By Alex Roarty
PoliticsPA Staff Writer
roarty@politicspa.com

Was it an early April Fools’ joke, or did Democrats just want to have a little fun with Pat Toomey?

The state Democratic Party issued a press release Wednesday afternoon claiming Toomey’s effort to win a seat in the U.S. Senate is actually just an effort to sell his book, “The Road to Prosperity,” which was released last year and includes in detail the candidate’s economic philosophy.

The release, which was clearly tongue-in-cheek, cited a video from his campaign that showed a stack of the books standing on his office bookshelf.

“Word on the street is that there are boxes of the thing everywhere!” party spokesman Patrick McKenna said in a statement. “We’ve had several reports that they’ve been using them as coasters, to prop up tables and chairs, you name it. Someone even mentioned that a couple of staffers built a fort with the books on a slow day, with one staffer joking that it was to ‘fend off the socialist onslaught from Washington.’”

State Party chairman T.J. Rooney also got into the act.

“After multiple failed attempts to download Toomey’s book onto my awesome new Kindle, I was relieved to find out they’re practically giving the damn thing away on Amazon.com,” he said.

Their press release even drew a formal response from the Toomey campaign, which complimented the Democrats’ sense of humor.

“But maybe they should focus more on finding new ways to change the subject from Senator Specter’s pro-bailout, pro-stimulus, pro-government run healthcare, pro-tax hike voting record,” Campaign Manager Mark Harris said in an e-mail to reporters. “Just saying …”

On a serious note, the press release is one of many issued in recent weeks against Toomey from the state Democratic Party, which has made a concerted effort to criticize the Republican while Sestak and opponent Joe Sestak duel in the party’s primary. Last year, the former Lehigh Valley congressman largely escaped criticism while focusing on an effort to rebrand himself as a much more moderate candidate than the one portrayed during his 2004 primary campaign against Specter.