The ad by the Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI) and the barrage of negative coverage of Joe Sestak’s record on Israel and his frothy praise for CAIR seem to have struck a nerve. In a hastily arranged presser in Philadelphia, the Sestak camp dragged out four left-leaning Jewish supporters to vouch for him. One, Howard Langer, has already vouched for Sestak with his wallet, by giving him $9,200 since 2008. A second doesn’t even live in Pennsylvania. Another is from the Jewish Social Policy Action Network, which a local Philadelphia activist reminds me “was founded because they felt the American Jewish Congress was too conservative.” Not a very impressive dog-and-pony show. And strangely, Sestak himself did not show. Could he be hiding from the press? (My inquiries to his campaign on his positions on a variety of Israel-related issues have not been answered.) I would think he’d be happy to clear up the “misconceptions” about his views on Israel.
Who wasn’t there? AIPAC’s council chair, an informed source in Philadelphia’s Jewish community tells me, was invited but declined to attend. Hmm. Did Sestak imagine such a person would come and say that a keynote speech to CAIR is no big deal? If so, he’s more out to lunch than we imagined.
A Toomey supporter told me, “I am amazed they are sticking with this. ECI’s response [to Sestak’s attempt to take down the ad] was rock-solid.” And indeed, once again, Sestak seems only to be re-enforcing a problematic issue for his faltering campaign.
Not surprisingly, ECI isn’t backing down. Greg Sargent reports that ECI’s ad buy has doubled. The Sestak ad will now be on broadcast TV and air during the Phillies game on Friday.
How badly is this hurting Sestak? Well, if the appearance of another lawyer letter is any indication, quite a bit. In his latest missive, Sestak’s lawyer pitches a fit over Comcast’s refusal to take down the ECI ad. One has to marvel at his propensity to restate horrid arguments. Again, he whines that CAIR was only declared a front group for Hamas after Sestak spoke. And he restates Sestak’s own words in the Gaza 54 letter, in which he demanded that an alternative to the Gaza blockade be found so Israel can stop inflicting “collective punishment” on Palestinians. Is the lawyer working for Sestak or for Toomey?
Sestak’s “shut up” campaign has been spectacularly unsuccessful. Soon every voter in the state will know two facts: he voted with Nancy Pelosi 97.8 percent of the time and he keynoted for CAIR, a group that has ties to terrorists. I doubt Sestak’s opponent could have been so effective.
