Published on Capitolwire.com:
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP, Jan. 12) – U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak on Tuesday challenged Sen. Arlen Specter to a series of debates in the run-up to Pennsylvania’s Democratic primary, but the Specter campaign suggested that one debate may be its limit.
Sestak, a second-term congressman who is trailing Specter in the polls and fundraising, said he wants to face off with the fifth-term senator in at least one public forum in each of the state’s six media markets.
Sestak said Specter, who abandoned a more than four-decade affiliation with the Republican Party and became a Democrat last year, should be held accountable for votes he cast with the GOP over the years and particularly the domestic policies of former President George W. Bush.
“I believe Arlen Specter’s politics have failed Pennsylvania,” Sestak said at a news briefing at the headquarters of The Patriot-News in Harrisburg. “I don’t see how we can ask someone who got us into this mess to help get us out. The stakes are too high.”
A campaign spokesman for Specter said the senator has traditionally participated in a single debate aired on statewide television during primary-election campaigns. All of those were GOP primaries.
“We’re hopeful that can be arranged again this time,” said the spokesman, Christopher Nicholas.
“All incumbents are held accountable for their votes,” Nicholas said. “Congressman Sestak will be held accountable for the 127 votes he missed in Congress so far, which gives him the worst attendance record of any Pennsylvania representative.”
Sestak campaign spokesman Jonathan Dworkin responded that Sestak has cast his vote 94 percent of the time and that the votes he missed were “mainly procedural.”
The May 18 primary will be Specter’s first Senate election as a Democrat.
As of the end of September, Specter’s campaign war chest totaled $8.7 million, in contrast with Sestak’s $4.2 million, according to federal campaign finance reports.
A Quinnipiac University poll in December showed Specter, who is backed by party leaders including President Barack Obama, leading Sestak in the primary, 53 percent to 30 percent, with 15 percent of Democrats undecided.
“My challenge is (to win over) the undecided,” Sestak said. “It’s why we’re going everywhere to talk” to Pennsylvania voters.
The same poll showed Specter and former U.S. Rep. Pat Toomey tied in a hypothetical general election matchup, each with 44 percent of the vote. Eleven percent of voters were undecided.
Toomey lost the 2004 GOP primary to Specter by 17,000 votes out of 1 million cast, and is widely considered the front-runner for the Republican nomination against Specter this year.
Specter switched parties in April, less than two weeks after Toomey announced his candidacy, saying he could not win the nomination for a sixth term in a GOP that had grown increasingly conservative.
