odds” on the race have 70% chance of Toomey winning against either candidate. Once Sestak is finished dividing the party, everyone will be able to unite behind Specter.

BTW, if Sestak were an actual progressive (instead of someone repeating progressive talking points), I would accept a primary. But, Sestak is too conservative (and untrustworthy) to waste all that money, without a there being an actual progressive payoff if he wins.

Don’t forget, part of my problem with Sestak is that I don’t believe he is a progressive.

Correction: Specter raised 1.1 million and spend 1.2 million. (not $700,000 and $800,000)
I was posting a bit late and glanced at the wrong number. It was a long day.

This morning, Philly Inquirer reports Sestak raised only $650,000:

“Sen. Arlen Specter raised $1.15 million for his reelection during the last three months of 2009 and ended the year with nearly $8.7 million in the bank, his campaign announced yesterday.

The campaign for his challenger in Pennsylvania’s Democratic primary May 18, Rep. Joe Sestak, said Sestak would report raising about $650,000 in the fourth quarter and ending the year with $5.1 million on hand.”

Since Sestak had $4.7 million on hand at the end of the third quarter… he spent only $250,000 out of the $650,000 he raised. Like I said, Joe is pretty tight with a buck.

So, the cash-on-hand gap closed by $500,000, but Arlen’s still raising money at almost twice Joe’s pace, and spending it at 4 times the pace.

Bang-for-the-buck.. Specter’s getting all the union endorsements and is going to get the State committee endorsement next weekend.

I’m looking forward to seeing on what each is spending. Specter is certain to be spending more on salary for his staff. I’m hoping he’s also spending on infrastructure for the campaign, with campaign offices around the state.

Or perhaps further fundraising during the quarter was deemed unnecessary by Specter, in view of the impending demise of Representative Sestak’s senatorial bid…and his political career.

Hater-
Specter raised a decent amount, considering how tough it’s been for Dems and the economy lately. But, he’s not being cheap in his spending.
Today, he hosted a crowded luncheon with the Westmoreland Dems. Contrast this to Sestak’s morning coffee klatch were he got two dozen people and made them pay for their own coffee.
Specter understands the importance of party infrastructure and connecting with the committee people. The rank and file aren’t “the establishment” that Sestak is complaining about and accusing of not supporting him. No, it’s groups he’s met with, who have rejected him. Big difference.

This is just more evidence that specter has no hope of beating Toomey. Unless you’re airing TV ads, there is just no excuse for spending more money than you’re raising. It’s campaign malpractice.

The voters of Pennsylvania clearly don’t like arlen — all the polling indicates that the vast majority of people want a new senator.

In order to overcome that, arlen really needs to run the best campaign that pa has ever seen. Between the act like a lady stuff and now these fundraising numbers, it’s increasingly looking like it will be one of the worse campaigns pa has ever seen.

If Democrats want any chance of winning this one, they better take arlen out in the primary.

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.

Specter can win-
Given the current national climate, it may be impossible to beat Toomey with ANY candidate. the site fivethirtyeight.com puts Toomey’s chances around 70%.
However, I feel that Specter has a better chance of beating Toomey than Sestak:
1) nuts and bolts: Specter just simply KNOWS how to run a professional statewide campaign and the issues in each county. Sestak is clearly reciting memorized facts/figures like he’s taking a geography test and is listing the imports and exports.
2) Specter can raise more money than Sestak. He tops Sestak every quarter and there’s no indication that will not continue.
3) Unions. The unions backed Specter over Hoeffel. Specter’s got deep roots with them (and as I learned this weekend is sometimes “their lawyer”.) Specter just has more personal relationships with the union leaders.
4) Debate and delivery style: Specter just KNOWS what he is talking about. He’s quick on his feet, but he will get into it, in detail, if Toomey starts talking smack.
5) Opposition research: Specter’s been expecting to fight Toomey again since 2004. You can bet he’s got every quote, job, speech, and lobbying effort connected with Toomey.

WiseOne-
The site has problems with some posts containing links. I had this giant posting last week, that just evaporated, despite the site “taking it”. When I tried resubmitting, the site responded with an error message that my posting was a duplicate. I finally split the post into three smaller posts. The third one, containing the links, failed to post. Even Dan couldn’t “push” it through.

I don’t know if the site has a profanity restriction, so I try to avoid that (or slightly misspell to dodge word search).

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

I have a different take than Dan Diano on the Specter/ Sestak race. Imagine for a minute if Casey switched to become a Republican during the Bush years and enabled Bush to pass some legislation we were opposed to. When Casey would come up for election again,we’d be out in force to beat the x$&ne(*!

Well, that is exactly what will happen this year with Specter. He will be the #1 Get Out the Vote tool the Republicans will have. Not only with rightwinger Republicans feel betrayed, but so will moderate Republicans. They will vote in unprecedented numbers to get back at Specter. This will kill our chances down-ticket from Governor to members of Congress to state house and senate seats.

Further, I want to know what store Dan bought his crystal ball in. RE: “Don’t forget, part of my problem with Sestak is that I don’t believe he is a progressive.” And Specter is??? He voted for all 5 of the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn a century of law restricting corporate involvement in campaigns. He was a champion for Thomas, Alito and Roberts. He endorsed Bush, twice, McCain in this last election and was a strong supporter of Rick Santorum. When you KNOW Specter is not a progressive, how can you support him when you only THINK Sestak might not be one. It makes no sense what-so-ever. Sestak has a progressive record of voting that is quantifiable. Look it up and compare it to Specter.

Sorry, it’s DAVID Diano, not Dan. No disrespect intended.

And to those who think the Specter/ Sestak money race against Toomey is losing misses the point: far more money is going to Democratic candidates combined than Republican candidates combined. Once the primary is over the Democratic money will go to one candidate and we will exceed Toomey’s totals.

rplinpa-
I think Joe Sestak is Joe Lieberman in training. I think Sestak is a hawk like Lieberman and has been “faking” being a liberal by making the votes he needs to advance himself. Watch him talk about the issues. He’s like an actor reading lines that someone else wrote for him. He speaks about liberal issues differently than anyone one I know who actually cares about those issues.
It’s not that Specter is a progressive, it’s that Sestak is even less progressive at his core and can’t be trusted.

Sestak’s record includes voting to give Bush a blank check on Iraq (twice), funding Cheney’s office, warrantless wiretaps, telecom immunity, and favoring the Afghan build-up EXCEPT for the timetables part. That’s quantifiable too.

Specter fought against Bork, who makes Scalia look like Ted Kennedy. Specter’s take on this has been he’s not going to use ideological litmus tests on qualified jurists unless there is something truly radical in their background.

Specter voted to confirm Ginsberg and Sotomayor.

He’s pretty much a YES vote on confirmation, unless there is a serious deficiency. If Thomas had not been confirmed, who do you think Bush would have nominated next?

As for the money race, don’t count on it. If there is a bloody Dem primary, the winner will be seriously depleted, the will drive up each others negatives, and Toomey will be far ahead.
The Dems are going to be defending a lot of seats and the Republicans will poor resources into a far-right nut like Toomey to capture a state like PA.
Specter needs to be a full monetary strength, and Sestak is going to drain millions of dollars that will essentially be helping Toomey.

Ask yourself the following question: Why would Richard Mellon Scaife give Joe Sestak the max limit contribution, if it wasn’t to help Toomey?

Hint: Scaife is a big supporter of the Club for Growth that Toomey used to run.