Specter swiftboating Sestak

[IndianaGreen]

Pennsylvania Senate Primary An Up For Grabs Fight To The Finish

Evan McMorris-Santoro | May 10, 2010, 6:19PM

People privy to internal numbers on both sides wouldn't say whether the public numbers accurately reflect the private ones. But both sides say that the picture of a fast-closing Sestak painted by the public polling is the right one.

Which leads us to the swiftboating. Starting with an ad he launched April 20, Specter has been vigorously attacking Sestak's Naval career, claiming he was relieved of duty. (As the New York Times reported, Sestak was reassigned from the last job he had in the Navy after the man he directly reported to was replaced by someone new. Though the reasons for the reassignment are somewhat murky, Sestak -- and the last boss he had in the navy -- equates them to politics in inside the Navy.)

After Sestak attacked Specter for disparaging his military service, Specter asked Sestak to produce his military records to prove him wrong. Sestak has refused, claiming that Specter's request sounds a lot like the attacks on Sen. John Kerry's (D) Vietnam service during the 2004 presidential race.

Today, Kerry -- a Specter supporter -- weighed in on the controversy. He called on the word to be dropped from the political lexicon before refusing to ask either candidate to stop what they're doing.

"Now, six years later, the term swiftboating is back as an issue in the Senate primary," Kerry said in a statement. "I cannot serve as a referee. That's an issue for the candidates to address and the media to investigate."

The swiftboating claims play right into Sestak's strategy moving ahead. He's gone up with negative attack ads of his own, aimed at reminding voters of Specter's last Senate race, where he squeaked by in a Republican primary thanks to the support of his then-friends George W. Bush and Rick Santorum (Sestak also throws in a shot of Specter with Sarah Palin from the '08 campaign trail for good measure.)

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/05/pennsylvania-senate-primary-an-up-for-grabs-fight-to-the-finish.php?ref=fpb

I can see Specter wearing purple band aids, as Republicans did in 2004 to mock Kerry's Purple Heart. Only a Republican would engage in swiftboating. Specter is a POS and must be defeated!

[AtomicKitten]

1. John Kerry Defends Specter Against "Swiftboating" Charge

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/senate-races/96907-john-kerry-defends-specter-against-swiftboating-charge

John Kerry defends Specter against 'swiftboating' charge
By Sean J. Miller

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) defended Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) against charges he used swiftboat-style attacks against his Democratic primary opponent's Navy record.

"I have known Arlen for 25 years and I know his character and the quality of his service to Pennsylvania," Kerry said. "He's a fighter and a friend, and I am proud to vouch for his character."

Four years ago, Kerry was an early supporter of Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.), Specter's rival for the Democratic Senate nomination. Kerry called him a friend, but he sided with his Senate colleague over the former Navy admiral amid charges that Specter was "swiftboating" Sestak.

"I cannot serve as a referee," Kerry said in a statement Monday. "That's an issue for the candidates to address and the media to investigate."

The term "swiftboating" entered the political lexicon in the 2004 presidential election, when a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth launched a series of TV spots that attacked Kerry's service in the Vietnam War. The ads featured veterans who had served on the Navy's swift boats saying Kerry was "unfit" for the presidency. "What troubled me most about the 2004 smears was that lies were permitted to pollute the public dialogue even after they were thoroughly and publicly disproven by the Navy's own records," the former Democratic presidential nominee said.

Specter released a TV ad last month that said Sestak was relieved of duty at one point for creating a "poor command climate." Sestak accused the five-term incumbent of "swiftboating" his military record. Still, the two-term congressman ignored repeated requests from reporters to release his Navy service records.

Kerry said he hoped "swiftboating" would become a thing of the past.

"I'd like to see us get to a better place in politics where the word swiftboating is retired from the political vocabulary," he said.

[IndianaGreen]

5. Kerry: 'I cannot serve as a referee'

Today, Kerry -- a Specter supporter -- weighed in on the controversy. He called on the word to be dropped from the political lexicon before refusing to ask either candidate to stop what they're doing.

"Now, six years later, the term swiftboating is back as an issue in the Senate primary," Kerry said in a statement. "I cannot serve as a referee. That's an issue for the candidates to address and the media to investigate."

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/05/pennsylvania-senate-primary-an-up-for-grabs-fight-to-the-finish.php?ref=fpb

Like the exclusive club that it is, Senators will support Senators. This is why Kerry is backing Specter, just as a Senator Obama backed Joe Lieberman when Lieberman was being challenged by Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary.

[AtomicKitten]

7. Nate Silver: Specter is more liberal than Sestak.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/05/is-sestak-right-choice-for-left.html

snip

For the time being, however, progressive Democrats have ample reason to be wary of Specter. Their problem is that Joe Sestak, the PA-7 Congressman who has refused to rule out a primary challenge, might not be any better from the standpoint of progressive policy.

In fact, it's plausible that he could be a bit worse. ProgressivePunch.org ranks Sestak as the 158th most progressive member out of 221 non-freshman Democrats, and notes that he's an order of magnitude or so more conservative than you'd expect of a Congressman from his Democratic-leaning district. Sestak's DW-NOMINATE score in the 110th Congress was -.287 on a scale that runs from -1 for extremely liberal to 0 for moderate; this is actually slightly more conservative than the score that we'd projected for Specter, which was -.303. The National Journal, moreover, found that Sestak took the liberal position only 63 percent of the time in the votes they tracked in 2007.

snip

[IndianaGreen]

9. We owe Specter his legacy of the Single Bullet Theory

As Specter said on that video being shown in PA, he only became a Democrat so that he "can be reelected."

[AtomicKitten]

10. Indeed but stop fooling yourself about Sestak. He's a ConservaDem. nt

[IndianaGreen]

11. At least he is a real Democrat

not a Democrat "because it is convenient now".

[AtomicKitten]

12. Bookmarked: IG calls a ConservaDem a "real Democrat."

Quite the opposite of what you've said many, many times before here at DU.

[IndianaGreen]

13. I call Sestak a real Democrat because you labeled him as a conservadem

even though he clearly doesn't belong to that ilk.

[AtomicKitten]

14. His voting record begs to differ. He voted with the liberals only 63% of the time. nt

[MadBadger]

16. Just wondering, how many times did Specter vote with the dems before his switch

[AtomicKitten]

17. False analogy for obvious reasons.

FTR I don't support either but I don't live in Pennsylvania.

My point is that Sestak is no liberal.

[MadBadger]

19. Not sure why its a false analogy

If Specter wins this race, Hes here for 6 years. Do you expect him to remain the loyal democrat he has for the past year? I absolutely do not, because he wont need us anymore.

[IndianaGreen]

20. Specter voted for DOMA

What a piece of work!

[IndianaGreen]

18. Specter was and is a Republican

The fact that he swapped the R for a D, and been embraced by "Bipartisan to a Fault" Obama, does not alter the fact that Specter only switched parties to get reelected. He has been in Washington too long, and it is time to ship his sorry ass to a nursing home where he can't harm no one.

If Lieberman were to switch back to Democrat, he would get the welcome carpet from Obama, and many of you would be saying what a great man Joe Lieberman is!

Get real!

[PassingFair]

32. They are saying that NOW.

They are talking about the "debacle" in CT....

where it was proven that the democrats CAN
grow a spine and pry off remoras that feed off
of working people.

His subsequent successful election as an "independent",
from the votes of DLC dems and republicans, is now
viewed through their lenses as a failure of Progressives!

It is to laugh!....if it didn't make me so sick.

[jaxx]

23. Specter was originally a Democrat.

[IndianaGreen]

24. until it became convenient to switch to Republican

there is a pattern here: Specter cares only for Specter.

[jaxx]

25. There's no doubt he looks after himself.

That said, he was still originally a Democrat.

[IndianaGreen]

27. as was Strom Thurmond and Lester Maddox

[jaxx]

29. What do they have to do with this?

[IndianaGreen]

30. Richard Shelby was a Democrat, as was Ben Nighthorse Campbell

They switched parties (to the GOP), right after they got elected, but since GOP won Congress, they decided it was better for them to swap their D for R.

[jaxx]

31. I thought we were discussing Specter.

But thanks for the info, I suppose there are a lot of people who have switched parties for political reasons.

[NCarolinawoman]

38. Nate Silver needs to get some of his facts straight.

Sestak does not come from a "Democratic leaning district". When Sestak first ran in 2006, he beat a 10 term Republican congressman named Curt Weldon. Registration of voters at the time was overwhelmingly Republican.

I donated to his campaign back then and kept a close eye on that race.
(Went to grad school in the area and still have friends living in that district.)

If you go to Project Vote Smart, you can see how both of these people voted. Sestak is particularly good on environmental issues--scores a 93%
from League of Conservation voters, versus Specter's lifelong rating of 40.5%.

[AtomicKitten]

40. Nate Silver has proved himself the wunderkind of statistics.

His stats involve analysis of the entire record as opposed to breaking it down issue by issue as some of these special interest sites do.

On edit, he posted this yesterday: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/05/sestakular.html

snip

Plus, it's not as though the minds of Pennsylvania Democrats are hard to read. Specter, although he's compiled a reliably liberal voting record since Sestak's challenge began, seems to be motivated primarily by political expediency. Sestak, for that matter, has been a bit opportunistic himself -- posing as a hardened progressive when his voting record is significantly more moderate -- but he's basically a Generic Democrat running somewhat to his left in the primary, as Generic Democrats usually do. His chances of winning the general election appear to be about even with Specter's from a statistical perspective, and are perhaps better going-forward as he has considerably less baggage. He ought to be a fairly comfortable choice for primary voters.

snip

[BootinUp]

42. The US Congress database as avail on washingtonpost.com

has Sestak at 97 something percent with his party 111th Congress

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/S001169/
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/S001169/votes/against-party/

[DJ13]

6. One establishment pol defending another

Not really news.

[AtomicKitten]

8. When it comes to the charge of swiftboating, John Kerry's opinion is noteworthy. nt

[LakeSamish706]

2. "Specter is a POS and must be defeated!" I totally agree and I wish the hell Obama

would step away from this.

[ShortnFiery]

4. From what I know about the man, Crist in FL is a good former GOP to support.

I haven't heard of any smarmy things he has done.

[zipplewrath]

26. The man IS smarmy

There's a home insurance problem here he made vastly worse. He fiddled with property taxes (think "prop 21") down here to silly results. He dodges every hard issue. And primarily his philosophy is "what's good for Charlie in the next 3 weeks". No long term view at all.

[Jennicut]

15. Obama has supported all the incumbent Dems.

Every last one. Most Presidents do.
I personally think it is a practice Presidents should just give up.

[zipplewrath]

21. Not in primaries

Well, not overtly. There's no doubt that privately they do. But generally they avoid overtly supporting one candidate over another in the primaries. Of course, they support challengers in primaries too, just not overtly, nor very often.

[IndianaGreen]

22. Obama is backing the white dude in Hawaii

against Colleen Hanabusa.

[Jennicut]

28. And Bennett in Colorado and Lincoln in Arizona.

[catgirl]

41. He is?

His ad said to support "a democrat". No name given.

[ShortnFiery]

3. That's sick. But not unusual for a republican to do?

I think Specter may have switched parties in name only? :thumbsdown:

[AlinPA]

33. Yes. Swiftboating is a republican campaign tactic. nt

[totodeinhere]

34. This just goes to show how far Specter will go to try to cling to power.

Do I wish that Sestak were more liberal? Yes I do. But I could never support an opportunistic sleaze like Specter who has only one principle which is clinging to power. Specter might be trying to look like a progressive right now, but that's just because he considers it to be his best political strategy at this time. But you better believe that if it suits him some time in the future he will turn back to the right in a heartbeat.

[Beacool]

35. Well, isn't that the reason why he switched parties?

The man is up in years and has had more than one cancer scare. Still, he will do almost anything to stay in power. I don't live in PA, but spend a fair amount of time in the state. I would never vote for Specter. I don't respect, nor trust, backstabbing weasels. They'll always betray you in the end.

x(

[TheKentuckian]

36. K&R

[freddie mertz]

37. As a PA primary voter, I can report that the momentum is very much Joe's right now.

And the effort by Specter to fight back via smear ads has seriously backfired.

Every time I see one of those Specter ads I get angry... with the specially pocked ugly picture of Sestak, National Enquirer style graphis, etc.

Those here who are trying to defend Arlen by attacking Sestak as a "conservadem" only reveal the bankruptcy as the heart of the Specter campaign right now.

If anyone fits that bill, it is surely Se, specter, who was a Repug for the past 45 YEARS!!!

I will vote for Arlen if he pulls it out.

Really have no choice. But the swiftboating and smearing of Sestak on TV (and here at DU) is making that seem less and less attractive.

[niceypoo]

39. Of course he is...

He is a republican, it's what they do.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

43. I'm looking forward to this race. What is Specter thinking? As for Establishment Dems,

they need to shut the fuck up! Obama, Biden, Rendell, Nutter, Kerry...ALL of them! This is a race for the people to decide. And for Kerry to excuse the Shitboat Liars?!?! That's disgraceful. No wonder he lost to a Dumb Fuck from Texas.

[Inuca]

44. You should take Kerry's advice

and drop the swiftboating attacks. I am not from PA and did not follow the race and Sestak close enough to have a valid opinion on all this. But I DO know that Specter would have never worn the infamous purple band aids.

I do not like Specter's attack on Sestak's service. But it is NOT swiftboating, he is not making completely false and insulting claims as the swiftboaters made against Kerry. He is just emphasizing something from Sestak's past that, as the TPM article also notes, is "murky". And Sestak OTOH is trying to play all this for all that it's worth, playing the victim, and invoking a term that is still s very sore point for many democrats. I definitely do not like that either.