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LEFTOVERS: Clinton on Jobgate, labor endorses, Dems on Boehner

Republicans are once again in a tizzy over the so-called Jobgate scandal.

The latest reason? While he was in Scranton campaigning for Joe Sestak, former President Bill Clinton seemed to deny that he ever tried to coax Sestak out of the Senate primary. As shown in a video from the local NBC affiliate, embedded at bottom, this happened while Clinton was stuck in a loud scrum of supporters, as a reporter shouted out questions.

“I didn’t try to get him out of the race,” Clinton said.

This is, of course, at odds with the official explanation the White House offered up in May when it tried to put the long-running controversy to rest. At the time, the White House said, and Sestak confirmed, the the Obama administration dispatched Clinton to offer the insurgent Democratic challenger an unpaid advisory role if he cleared the field for Sestak.

Republicans were sending around the video like candy Thursday, and they’ll surely look for any and every opportunity to breathe new life into this thing between now and Election Day. FoxNews.com couldn’t immediately reach Clinton’s team for clarification.

Anyway, Clinton very well may have been telling the truth, or at least the Clinton-esque style of it. The way Sestak told it, the prez never really tried that hard to get him out of the race anyway.

Meanwhile, surprise surprise, the state’s umbrella labor organization has endorsed the Democratic Party’s statewide ticket for November. The AFL-CIO announced its backing of Sestak for Senate and Dan Onorato for governor on Thursday. The labor group endorsed Sestak’s rival Arlen Specter in the primary, and went without an endorsement in the gubernatorial primary.

“Dan Onorato is clearly the most qualified candidate to be the next Governor of Pennsylvania,” AFL-CIO president Rick Bloomingdale said in a statement. “The people of Pennsylvania need a leader who has the ideas and experience to guide them through the tough economic times we currently face. That person is Dan Onorato.”

Sestak, for his part, said he “will do whatever it takes to find practical solutions that create jobs, and will focus on the real engine of our economy by fighting with organizations like the AFL-CIO for Pennsylvania’s working families.”

Leave it to Sestak to never go one day without using the phrase “working families.”

And with House Minority Leader John Boehner in Pennsylvania this week to raise money for seemingly every GOP candidate in the state, the state Democratic Party brought reporters onto a conference call to bash the always-tan Republican. The subject of their ire was his statement last week that the recent, so-called FMAP aid to state governments, which passed and proponents say prevented layoffs of teachers in Pennsylvania, was for “liberal special interests.” The party brought together some teachers to say, essentially, “who you calling a special interest?”

“The legislation President Obama signed into law is critical to keeping teachers in the classroom and resources available to students,” suburban Philadelphia teacher Wendy Coleman said in a statement later. “Pennsylvania needs elected leaders who understand the importance of teachers, firefighters and police officers, not someone beholden to Mr. Boehner, like the Republican candidates for Congress.”

One day we’d like to meet someone who actually prefers being called a “special interest.” Any takers?

August 12, 2010 at 5:27 pm

--Dan Hirschhorn

Tags: Bill Clinton, Dan Onorato, Democratic Party, Joe Sestak, John Boehner

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