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By Alex Roarty
PoliticsPA
roarty@politicspa.com

HARRISBURG – Joe Sestak’s commanding 8-point victory over Arlen Specter last week might have made him the first candidate in 30 years to beat the long-time senator, but it didn’t impress Rick Santorum.

Pennsylvania’s former GOP U.S. Senator and possible 2012 presidential candidate said Monday that the Democratic nominee did only one thing well in his race against the incumbent.

“Joe Sestak ran one good commercial, and that’s what beat Arlen Specter” said Santorum, referencing an ad that linked Specter to former President Bush and Santorum himself. “He ran a terrible campaign (otherwise).”

Santorum made the comments to a gaggle of reporters shortly after a mid-afternoon speech at the monthly Pennsylvania Press Club Luncheon, during which he highlighted what he says are most citizens’ grave concerns about the policies of President Obama.

Voter unease over government spending and the health-care bill, among other issues, will fuel massive GOP gains in the fall, Santorum said, including a victory by Republican U.S. Senate nominee Pat Toomey over Sestak. The Democratic congressman is even more liberal than the president, he said, a track record voters in the Keystone State have never supported.

“He is what Pennsylvanians have never elected: an unabashed, enthusiastic, wild-eyed Howard Dean,” said Santorum. “And that is not going to over well in Pennsylvania.”

The former senator’s comments about the Sestak campaign would not have been out of place among most political observers as recently as 6 weeks ago, when many of them concluded the congressman’s listless effort to date had squandered his chance at victory. But polls that showed Specter winning by as many as 20 points in early April shrank precipitously by the time May arrived, and most analysts considered Sestak’s Bush ad perhaps the biggest reason for the turnaround. A once-maligned campaigned was now being hailed as “brilliant” in some quarters.

Sestak, however, seemed to stumble again Sunday during an appearance on “Meet the Press,” when he again declined to elaborate on a job he alleges the White House offered him if he had backed down against Specter. Santorum said the interview didn’t go unnoticed.

“The guy is a loose cannon and is someone who is an unabashed, unavowed Obama-phile,” he said.

UPDATE:

The Sestak campaign, in response to Santorum, said in light of the ex-senator’s 20-point loss to now-U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, he should be more cautious with his political predictions.

“Santorum’s credibility on how to win Pennsylvania elections is shattered since his resounding rejection by the voters in 2006,” said Sestak spokesman Jonathon Dworkin. “Given that independent ratings have shown that Pat Toomey is even more conservative than Santorum, he should be more cautious about making predictions.”

8 Responses

  1. Oh, but I do agree that Sestak’s campaign left a lot to be desired and that the only thing that was dead-on was “the ad.” His ground game was terrible. He needs to step it up in that regard….ASAP.

  2. Rick Santorum is a wild-eyed fanatical lunatic. Sestak is far from an extremist, in fact he’s quite moderate…more moderate than Arlen on many things in fact. Dean isn’t an extremist either. But Dean certainly is more honest than Sestak…but Sestak is WAY more honest than Ricky-baby.

  3. …‘wild-eyed Howard Dean’…

    Someone should point out to Rick that Howard Dean’s wild-eyed pragmatism, passion for his country, and honest approach to the electorate has made him a far more influential and successful politician than Ricky will ever be.

    Does Little Ricky have over a million active adherents 6 years after his last campaign? Is Ricky effectively influencing elections all over the country?

    Anyone who thinks Howard Dean is an extremist is either a liar or doesn’t know bupkis about Howard Dean.

  4. This is another illustration of what clearly has become the Republican strategy to defeat Sestak. Toomey actually is an extremist and PA doesn’t do extremists well. In order to hide his extremism, the Rs are screaming “extremist” at Sestak early so that casual voters will mistakenly think that it is a contest between extremists on both sides.

    Sestak needs to make this a campaign which shines a lot of light; not just a lot of noise.

  5. If Sestak is a “wild-eyed Howard Dean” then Santorum is a placid Bush lapdog. The only thing that Slick Rick ever did for PA was to let the world know through photo ops with Bush that he was from our state. Hang it up, frat boy!

  6. Rick’s speech today proved that PA conservatives are out of touch with PA centrists. If they’re going to spend the next months railing on good policy and being the party of no they’re going to get hit with a wave of NO’s at the ballot…machines…

  7. judging by 2006 santorumn had a real handle on pa voters he lost. rick pa voters sent you a message GO AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  8. That Fascist should know a thing or two about wild-eyed fanatics. Wasn’t that long ago that Santorum was proudly calling himself one of Gingrich’s “bomb throwers” and co-authored a book on the U.S. House that was entitled “A house of Ill Repute.” Guess he’s jealous that some else is now the chief pimp in PA. The voter spoke loud and clear in his race and they spoke loud and clear gain last Tuesday why is he demeaning the IQ level of voters, by trying to suggest they are knuckle dragging Neanderthals like himself?

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