Two people that aren’t going to be on the ballot in Nov 2010.

I hadn’t seen the Sestak press conference video until now.

I recognize Dan himself asking Sestak a question at 6-minute mark about how’s Sestak going to draw any crowds if Specter has the establishment behind him.
Sestak answered that he’s comfortable on his “home turf” of the Democratic party.

The correct answer was: He’s not going to draw crowds outside of his district (home turf).

It’s amazing that after 3 years of running for office, Sestak still speaks with an unnatural cadence, as though English is a foreign language or he’s a robot programmed to vary his tone at random intervals. If you talk to him off camera, he doesn’t speak like this at all. It’s a completely artificial mode he goes into when asked questions in a political setting.

There’s some debate about why this is. Most of figure he’s like a bad actor giving the role of politician in a movie, and trying to “act his way out of a paper bag” with his interpretation of “politician”. The other theory is that he has his talking points memorized so thoroughly that he’s reciting more than the is speaking.

Either way, Specter will completely crush him in a debate or press conference.

There’s another Delco Dem candidate I’m friends with that has a similar problem to Joe when it comes to being in campaign-mode. He’s a natural wit, but in campaign-mode he sounds unnatural. When I ask him at a picnic if he was going to ask Sestak for any money/help, he quipped: “If I want to get turned down, I’ll go to a bar to pick up women.”
It’s a great line with a lot of truth, but if asked that by an audience, he’d give an awkward answer about respecting Joe’s priorities (like Joe’s answer about Clinton helping him).

BTW, my suspicion is that Sestak already knew the answer about Clinton helping is “No”, so didn’t bother asking. So, he could “technically” be truthful in saying he hadn’t asked. The way politics works, a friend of Joe’s would have somehow “unofficially” asked Clinton or gotten a sense, and then gotten the info back to Joe.