Volunteer for Joe Sestak
Contribute to Joe Sestak
In 1998 and 1999, I spent eight months living in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, and what now is the Pennsylvania 7th congressional district. Living just four miles outside the district now, I have kept close ties to the area, which I have visited over one hundred times in the last seven years. These personal ties alone give me great pleasure to announce that
Vice-Admiral Joseph Sestak has been added to the netroots ActBlue page.
As I noted yesterday, the Pennsylvania 7th is the eight most Democratic district in the nation held by a Republican. It currently sports a partisan voting index of +3.6% Democratic, with the trend lines pointed firmly in our direction. In 2004, with only $25K and 90 days to campaign, Paul Scholes received 41.4% of the vote here. And that was in a Republican year, not a year when Democrats hold double digit leads in congressional generic ballots. Yet, despite all of this,
the NRCC does not list the PA-07 as one of their top twenty-one defenses. I think it is time for that to change, and to add to the ever growing list of seats they need to be very concerned about.
Of course, there is almost no way to talk about this district and not mention that it is currently represented by just about the craziest person in all of southeast Pennsylvania, Curt Weldon. This is a man who
attended, spoke at, and organized a "coronation" for Sun Myung Moon as "humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent." Of course, Weldon denied everything, until more and ore evidence appeared proving that he spoke at and organized the event. This is the same man
who decided to play politics with Joe Sestak's four-year old, cancer stricken daughter. This is the same man deep in the bowels of "Able Danger." And how, exactly, did Curt Weldon's own daughter move from being a special education teacher to starting a foreign relations consulting firm?
Read more about this here.
But this isn't just about how winnable the district is, or how crazy Curt Weldon is. Here is
a quote from Joe Sestak's website that I particularly like:
One of the primary reasons I entered this election is that I believe invading Iraq was not the right decision. In between my visits to Afghanistan, I led a navy Carrier Battle Group that flew air strikes over Afghanistan into the Persian Gulf, and carried out combat flights over Iraq in preparation for the war. It was obvious that Iraq was not a threat.(...)
The choice that citizens of this great country have is not an unpatriotic one. If my 31 years in the military taught me anything, it was that we serve in this all-volunteer military to defend Americans' freedom to think as they please, and to say what they think, even if they disagree with their leaders. A democracy is based on freedom of expression, and those who join the military do so to fight, if necessary, the wars which defend that freedom--hoping that our use will be to a wise end.(...)
I firmly believe in a planned end to our military engagement in Iraq within the next year as the primary catalyst for change in Iraq. This timeline should only be extended if our military experts deem that a few more months are necessary in order to safely execute a complete withdrawal. I understand the Vietnam-like arguments that military disengagement may mean dominoes will fall, resulting in more regional strife and the further waning of U.S. credibility and power. But I counter those assertions with the real likelihood of a prolonged occupation with rising death, injury and cost for an unknown number of years. It will be an occupation that will continue to have goals that are ever changing as they remain elusive. The result will be continued loss of U.S. military and diplomatic international credibility.
The reality-based community has a candidate. Joe Sestak is a fighting Dem who can win this race, and knock off a long-term Republican who clearly has nothing to do with the reality-based community. With your help, we can quickly turn this race into a very problematic pressure point for Republicans, forcing them into an extreme defense mode in the Philadelphia region. In 2004, the NRCC alone spent $5 million in the Philadelphia media market to Swift Boat Lois Murphy and Ginny Schrader. How much money can they spend to try and hold three seats?
They only have $19.7 million in the bank. Considering that we have put a lot more seats in play this time, either they will be forced to blow almost half of that in the Philadelphia media market alone, or they will have to pull back on their 2004 efforts. Any pullback could easily mean that all three suburban Philadelphia seats, the 6th, the 7th and the 8th, will all flip to Democrats not to mention the impact on the Senate and Governor's races).
This is a huge strategic pressure point, a winnable race, a solid, reality-based fighting Dem, and a crazy, quite possibly corrupt Republican incumbent. This is a race worth targeting.
Support Joe Sestak today.
Volunteer
Contribute
