Laura Vecsey's Blog
Laura Vecsey's Blog
Middle Ground
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The Specter camp’s messaging failure
Facing the ballot Tuesday and the choice between Arlen Specter or Joe Sestak for Senate, I found myself walking back events of the past year in order to see if there was a single, critical and deciding issue upon which to make a decision.
This question presumes that both candidates were equally acceptable or annoying and a tie-breaker was necessary.
But it struck me that the critical mistake made by the Specter campaign was the failure to hone in on the one and only message that could have better solidified the votes of undecided Democrats: Specter’s stimulus vote.
Why go after Joe Sestak and his Navy dismissal when Specter’s lone argument for securing primary votes should have avoided Sestak entirely?
The essential issue for why Specter deserved Democratic primary voters’ support rested solely on the stimulus vote, which not only preceded the party-switch, but made the switch justifiable—for both policy and political reasons.
If you think the stimulus saved the economy, or at least stalled the slide into the abyss, then Specter deserved credit for casting the vote.
What other question did Specter’s camp need to ask Democrats, especially since that was the single issue Sestak could not attack?
Somehow, however, Sestak owned the moral high ground on being a good Democrat—a claim Specter’s campaign mistakenly failed to seize. The heavyweight support from party bigwigs almost seemed to obscure the original reason why Specter was in the political trouble he found himself in after his bipartisan kiss of death.
May 18, 2010 at 1:45 pm
Tags: Arlen Specter, Joe Sestak
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E-mail: lvecsey@pa2010.com
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Bio: Laura Vecsey is a political reporter for the Harrisburg Patriot-News.
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MoZeu
May 18th, 2010
I totally agree. Finally someone said it. I am really surprised Specter failed to capitalize on this. It was the main reason I ALMOST voted for him. But at the end of the day, I think he’s lost too much credibility to even be the clear better candidate in the general, so I went with Sestak, whom I don’t particularly like . . . but there you have it.
Hubris
May 18th, 2010
He didn’t raise the stimulus because he was looking ahead to November, when his stimulus vote might hurt him. Hubris, in that he failed to take Sestak’s challenge seriously.
Judy C.
Jun 1st, 2010
What all these pundits continually overlook in their analyzation of Specter’s loss is this fact: Rank and file Dems in PA are tired of the state & DC party elite “picking” who they want to run for various offices and then squeezing good people out of the democratic process by using veiled threats & dangling plum jobs in their faces. Specter deserved to lose. It’s time to get rid of ALL the incumbents who are not following the wishes of their constituents.
Matt M.
Jun 7th, 2010
Very, very well said. I found myself making the exact same pitch to undecideds in the run-up to the primary, and simultaneously wondering why the campaign wasn’t making more capital out of it. That vote was his biggest selling point, but it got lost somewhere.
I guess at this point it’s just a lesson in political marketing, but it’s an interesting discussion point. Note for future use!
Dem Guy
Jun 11th, 2010
You know, I never really thought of that. I was a Sestak guy through and through, for many reasons including Specter’s horrendous track record with SCOTUS and appeals court judges.
But that would have been a more compelling argument to make, where he wouldn’t have needed to go negative. The risk with going negative is always that you raise your opponents name ID, and not all of it will be negative, especially when you’re pointing out that your opponent is a vet.
bill healy
Jun 19th, 2010
How does someone who openly admitted that the only reason he switched from being a 45 year republican,to being a democrat was solely so he could not win reelection as a republican. No one could make the argument that he was a good democrat because he never was. Good riddance to bad rubbish.