Toomey for Senate

by  John Gizzi

06/30/2010

PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- GOP Rep. Pat Toomey said his Pennsylvania Senate race opponent Democrat Rep. Joe Sestak was "to the left of Obama" and that the controversy surrounding an administration job offer to Sestak if he quit the Senate primary has not gone away.

Five weeks after Sestak made headlines by defeating Sen. Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania’s Democratic primary followed by the controversy over whether he was offered an administration position to abandon his challenge to Specter, the fall contest between Sestak is fast shaping up as the showcase right vs. left Senate race of 2010.

“That’s a pretty accurate description,” Toomey told HUMAN EVENTS in a wide-ranging interview on Saturday, characterizing opponent Sestak as “not only to the left of Arlen Specter to the left of Barack Obama.”
In the interview before he addressed a cheering Eagle Forum event at the Aronomink Golf Club Saturday night, former three-term Rep. Toomey left little doubt he would run a strong campaign contrasting his own solidly conservative record in Congress (lifetime American Conservative Union rating: 97%) with that of Sestak, whom he noted “has a 100% rating from NARAL [the National Abortion Rights Action League], an ‘F’ from the National Rifle Association and votes 100% of the time with Nancy Pelosi.”

In addition, the GOP Senate nominee, who surprised many conservatives last year by saying he would have voted to confirm Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, addressed the President’s nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court.  While stopping short of voicing opposition to Kagan, Toomey said he was “bothered” by reports of the nominee’s hostility to the ROTC while dean of Harvard Law School and that he would be studying her record closely.

Does “Job-Gate” Have Legs?

In two days of talking with political players in the Philadelphia area, I found that most of them felt the furor over whether the Obama White House had offered Sestak a federal post to abandon the primary against Specter had faded and would not be much of an issue in the general.

“Whatever the truth about the administration’s claim [that Sestak was offered a non-paying post on the Federal Advisory Intelligence Board and thus no law was broken], people seem to think it’s ‘politics as usual’ and have moved on,” said Philadelphia “superlawyer” James Baumbach, who has run campaigns for the late Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo and the late Democratic Gov. Bob Casey. “But hey, Toomey has raised more than $8 million as of the primary in May [more than any non-incumbent Senate candidate in the U.S.]. He might be able to revive it as an issue.”

In the interview, Toomey said, “I don’t think this job controversy has completely gone away.  There is a feeling among folks I have talked to that the administration was not fully forthcoming in the explanation, and that there is an improbability that someone could be offered a non-paying job—which would have been illegal for him to accept while serving in Congress—and drop out of a Senate race.”

As to whether he supports the efforts of Rep. Darrell Issa (R.-Calif.) to pursue a full-blown investigation of “job-gate,” Toomey said: “I’ll leave that to others.”

The conservative hopeful also spelled out the issues on which he plans to paint Sestak as “to the left of Obama:”  the Democrat’s calls for an even-larger stimulus package (“He wanted a trillion-dollar stimulus”), a government bailout for people who were unable to pay mortgages, and his support for a measure by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D.-Ohio) to make it legal for states to ban private health coverage.

“He’s on the left fringe,” said Toomey, who added that he would appeal to voters on his traditional agenda of smaller government, reform of what he called the “egregious” tax code, repealing healthcare, lowering the capital-gains tax, and abolishing the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).

In a year when some Republicans have come under fire from the right for campaigning as less-than-true-blue conservatives, Toomey’s strategy of painting the differences between himself and Sestak in bold colors has so far gotten good reviews from GOP activists in the Keystone State.

David Marston, former U.S. Attorney and 1978 GOP gubernatorial candidate, told HUMAN EVENTS: “This is the right strategy. Toomey is much more in tune with Pennsylvania voters this year with his message of less government, lower taxes and more freedom.  Even in a state where Democrats have a strong voter registration edge over Republicans, Sestak’s far-left liberalism is out of the mainstream.”

“The more voters get to know Pat, the more they like him,” said small businessman and civic leader Kevin Kelly, leader of the “loyal opposition” faction in the Philadelphia GOP that is currently battling for control with its “Old Guard.” “And the more they get to know Joe Sestak’s record, the more they will like Pat.”