LEFTOVERS: Sestak’s hit site, an Onorato video, Callahan raises cash with mayors

Election Day is nearing, and the campaign hit sites are proliferating.

The latest comes from Democrat Joe Sestak’s Senate campaign, which on Monday unveiled The Real Toomey For Senate to offer up its spin on GOP nominee Pat Toomey. The site is designed to look pretty darn similar to Toomey’s official campaign Web site, but as the Sestak campaign says, it’s been “enhanced with additional information about Congressman Toomey’s ACTUAL record and platform.”

That includes conservative Rick Santorum’s oft-rehashed quote that Toomey is “too conservative for Pennsylvania,” as well as a playful re-branding of Toomey’s campaign slogan. On Planet Sestak, “More Jobs, Less Government” has been transformed to “More Laissez, Less Fair.”

Get it?

Sestak’s campaign has also been banging the Social Security drum this week. He had a conference call Wednesday with some opponents of Toomey’s plan—call it privatization or don’t, whatever you prefer. And Thursday his campaign held a series of rallies across the state. Events hit the ground in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Scranton and Allentown.

“Given the fact that Social Security keeps over 700,000 Pennsylvanians out of poverty, this isn’t the kind of program you can just experiment with and hope it turns out alright.” Fulton Thorton, president of the PPL Retirees Lehigh Group said from the Allentown rally. “For many of us gathered here, this is our livelihood. We saw what happened to investments in the stock market over the last few years and we won’t allow Congressman Toomey to subject our benefits to a fickle system that could endanger our financial security. ”

Meanwhile, the folks at Democrat Dan Onorato’s gubernatorial campaign love—just love—putting out Web videos. It seems every time Onorato has a message he wants to hammer home, his travels to various news conferences across the state are quickly accompanied by a Web video.

His campaign’s latest hammers Republican Tom Corbett on the budget increases he’s requested as Attorney General, just as Onorato has been going around the state to argue that Corbett has no credibility to say he’ll slash spending. We saw Onorato in Philadelphia Wednesday, and that spending tour continued Thursday in Harrisburg.

You can check out the latest video at bottom.

And finally, some news from the money front. Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan, the Democratic candidate in the 15th Congressional District, is joining a couple of his fellow City CEOs for a fundraiser in Washington next week. We first learned about this when The Associated Press noted that Callahan would trek down to DC with small-town Alaska mayor Scott McAdams and Providence, R.I. Mayor David Cicilline. Senator Mark Begich of Alaska is headlining the event. The three mayors seeking House seats have formed a joint fundraising committee appropriately labeled Mayors Moving Forward.

“There are a group of mayors across the country who believe that part of the problem in Washington is that there aren’t enough former mayors in
office,” Callahan campaign manager Justin Schall told us, “people with experience getting things done and getting results and not letting politics grind everything to a complete halt.”

Speaking of Callahan, our friends at The Fix say he’s one of the Democratic Party’s best chances to steal some GOP-held House seats this year. Callahan’s bid to unseat Congressman Charlie Dent (R-15) is currently No. 7 on the pa2010.com Congressional Power Rankings.

The Fix writes: “For the past several election cycles, Democrats tried unsuccessfully to lure Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan into the race for this Allentown-area seat. He finally said yes this time around, and Democrats think his Bethlehem base and outsider profile give them a shot to upset Rep. Charlie Dent (R) in a district Obama carried by 13 points in 2008.”