VodVarka-
Contact me at helpvodvarka@diano.com and I’ll provide you with access to an up-to-date statewide voter database for the next week to help you with your challenge.
If your signatures are just in your county, I can give you access to just your county, or the raw datafile for the county.

I’ll be more than happy to help you in this regard.

don’t worry Dave, I’m sure the republican running in the Democratic primary,Arlen Specter, is falling all over himself to help Vod Varka.

Or just asking Dave to do it. Less fingerprints, you know.

Difficult for me to understand why Sestak believes that challenging Vodvarka’s petitions is more important than becoming known to the voters. Isn’t Sestak still running at approximately 50% unknown by voters? Wouldn’t the campaign’s time and resources be better spent actually campaigning?

Lee-

good point. if sestak is worried about this guy, them im not sure what that says for his candidacy.

Lee – Why would you think this is an either-or situation? Seems to me the campaign can do (or should do) do both. Assuming that Vodvarka was planted by Specter to drain votes from Sestak, Sestak should certainly do whatever it takes to rid the ballot of this distraction.

It still amazes me that no reporter in the state has bothered to find out whether or not Specter in involved in putting Vodvarka on the ballot.

Anonymous-

If Sestak was doing some advertising to introduce himself to the half of the voters who say they don’t know enough about him, I’d believe that he could do both at the same time. He’s not; so I don’t.

As I’ve said often, Sestak had a gold mine awaiting him, composed of those unknowns and the majority of voters who didn’t believe that Specter deserved re-election. Unfortunately, he has squandered that opportunity for some unfathomable reason while Specter’s numbers and support have improved but Sestak’s have not. And Sestak still hasn’t introduced himself.

Vodvarka is small peanuts compared to that vein of gold that Sestak continues to ignore.

Levan: And yet precious time continues to elapse, and no advertisements are on the horizon. Sestak lags 20% behind his primary opponent, but has yet to launch any advertisements. It is contrary to logic – unless Representative Sestak is not truly committed to victory, and has arcane motives. “For some unfathomable reason” indeed…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1xLQucOsXU

Bruce and Anonymous-
I spoke to VodVarka and his son who’s running his campaign. I detect no Specter involvement at all. It really seems to be a father and son operation.

I spoke with them at length about the status of the challenge, which version of the voter file they were using, etc. Things I’m VERY familiar with having dealt with voter registration files directly for years.

As far as I can tell, VodVarka is just a regular guy out to prove that a regular guy can get on the ballot and have an equal say with the big money candidates.

If this were a Specter operation, he’d have a lot more resources.

Lee-
I think Sestak is worried that he’s barely more known than VodVarka. If VodVarka gets into the May televised debate with Specter and Sestak, VodVarka gets 1/3 the time, equal to Sestak.
Frankly, Sestak’s afraid of sharing the stage and having to spend time responding to two opponents.
VodVarka’s going to appeal to the blue collar guys a lot more than a stuffed-shirt like Sestak.

David-

Sestak shouldn’t be responding to anyone. He should be defining himself and running a positive campaign — what there is left of it. Voters already are negative on Arlen and Vodvarka is an unknown. Why would Sestak want to give the latter his attention? Makes no sense to me, unless he’s playing for second place. Does he know that there’s only one senator to be elected?

As you can tell, Sestak’s suicidal stealth strategy has become a source of amusement to me.

Mr. Diano: Hopefully, Representative Sestak will opt to squander the $5 million on advertisements in a vain effort to defeat his esteemed primary opponent! The result will be an optimal outcome: Sestak will be annihilated on primary election day, and stripped of what little political influence he has remaining; and he will exhaust his resources, which will render him powerless when the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) comes calling. He could frivol away the $5 million on ineffectual advertisements, or conserve his resources in anticipation of the inevitable legal battle that lies ahead. Waging a costly ad campaign will ensure his total ruination – so I’m all for it.

Mr. Diano: Of course, alternatively, he could reach an accommodation with law enforcement authorities in question, and simply furnish them with vitally important info on a certain labor racketeer. He could then exit the ill-starred campaign and seek to revive his bid in a subsequent year. Decisions, decisions…

Lee-
Sestak is defining himself as someone who picks on the little guy.

I remember from 2006 when Joe’s name recognition was low. He was know as Joe Sleestak, The Admiral guy and the guy with the funny/weird last name.

Joe VodVarka will steal votes from all those “vote for Joe”, “Go, Joe, Go”, and “Run Joe Run” slogans.

Maybe Sestak has a lot of “Vote for Joe” buttons that are going to be wasted if there are two Joe’s in the race.

VodVarka’s a lot more genuine that Sestak. He’s sort of like a non-douche version of Joe the Plumber.

Anyway, I’m glad you are amused and have come around to realizing that Sestak is just not competent enough for a statewide campaign.

I agree with Lee Levan, Sestak has squandered a golden opportunity to court Dem voters that don’t know him in NEPA, and Pittsburgh that don’t know him but know they don’t like Specter.

Sestak has plenty of cash on hand to start running a television ad campaign. He has failed to do so. Sestak has had plenty of time to barn storm the 67 counties. He has failed to do so. Instead he has wasted his time, the most valuable asset a candidate has it has disposal other than money, by challenging the lowly Vodvarka’s petition signatures. Is this how Joe Sestak would like to introduce himself to the voters of Pennsylvania that had not previously known about him? The man has very little political intellect.

TB: The question you and others should be posing is WHY Representaive Sestak has opted not to commit the necessary resources to advertisements, and WHY he has refrained from campaigning throughout the state. It is unlikely that a Harvard alum is entirely lacking in “political intellect.” No, Sestak has ulterior motives – just as I have claimed all along.

It seems to me that Sestak’s campaign peaked last summer when he toured the state and finally announced. His campaign hasn’t gained any traction, key staffers left, no prominent endorsements, attacking VodVarka, and he lacks name recognition.

Maybe he should just leave the race now to avoid an embarassing lose later.

Just for the record HateSestak, plenty of morons get in to and graduate from Harvard.

TB: Point taken.

April 4, 2010 – mere weeks before the Democratic primary. Representative Sestak continues to lag 20% behind the venerable Senator Specter. And yet Sestak is more reticent, more restrained, more close-mouthed than ever before. No advertisements, no frequent campaign stops. It is though Sestak for Senate is in abeyance. The ordinarily short-tempered, choleric Sestak is shadow of his former self.

An accommodation between Representative Sestak and the federal authorities (one that will mark the end of Sestak for Senate, safeguard Sestak from criminal prosecution, and seal the fate of a nefarious labor racketeer) is possibly on the horizon. Or so Representative Sestak hopes.

More than a source of amusement; a source of wonderment. Sestak-obviously losing badly, continues his ineffective courting of Democratic Party regulars. The question is why is he still running? Does he think that a miracle will occur and he will win? Or is he so naive that he thinks that he is running for the future. I don’t think he is naive;arrogant and full of contempt for the electorate and the people he is courting. What is his end-game?

How much money is Sestak spending to challenge a little guy using his social security checks to fund his campaign?

VodVardka got about 2,600 signatures, and Sestak’s campaign is challenging about 1,150 (some of the challenges are not only frivolous, but wrong and clear attempts to fish). In some cases, they claim the person is not even registered, but a quick search shows they are, at the address listed on the petition. There are a lot of these.

Sestak’s team put a lot of man hours into this, which shows how afraid he is of VodVardka.

There are a lot of subjective challenges regarding how legible a signature is or whether adjacent lines are in the same handwriting. To some extent, this will be luck-of-the-draw based on the Judge they get and whether he penalizes team Sestak for the MANY bad-faith representations in the challenges.

Even if Sestak prevails on technicalities, he will have lost his “argument” about standing up for the little guy. Sestak loves to go around saying: “No one should be told to shut up and sit down.” But, that’s exactly what he’s doing here.

If I were Specter and Sestak knocks out VodVardka, I would spend $1 million of my campaign showing VodVardka in ads to discuss how Sestak screwed him and is not for the little guy.

I can only hope Specter takes your advice, Dave. Especially once the news of how Specter recruited and aided Vod Varka comes out.

Bruce-
I’ve talked to the VodVardka’s. They are getting ZERO help from Specter’s people. VodVardka’s son is personally running around town tracking down petitioners for the challenges. I wish Specter’s team would lend them some resources. Sure, Specter’s team is either amused or rooting for VodVardka, but lifting a finger with some volunteers would be more useful.

Right now, it’s a total David vs Goliath story. They’ve got every disadvantage possible: no money, no resources. They can’t afford the $60,000 for statewide access to VoteBuilder that Sestak is using. They’ve got to rely on the raw (and somewhat cryptic) data files from the state. VodVardka’s son has done a truly amazing and impressive job against many of the bogus challenges in Sestak’s filings.

It’s VERY difficult, especially for a non-programmer, to track this stuff done. The kid’s put in at least 100 hours fighting this. I looked up a few (using my own set of programming tools) and it wasn’t easy.

Bruce, before you jump to your conspiracy theories, you should spend at least some time talking to original sources. Even though I don’t publicly list all my sources, I do get people with direct knowledge of events or the principle players. When practical, I share the names of the sources confidentially with Dan to back up my claims.

Dave, I truly want to believe your unbiased and totally fact-based reporting. Really, I do. So why not share how a “little guy” who’s alledgedly uninvolved and inexperienced, goes out and gets 2,600 signatures on petitions and puts up a professional website seemingly overnight? And just happens to be named “Joe”? Sorry, can’t buy into the he’s-just-a-little-guy fable. My money is on finding Specter operatives setting the whole thing up – it’s the way that paranoid Republicans play the game.

No, Joe, No: That is the burning question. What is the ultimate aim of the belleagured Representative Sestak? It is now April 5, 2010. No advertisements have been launched by the Sestak campaign, which still lags 20% or more behind in public opinion polls. No bold policy pronouncements, no adverse criticisms of Senator Specter. Not what one would expect from a legitimate candidate for the U.S. Senate at this juncture. But Representative Sestak is not a legitimate candidate; he is a desperate man, employing an increasingly desperate strategy aimed at keeping the feds at bay.

That’s so clever “hatesestak” answering yourself, guess you found someone to agree with you.

Sestak will come in third. The more he fights the little guy, JOE VODVARKA, the more votes he loses.

jay-

You’re a little beyond the earth’s atmosphere without oxygen to reach that conclusion. If you were to say that Sestak challenging VodVarka makes it more likely that he’ll finish closer to VodVarka than to Specter, you may have a point.

Healy: Actually, my insipid friend, quite a few people share my sentiments – the PA electorate, for example. And, of course, law enforcement officials in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere…

Aren’t you the least bit embarassed to still be pushing this garbage? Do you think anybody takes the stuff you post here seriously anymore? Even Diano has stopped echoing this discredited crap.