White House Bracing for Specter Loss

I'm not happy about it.

CBS chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer is now saying that he has it on good authority that the White House is privately bracing for Arlen Specter to lose tomorrow.

Schieffer, to my knowledge, has not said this on national TV yet. But he made the claim in an interview with the local CBS affiliate in Philadelphia. "I have been told on background that the White House is preparing for a Specter loss here, and that the president doesn't want to be associated with that," Schieffer said.

I've also learned that Veep Joe Biden will not be doing any campaign events for Specter in the final stretch, though it's not immediately clear how significant this is. Last week, Biden said he'd be doing events for Specter "as needed."

But a Biden aide confirms for me that no campaign events are scheduled, even though Biden will be in Pennsylvania tonight speaking at his daughter's graduation.

The primary is, as Dan Rather says, tight as a tick, 42% Sestak 41% Specter.

The Pennsylvania Democratic Senate primary goes down to the wire with U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak taking 42 percent of likely primary voters to Sen. Arlen Specter's 41 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll conducted through Sunday night and released today.

With 16 percent undecided and 25 percent of those who do back a candidate saying they might change their mind, the race is too close to call.

Specter strikes me as a very dispiriting candidate for Democrats (just as he had formerly been a dispiriting candidate for us). Specter would lose in the general. Sestak has a much better chance of winning.

Can we get Rush Limbaugh to re-activate those Operation: Chaos agents -- Republicans who'd declared Democratic to vote for Hillary over the stronger Obama -- and get this alte kacher nominated so we can trounce him?

posted by Ace at 02:38 PM

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