send to a friend | print | comment

LEFTOVERS: More on Specter’s voting fib, Clark for Lentz, Irey’s with Burns

Democrat Joe Sestak’s Senate campaign on Wednesday at last began to push back against Senator Arlen Specter’s frequent claim that he voted more with Democrats than Republicans while in the GOP, accusing him of “flat-out perjury.”

Specter has often made the false claim, which his defenders say is meant to imply that he voted more often with Democrats on major social issues—a qualifier he often omits. The Sestak campaign has avoided pointing it our directly, but maybe they were egged on by our report calling him out. They e-mailed reporters a host of links about his voting record, including one measuring his GOP party loyalty at 62 percent, and another showing that he voted with President George W. Bush 72 percent of the time. It all came with a nice picture of Specter holding his Judiciary Committee gavel, and a contention that “if Specter were still in the courtroom, he’d be tried for perjury.”

Meanwhile, state Representative Bryan Lentz’s (D-Delaware) congressional campaign got a high-profile backer in former General Wesley Clark, the sometimes-considered presidential and vice-presidential candidate. In an e-mail from his political action committee, Clark asked supporters to donate to Lentz’s 7th District campaign and said that “he’ll fight against the status quo to put government back on the side of everyday Americans.”

And at least one Republican who was thinking of running in the 12th Congressional District is backing Tim Burns instead. The wealthy businessman rolled out two campaign co-chairs Wednesday, among them Washington County Commissioner Diana Irey.

“As a County Commissioner,” Irey said in a statement, “I know what it takes to make tough decisions to balance our budget and keep taxes low. Tim shares my commitment to reign in federal spending and focus on real policies for job growth. I look forward to helping elect Tim as our next Congressman because he will represent our interest in Washington and not Nancy Pelosi’s liberal agenda.”

February 24, 2010 at 11:00 pm

--Dan Hirschhorn

Tags: Arlen Specter, Bryan Lentz, Joe Sestak, PA-12, PA-7, Tim Burns

comments

comments [0] | post a comment