Joe Sestak defeats Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania Democratic Senate primary

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Rep. Joe Sestak, a two-term Congressman and retired Navy Admiral, has won the Democratic primary for the Pennsylvania Senate race. He defeated Arlen Specter, who has represented Pennsylvania in the Senate for nearly 30 years. The AP called the election just bef0re 10:15 pm.

Specter switched sides from the Republican to the Democratic Party at the start of 2009. He sacrificed his seniority atop powerful bodies like the Senate Judiciary Committee in order to increase his shot at re-election – a curious gamble for an 80-year-old cancer survivor whose legacy in the Senate should have been set in stone by now.

And in losing to Sestak, he must understand that Pennsylvanians have rejected his quest for re-election at all costs, and that Democrats are not buying the idea that only a seasoned candidate could win a state-wide race.

I’ve long blamed Arlen Specter’s change of allegiance with putting the Democrats on the wrong footing headed into the heavy legislating of our current Congress. Specter created the illusion that President Obama had a filibuster-proof majority. But really, he didn’t – Senators like Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson were never certain votes for health care reform. If the Democrats had acted more like they had 56 likely votes from the get-go, rather than imagining they might actually have 60, they would have embarked on a more realistic legislative strategy that would not have subjected the country to circuses like the ‘Cornhusker Kickback’ which had as much to do with the public souring against health care reform as any other factor.

So in that sense, I’m happy to see him sunning down in the Senate – the rebuke of his efforts to re-brand himself as a Democrat (actually, re-re-brand himself when you consider that he was a Democrat in the 1960s) should be a reminder to Senate Democrats that there’s no such thing as an easy legislative victory.

Sestak will now need to prove himself against Pat Toomey, the former Congressman and ex-Club for Growth President who has been furiously building support across the Keystone State since early 2009. While the Congressman polls well, it will be a serious endeavor to build an organization that can lead him to victory.

However, the question must be asked: are we seeing signs that the Republican base isn’t as powerful in some places as the GOP might hope? Weather was poor, but Democrats turned out in force to send Sestak to seek the Senate seat rather than the moderate Specter.

More than that, Mark Critz, the former chief aide to the recently deceased Jack Murtha, appears to be giving a good drubbing to his Republican opponent in Pennsylvania’s 12th District. Could it be that Pennsylvania has become a lot less purple than Toomey and the GOP have hoped?