How many “little Indians” (or bottles of beers on the wall) are left?

How long until it’s just Joe and his siblings, wrapped in blankets, huddling over a Sterno container in a bare office, and arguing over the last can of baked beans?

No doubt about it, Joe is a damn tough boss. Rumor has it he’s almost impossible to work for.

But as a voter, why should I care about that? He’s my Congressman (soon to be Senator), and as long as he’s on the job working for me, I really don’t have a problem with how high his standards are. He pushes himself as hard or harder than he pushes his staff, and who can ask for more than that?

Remember, his campaign staff turnover was just as great in his first and his second run for the 7th. That’s just how these things go.

Sounds like somebody’s office has a “poor command climate”…

Bruce-
I made the EXACT same argument against the Weldon people in 2006.
However, what I failed to take into account was how the high turnover at the Congressional office has hurt taxpayers, constituents and made the office less effective.
Not only is there a constant loss of institutional knowledge, but many quality staffers avoid Sestak’s employ like the plague.

Sestak values inexperience, because he “wants it done HIS way” and can pay less.

Compared to Weldon, Sestak’s better. But, so’s a dead cat.

With Joe’s wasteful Senate campaign, and the $3 million he diverted from the 7th district, his attacks on Obama (and the allegations revealed by Hater), Sestak will go down in history as a net negative for the Democratic party.

Maybe that’s why Richard Mellon Scaife gave Sestak the MAX donation in June 2009.

Sestak’s revolving door has damaged his campaign. No wonder his campaign hasn’t gotten anywhere! He should have hired professonals and paid them properly.

Bruce-
You should care how he treats his employees. First of all, they are human beings. How can his congressional office or his district office accomplish anything with such a high turn over rate?

Sestak obviously has great difficulty cooperating or playing well with others. That is, most definitely, NOT a trait we need in a senator (or a congressman).

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) probes, generally speaking, give rise to rather serious personnel issues. Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) inquiries only exacerbate the situation. And of course, no one wants to be party to Sestak’s blackmail attempts against the incumbent Democratic President of the United States. Representative Sestak is is the equivalent of a New Jersey Superfund site – so toxic that you must flee.

By the way, Mr. Dworkin – I admonished you about your continued phone use. Not wise for a Sestak lackey to be utilizing phones at this juncture…

HateSestak –

Attacking staffers is out of line. Cut it out.

I am confused about the phone thing. Why is it bad to use the phone?

Fact is they all care about themsevles first. Maybe it’s the right way esp. if the candate wins.And winning is all that counts.

Specter switched to save himself from a defeat righty tighty nut jobs.But, which I do belive he would have beaten Toomey anyway. Look at the McCain race.

I know somebody who worked for a somebody who ran last year who didn’t get paid. And the canidate compained “He Told me that I was going to win.”

In 2007 all three County council candiates couldn’t work together. The two compained about the one. And the people who helped the one said of the other o he runs for everything but, he doesn’t do any work.
I worked for all three in Aston and a was piviot point for all of it. Tried to get Joe to come to an event with the two but, was told that unless the another one was going that he wasn’t.I agreed that this would be a waste of time.

I worked for it a little but the person who helped Landau blew up on me on primary day. She accused us of stealing his signs in the 5th ward. And the two people who was helping the other two canidates didn’t want Landau at the event.

My guess is that Hater is implying the phones are tapped.

However, from what little I know of Hater, I HIGHLY doubt that he has any knowledge of phone tapping is is merely engaging in humor or supposition. I think the admonishment was intended more a warning for Dworkin’s own good, rather than a complaint.

Dworkin has the unenviable job of “turd polishing” the message, and he’s making less than minimum wage.

Mr. Diano: A “net negative for the Democratic Party” indeed. Rather than advance the interests of his party or his constituents, Representative Sestak continues to employ tactics aimed at furthering his own narrow legal interests. Did Sestak’s denunciatory remarks about the incumbent Democratic President of the United States benefit his constituents? No. Did those incendiary comments benefit the Democratic Party? No.

In actuality, is comments were extraordinarily damaging to both the Democratic Party and his constituents. Lambasting the President plays right into the hands of the GOP and right-wing Fox News commentators, thereby undercutting the Democratic Party in an election year. And at a time when the 7th District is struggling economically, Sestak decides to antagonize the most important economic decision-maker in the country -the President. Wonderful.

Sestak is a self-interested, venal politician who is frantically trying to avoid imprisonment. His campaign staffers are coming to this realization, and they are abandoning him. Now it is time for prospective voters to do the same.

KG: Kindly refrain from dictating to me. Those in the employ of corrupt, lawbreaking office-holders must be held accountable for their choices. Work for an unprincipled, unethical monster and be treated accordingly.

dave lewis-
I agree the county campaign was a mess. At a picnic in June 2007, with various Delco Dem leadership, Sestak said he would help the campaigns, ONLY if he was put completely in charge.
There is no “I” in help.

TO ALL: SESTAK’S PHILLY HQ IN THE DARK
At 6:15pm this evening, the lights were off and no one was home.
The Philly HQ is right across the street from a store I’ve gone to every week for the past decade or two. When I looked across the see the “hustle and bustle” of a campaign office, there was NONE.

Sestak opened this office (to no fanfare) only last Thursday.

How can anyone take his claims of being a real/viable statewide candidate if that’s his Philly HQ, less than one week after its “grand opening”?

Hater-
I’ve got to side a bit with KG. I’m pretty sure that his staffers have NO IDEA of the Sestak you and I know. The ones that do, leave.
Accept that Dworkin is young, ignorant, or just waiting for another offer to come in. Don’t hold him to account regarding matters he likely has no idea about.
Think about it: who lets the below-minimum-wage staff know about the kind of stuff that is handled by the inner circle?
Pity Dworkin for his unenviable job, but there is no need to attack him for Joe’s failings.

Expecting people to work hard in Congress is indeed a novel thing.

Complaining that Sestak expects his staff to actually work hard and put in long hours is puzzling.

Shouldnt we expect that with the use of our public dollars?

Given that this country has no money, why isn’t this is a good thing.

PA2010 – how about a story about what staff actually get paid for what they do and the hours they work? I think most of the general public would be shocked by the findings and frankly would be outraged.

Actually I remember the him saying that he wanted no parts of the back and forth crap and that he just wanted to focus on his job. This was at the Dr.Scoles house.

I agree with the comments that our reps and senators should have a positive working environment. But Sestak isn’t the only one with this problem. The word is that Specter is a tyrant. He has constant turnover, as well.

Specter doesnt have high staff turnover, I have been dealing with the same people in Washington and in the state for years. He has a very low turnover rate.

I think Joe Sestak needs a reality check. Sweatshop Sestak is two sided. He is pro labor and pro lower and middle class but treats his staff like they are little Vietnamese children sewing together a pair of Nike shoes. As a Democratic, that fact is eye-opening. Reading about his staff leaving tells me that he is a man who thinks this is still the Navy. Joe your staffers arent surrounded by water, they can jump ship at any time and you cannot cry mutiny. Sorry Joe, but your time has come. As the Marine say, Lead, Follow or in Joe’s case Get Out of the Way!

Intelligent Voter-
There’s a difference between working hard and spinning your wheels. Sestak’s operation is very inefficient and he hires inexperienced people that he bullies into leaving before they can get past training into becoming productive.

There are also labor laws (and ethical ones) about paying a fair wage. Most of Sestak’s staff makes less than minimum wage.

Dave-
That’s the event I was talking about, though I didn’t identify Scoles. It think it was Shelly and possibly Cliff who rejected the “Joe in charge” offer because it would usurp authority from the county party. Joe didn’t need to be in charge to help (we helped, but didn’t ask to relinquish control of his campaign).

BTW, that picnic was also where Joe admitted that he and some other Dems (as the GOP had charged) were counting on the War to be a enough of a failure that they could claim a political “I told you so”. This was not long after I had written my public condemnation of Joe for his Iraq vote. So, Joe looked directly at me before he made his remarks and say he hoped his comments would stay “private” within the group. I think the statute of limitations is up on that. Unfortunately, it showed not only how callus Joe was about human life and the soldiers compared to political calculations, but how phony his Iraq War vote had been.

Jimmy-
Whatever bad reputation Specter has, Sestak took the crown away from him on this one.

Voters don’t care. But insiders do. And if good people are leaving that is a problem. And the rumors have about Sestak being a tough boss are plentiful. However, this may be more about Sestak losing hope as a campaign.

Try vedi-
It’s also the “insiders” that power the campaigns with their volunteering, canvassing, fundraising, etc.
The old saying comes to mind, about paying attention to how you treat people on the way up, because you are going to meet them again on the way down.

Try vedi: Hi. I beg to differ. Intelligent voters do care. If a candidate for high office cannot efficaciously manage a campaign or work in a collegial fashion with others, it raises questions about their ability to craft legislation, implement public policy and assemble coalitions. These are skills that office-holders must possess if they are to serve their constituents well. Representative Sestak has alienated his campaign staff, prominent Democrats, the incumbent Democratic President of the United States, and, of course, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He has anatagonized virtually every major political actor he would interact with as a Senator. If he were to prevail in this primary and/or the general election, how the @#! could he possibly be an effective public servant?! He would be a pariah, isolated from all the key actors in the decision-making process. In truth, he already is a pariah – a political leper. Those who support this man’s ill-fated Senate bid (if any remain) need to confront this empirical reality. Representative Sestak is poison. And he grows more toxic with each passing moment.

Nobody works harder for ordinary Pennsylvanians than U.S. Senator Arlen Specter.