If Issa’s waiting for Sestak to give truthful answers… he’s got a LONG wait.

“All I ask for is truthful answers,” Issa said. “If they had given us truthful answers on day one, this story would have died on day two.”

–

If anyone believes that, I have some land in Florida to sell them.

“All I ask for is truthful answers,” Issa said. “If they had given us truthful answers on day one, this story would have died on day two.”

Which is why this thing will continue on, and on, and on until Sestak finally says “we threw it out there because we were desperate to make something stick, there wasn’t any substance to it, mea culpa.” Which will never happen.

If he’s lucky, the news cycles will get bored with it, and it’ll die a natural death. If not, it’ll snowball. Summer is the political ticker’s dead season, so that’ll probably be the way it goes, unless something new is unearthed.

[...] here fort the complete  complete article by Dan Hirschhorn on [...]

Dem guy, the issue is not so much the WH communicating with candidates about “job prospects,” but why certain campaigns used these communications to gain headlines and sympathy, and then expect people not to call them out to come clean so the entire issue can be taken out with the rest of the garbage where it belongs.

Issa is obviously looking to stir up trouble, but he’s not the only culprit here. If the WH really is offering challengers real “jobs” to get out of races, then there’s some real substance to these allegations, but that really doesn’t seem to be the case.

Dem Guy-
I agree that Issa is not interested in truthful answers, so much as damaging ones. However, I don’t think he’s going to get either.

Matt M.-
My guess is there were both “paid” and “unpaid” offers discusses in a back-and-forth negotiation, but now both parties are committing the “lie of omission” by referring to only the unpaid offers.

Eeek. The optimist in me would like to think that the WH wouldn’t dane to actually offer any candidate a paying job to exit a primary.

But then again…Mr. Smith goes to Washington was just a movie, so I suppose anything is possible. Hopefully not this.

I am likely being naive, but the story coming out of the White House makes the most sense to me. I don’t think there’s anything underneath the ‘official’ story that needs to be ferreted out.

Think about it. National Democrats were clearly worried about losing Sestak’s Congressional seat (and still are). They saw keeping Sestak in his seat as one of the primary motivations for getting him out of the Senate race. Also, giving a pol some token position that makes them seem more important is pretty typical. It sounds silly, but think of all the brouh-ha-ha surrounding having Hillary Clinton’s name put in to nomination at the DNC. Ultimately, it accomplished nothing. But it was paying homage to Hillary. In the same sense, offering Sestak an unpaid advisory position was paying him some respect.

It would make NO sense to give Sestak a job like SecNav, if for no other reason than he would have to resign his Congressional seat — defeating the whole purpose of getting him out. The only people that ever made the “Sestak can’t beat Toomey” argument were Rendell and TJ Rooney, not the White House. So they likely had no electability problem with Sestak. They owed Specter, and wanted to keep Sestak in PA-07.

Occam’s Razor…

Also Matt M.

Can we please move past the point where we are meta-campaigning? I care more about Joe Sestak’s thoughts on the Marcellus Shale and Pat Toomey’s thoughts on oil deregulation than I care about why Joe Sestak said the White House offered him a job.

There’s a simple answer to it too. Sestak said it to score points as an ‘outsider’, and now doesn’t want to talk about something particularly embarrassing — especially something where the campaign isn’t controlling the message.

Dem Guy-
Sestak was never eligible for SecNav, because you have to 5 years off of active duty first.
It also makes no sense that there were a series of offers over June and July 2009, and ALL of them were “unpaid”. It seems far more likely that a series of offers and counter-offers were made.
Of course, if Sestak were revealed to have made a counter-offer or request, that would blow away his carefully crafted “honest” and “outsider” image.
What is funny is when Sestak talks badly about people living in Washington and around the beltway. That’s where Sestak has lived, bought a house with his wife, and raised his daughter, lo these many years.

Dem Guy:

I agree with your first post, provided nothing offered was “for-pay.” The WH’s explanation makes perfect sense.

I also agree that Sestak said what he said to score points, but by making a mountain out of a hill of beans, he’s embarrassed the WH and has singlehandedly made his integrity an issue. This was all his doing.

Yes, substance is important, but we’re electing more than just policy pushers.

Issa has a penchant for calling press conferences, getting attention and doing nothing.
He is worse than hot air, he is no air at all, go home Issa and pay more attention to your district

David –

Didn’t know that about SecNav. But even if there were offers and counter-offers, IMO it ONLY makes sense if they were unpaid. (Plus, if Rich Sestak was the one doing the talking, you can be sure he was making counter offers).

This offer is the WH not wanting Sestak to leave his seat, and not wanting a primary to Specter, 50%/50%. So facilitating Sestak leaving his seat (by offering him a PAID position in the administration) would be shooting themselves in the foot.

Dem Guy-
If Sestak was going to leave his seat by running, then offering him a paid position was still worth it to avoid an expensive primary (and leave more money/resources around to help Lentz win the seat).

This is the best the state party could do for a keynote speaker? I thought Dick Morris as the keynote at the last dinner was bad enough, now this. What next? Sarah Palin!?

Mr. Diano – the primary is over, would you seriously prefer Pat Toomey took office over Joe Sestak?

Of course, I’m working under the assumption that you are a Democrat and share at least some values from the Democratic Party.

Isaac-
Actually I prefer to have a genuine progressive and a real Democrat. Unfortunately, the Democrat party failed to field such a candidate this year. I don’t believe that Sestak actually shares any values with the Democratic party (certainly not minimum wage, anti-war, women’s rights, etc.). Instead, he appears to vote with the Dems (for now) to get elected and further his own interests. There is NO DOUBT in my mind that Sestak would vote with the GOP if it was in his overall interests.

However, I’ve heard there is a Green party candidate.

Considering the BP oil spill and drilling in PA, the environment is an important voting issue this election, especially for progressives.

I think his voting record speaks for itself. I don’t care about what Joe Sestak tells wife or therapist, I care about how he votes, and, in all practicality, how his votes line up against his opponents.

There is a Green candidate – a physician’s assistant named Mel Packer. There’s also a Libertarian and an Independent American candidate. I’d never heard of them until just now when I found an obscure website. I think I’d rather not throw my vote away.

Wait… did you seriously think Specter was a more progressive candidate than Sestak? I like both of them, but I liked Specter for his old school moderateness.

Actually, Isaac, there are no 3rd party candidates yet. They all have a pretty steep hurdle to clear by August in getting the required number of legit signatures on their nominating petitions. Last I heard for the Green Party, that number was something like 19,000 – which is do-able, but not real likely. Especially since any 3rd party candidate that does file will likely face a challenge from one (and possibly both) of the candidates already on the ballot.