Thread: White House Braces for Specter Defeat

White House Braces for Specter Defeat

Monday, 17 May 2010 03:53 PM

By: David A. Patten

There are growing signs the White House is trying to distance itself from what it now expects to be an embarrassing defeat of incumbent Sen. Arlen Specter at the hands of Rep. Joe Sestak, a candidate the Obama administration staunchly opposed.

The polls say the contest between Specter and Sestak for the Democratic nomination to represent Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate is too close to call. But the Obama administration is believed to have access to polls that have not yet been made public.

According to the Washington Post, CBS chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer told the local CBS affiliate in Philadelphia on Monday: "I have been told on background that the White House is preparing for a Specter loss here, and that the president doesn't want to be associated with that."

There are other indications the White House, which has been a dedicated Specter ally ever since he bolted the Republican Party, is bracing for his defeat.

The Specter campaign had hoped the president and the vice president would join him for last-minute campaigning, but neither will do so. Aggravating the snub is the fact that Vice President Joe Biden is in Pennsylvania to speak at his daughter's graduation ceremony, but will not campaign with Specter.
As recently as last week, Biden said he would be available to campaign with the Republican-turned Democrat "as needed."

The president also will come tantalizingly close to Pennsylvania. The MSNBC's FirstRead blog reports "And to add insult to injury, the president is traveling … on Election Day, and he’s literally flying over Pennsylvania to stump in Youngstown, Ohio, a town just across the border."

It is unlikely the president's handlers have forgotten the spectacle of Obama campaigning for candidates who lost. The most painful example was his last-minute stumping for Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, who was beaten by Scott Brown in the Massachusetts special election for the U.S. Senate.

"The White House remembers the recent elections in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Virginia," University of Virginia Center for Politics director Larry J. Sabato tells Newsmax. "Obama’s appearances for the Democratic nominees for senator and governor had zero effect, judging from the results.

"It’s already obvious that if Specter loses, they’re going to attribute it all to Specter’s votes while he was a Republican," Sabato says. "Of course this won’t be encouraging to any future party-switchers. Obama carried Pennsylvania handily, and he and Vice President Biden have carried a lot of Specter’s baggage in this campaign, along with Gov. Ed Rendell."

Sabato, a savvy and impartial political analyst and author, predicts that the White House will not be able to escape all of the fallout if Specter is defeated.

"They’ll all be stuck with some of the baggage if Specter goes down," he says.

There are already indications that the president's support for Specter will be used against him. Brian Walsh, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said Monday "all of the hype … that Obama was a transformative figure whose own political success would translate into success for other Democrats has not proven to be true.â€

i so hope the old men of congress, including this one gets defeated, if not tomorrow for specter, then definately in November in the general election

ROFLMAO!! We've been getting calls asking us to vote for Specter. Our answers? HELL NO!

We switched from Ind to Dem just to vote this bum out. Don't want Sestak either, but better than this old fool.

Gonna celebrate in style tomorrow night.

ol'arlen has bagged his last hog! that shifty old coot will be UNEMPLOYED in mere hours.