1) National Democrats going all-in for McGinty could backfire:
Indeed, the infighting here threatens to do significant harm to Democrats’ hopes in the general election in Pennsylvania, a state that’s essentially a must-win for the party’s hopes of wresting the Senate from Republicans.
2) Joe Sestak dispels any thought that he might be “independent” and vote differently than he did when he was in Congress and voting with the Democratic establishment 97% of the time:
"When I was in the House, I didn’t usually let them know until the last day [how I was going to vote]," he said. "But then again, look at my voting record. Oh, my gosh! 100 percent voting record with AFL-CIO!"
"I don’t think people need to worry about how I stand," he added.
In case you missed it, here’s more from Politico,
There’s no ideological civil war underway here. No, this is all personal…
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…[T]he whole D.C. Democratic gang is all-in for Sestak’s main Democratic rival, Katie McGinty – from Barack Obama and Joe Biden to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.). More than that, the national party is dropping more than $1 million to push McGinty past Sestak – a rare move by Democrats in a Senate primary that reflects their level of disdain for him.
Indeed, the infighting here threatens to do significant harm to Democrats’ hopes in the general election in Pennsylvania, a state that’s essentially a must-win for the party’s hopes of wresting the Senate from Republicans.
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Sestak, 64, won’t name names, but he describes an effort to squeeze him out that started more than a year ago. According to several people familiar with the events, the DSCC – chaired by Sen. Jon Tester of Montana and steered by Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York – began moving away from Sestak early in 2015 after he resisted hiring a party-approved campaign manager. Democrats tried to recruit a half-dozen candidates to run for the seat, eventually settling on McGinty, a longtime political operative and former chief of staff to Gov. Tom Wolf with a background in the clean energy sector.
The intervention on her behalf is the kind of activity from Washington that makes a tea party activist’s head explode: The DSCC is now running $425,000 worth of ads in Pennsylvania on McGinty’s behalf, money that could be used in the general election. It plans to spend an additional $1.1 million next week.
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Still, these days, national Democrats tend to keep their critiques of Sestak to themselves, knowing he could well end up their nominee. Reid has called Sestak "unproductive" and repeatedly predicted McGinty will win. But not this week.
"I’ve committed not to saying anything publicly," Reid said in an interview, referring a reporter to Tester. "At least not to the press."
When Tester is asked about the possibility of alienating Sestak, he replies: "I’m really just focused on the positive."
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"When I was in the House, I didn’t usually let them know until the last day [how I was going to vote]," he said. "But then again, look at my voting record. Oh, my gosh! 100 percent voting record with AFL-CIO!"
"I don’t think people need to worry about how I stand," he added.
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Over a late lunch in D.C. in February near Capitol Hill, McGinty lingers over a cheese plate, remarking how impressed she is with the neighborhood’s transformation. With a thick Philly accent, she speaks in crisp sound bites that would make a Democratic consultant proud.
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As Sestak speaks, he sometimes betrays why Democrats are so wary about his candidacy: He’s passionate but occasionally loses his train of thought. He is decidedly not "on message." He makes constant references to his book, his job teaching ethical leadership at universities – and cites his own quotes as if everyone remembers them.
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