Later Months
Around July, both Sestak and Toomey started blaming each other for the federal budget deficits that had become a national spotlight amid the troubled economy. Toomey portrayed Sestak as lacking "fiscal discipline" and supporting budget earmarks for pet projects, while Sestak said Toomey supported President George W. Bush's deficit spending and damaged the economy by helping deregulate Wall Street. On July 15, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Sestak has received at least $119,650 in campaign contributions from employees of companies that received federal earmarks he had steered to the state since 2008. Although a common practice among political candidates, Sestak had advocated banning earmarks in favor of a competitive grant program, and vowed on his website to return any contributions from organizations or individuals who "has made a request for an appropriations project". In response to the story, Toomey called on Sestak to return those contributions, which he did not respond to. However, Sestak said he routinely returned money from employees of such companies, but sometimes had difficult tracking donations from low-level employees. Toomey vowed never to seek earmarks if elected, while Sestak said although he favors ending the practice, he would continue advocating for them as long as earmarks continued to exist.
While Sestak presented economists who agreed with his positions, the conservative non-profit Citizens Against Government Waste gave him a zero rating on spending issues based on a review of 120 of his votes in Congress. Toomey challenged Sestak to sign a "No Pork? pledge offered by the organization. In turn, Sestak criticized Toomey for accepting campaign contributions from Club for Growth, a group that Toomey used to spearhead and which has received criticism from such prominent Republicans as Senator Orrin Hatch, Senator John McCain and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.
On August 2, moderate Republican Senator Susan Collins, who was once condemned by Toomey's Club for Growth for her support of the stimulus package, headlined a $1,000-a-plate luncheon for Toomey's campaign at Philadelphia's Union League. The Philadelphia Inquirer said Collins' support indicated Toomey was finding success in seeking moderate support for his candidacy. The newspaper noted other apparent efforts to draw in centrists, including Toomey's support for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who many conservatives opposed, and the fact that throughout the campaign Toomey had rarely brought up social issues like gay rights and abortion, for which he holds right-wing conservative views. Sestak's campaign claimed those gestures only sought to conceal an extremely conservative voting record.
Both candidates have criticized each other's ideology and have referred to each other as extreme. Toomey has heavily criticized Sestak for his support of Obama's stimulus, cap and trade, and health care reform. Sestak has not only supported these measures, but he has gone on record saying all of these measures didn't go far enough. Sestak criticized Toomey by calling him "Pennsylvania's most right-wing congressman". Sestak has also criticized Toomey for working on Wall Street and for supporting the elimination of corporate taxes.
Toomey has been endorsed by former longtime Democratic Mayor of Harrisburg Stephen Reed, former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, United States Chamber of Commerce, NRA, U.S. Senator Scott Brown and former Governor Sarah Palin. Newspaper endorsements include the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, The Intelligencer, The Tribune-Democrat and the Bucks County Courier Times.
Sestak has been endorsed by independent NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Republican U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel. Sestak has also been endorsed by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Erie Times-News, The Citizens' Voice, The Patriot-News, the Observer-Reporter, and The Huffington Post.
Republican Pat Toomey defeated his Democratic opponent Joe Sestak on election day. The Associated Press called the race for Toomey shortly after midnight.
Read more about this topic: United States Senate Election In Pennsylvania, 2010, General Election, Campaign
Famous quotes containing the word months:
“Six months at most after they get here, these young people—and they are mostly young who come—have lost every idea they had, except flirtation and temperature.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
“What a vast fraternity it is,—that of ‘Hearts that Ache.’ For the last three months it has seemed to me as though all society were coming to me, to drop its mask for a moment and initiate me into the mystery. How we do suffer! And we go on laughing; for, as a practical joke at our expense, life is a success.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)