We have an interesting dilemma here in Pennsylvania: Arlen is cruising through the Democratic senatorial primary, but his poll numbers are much closer against Club For Growth soldier Pat Toomey in the general election. (Then again, Sestak isn't polling much better against Toomey, either):

LANCASTER - When U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter switched from a Republican to a Democrat last year, some Democratic loyalists in Pennsylvania said hell would freeze over before they'd embrace an old foe they had been battling in statewide elections for 30 years.

Yesterday, amid the deep freeze and howling winds of the worst winter storm in years, the Democratic State Committee met in a snowbound hotel in Amish country to consider endorsements in this year's races for the U.S. Senate, governor, and lieutenant governor.

Despite the reservations of some party members, who challenged him for what they considered pro-Republican sins of the past, Specter, of Philadelphia, beat U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, of Delaware County, gaining the two-thirds majority required for endorsement by the party rules.

With chants of "Arlen! Arlen! Arlen!" from some of his supporters, Specter, who will turn 80 on Friday, practically bounded to a microphone in front of several hundred Democrats at the Lancaster Host Resort.

"I have been involved in many, many elections, but never one quite as thrilling as this," he said. "It almost feels like a presidential nominating convention."

I'll note here that Mike Stark has some misgivings about Specter's age and cognition. (Mike calls it dementia; I think it might be chemo brain.)

I have to say, though, that my own experiences with Specter have been different; he's been very sharp when I've spoken with him. Even on his worst day, no one's ever accused Arlen Specter of being dumb.

This is pretty tricky ground to navigate (Robert Byrd, anyone?). From what I hear, it was an open secret that Ted Kennedy was unable to function most of the time since his brain tumor was diagnosed, and that his wife and staff were running the show.

Should we have made him resign? Should we make Byrd resign? We need every vote we can get.

And I'm frustrated, trying to explain to out-of-state progressives why Arlen might not be so bad. (Remember, the Republicans thought he was too liberal.) As a native Philadelphian, I've been watching Arlen for decades. He can be a real weasel, but once he's bought, he tends to stay bought.

I feel the way I did watching A-Rod stick it to the Phillies in the World Series: "That smug bastard!" But would I be angry if the Phillies somehow managed to bring him on board? Hell, no.

And now that he's on our team, I can't help but see Arlen as an legitimate asset. He's really good at what he does. And at this point, it looks like he's going to be our candidate.

I know he's trying to woo us into believing he's a real Democrat, but at least he's saying the right thing.

FIX The Health Care Bill and Pass It!

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (617)

PLAYS: (1961)

From Fox News Sunday, Arlen Specter criticized the Republicans for planning to ‘break the President’ as soon as he was sworn in to defeat him in 2012 and Jim DeMint claims that wasn’t their intent. I’d like to know how they knew he was going to ‘take over’ the economy and add more debt the day he got elected. DeMint responded to TPM and his defense was basically to call Arlen Specter names and say he can’t be trusted since he switched parties.

Trancript via Lexis Nexis.

WALLACE: Senator DeMint, you have raised questions about whether or not either of these bills are constitutional. Do you plan to file a lawsuit if something is passed to block the enactment of health care reform? DEMINT: Chris, this fight is not over right now, and the only thing worse than the policy itself has been the process that the Democrats have followed to get this passed.

We all heard last week about vote buying and different things going on in secret. So there are a lot of problems with this bill. Whether -- who files a suit or what happens if they pass it is one thing.

But my hope now is as we reveal to the American people what's actually in this bill, what it will cost them, what it will do to our Medicare and health care system, that we'll get a few Democrats to stand up in the House that maybe didn't before and help us stop this thing.

It is really bad, and it -- and it is not the answer. It doesn't meet the goals of the president. We need every American to have a health insurance plan they can afford and own and keep. This bill doesn't accomplish that.

WALLACE: Senator Specter, as our legal expert here -- not to diminish in any case any of the other senators that are appearing -- are there constitutional issues here? And let me ask you specifically about one. How can the government mandate that every individual has to buy health insurance?

SPECTER: I do not think there are serious constitutional issues. The mandate provision is very similar to what was done in Massachusetts when they had mandatory reform.

I'd like to pick up on what Senator DeMint says about the process. I think the process was very bad, but the process is really caused in large measure by the refusal of the Republicans to deal in any way.

Senator DeMint is the author of the famous statement that this is going to be President Obama's Waterloo, that this ought to be used to break the president, so that before the ink was dry on the oath of office -- and I know this because I was in the caucus -- the Republicans were already plotting ways to beat President Obama in 2012.

Now, effective government in a democracy relies upon some bipartisanship, but there simply isn't any. And the process which was used was not good. The lead story today in the Washington Post is that after you reform health care, you ought to reform the Senate. And I would start with the process.

And if some of the Republicans would come forward with suggestions, offer a vote or two, or three or four, to take away the need to have every last one of the 60 Democrats, you'd have a much better bill in accordance with the tradition of the Congress, especially the Senate, on bipartisanship.

WALLACE: Well, let me bring in Senator DeMint as a matter of personal privilege. You get 30 seconds to respond, sir.

DEMINT: Well, thank -- thank you, Chris. I never wanted to break the president. We just wanted to break his momentum as he took over more and more of our economy and created more and more of our debt.

The reason the Republicans didn't have any ideas in the bill is that the Democrats didn't allow it, Chris. There was nothing that they would consider other than a government takeover of health care. Whatever words were used, that was their intent.

The Republicans have a number of bills, Chris, that would allow insurance to be more available and affordable to every American, but that was not the goal of the Democrats here. They want the government to run it. They want 80 or 90 percent of Americans on government health care. That's not a good thing for our country.

WALLACE: Let me -- let me -- let me...

SPECTER: Twenty -- twenty -- twenty -- 20 seconds...

WALLACE: Gentlemen...

SPECTER: ... 20 seconds in reply?

WALLACE: No, no.

SPECTER: Twenty seconds in reply?

WALLACE: Senator Specter, no, because, in fairness, I've got to bring in your two other colleagues, and I know you wouldn't want to take time from them.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (62)

PLAYS: (215)

Looks like American's for Prosperity's Tim Phillips has resorted to hiring some cheap help with their tour bashing the Employee Free Choice Act. Who better than Mr. Fake Plumber Joe Wurzelbacher? I guess these guys couldn't find any real plumbers to go out there and attack unions. From KDKA Pittsburgh:

'Joe The Plumber' Speaks In Green Tree

Samuel Joseph Wuerzelbacher was there to rally against the Employee Free Choice Act – a bill that's supposed to make it easier for unions to organize.

Some local unions organized against Joe at the event.

President Obama supports the Employee Free Choice act.

It appears to be dead for now in Congress due to opposition from Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter.

Yesterday Arlen Specter was back at his old media home, Fox News, singing a new tune, dancing the Lieberman shuffle, calling the GOP "a party of obstructionism." Well, he's got that right; they are. And until consistent polling showed that a right-wing extremist, Club For Growth head Pat Toomey, would kick his ass from Chester to Erie and from Waynesville to Carbondale in the Republican primary, Specter was very much a part of that obstructionist machine. Staring into the eyes of political mortality, Specter cut a deal with the White House to jump the fence and "become" a Democrat. He made the purely opportunistic switch on April 28. And here he was two weeks later on Meet The Press letting Pennsylvania voters know exactly what kind of a "Democrat" he would be:

Today he was calling his old colleagues obstructionists on the exact same issue for doing precisely what he was doing, although he has also bragged about how he will also vote with Republicans against Employees Free Choice. (The only difference is that he takes even more in thinly-veiled bribes from the Medical-Industrial Complex--$4,266,393, the most of any member of Congress who didn't run for president-- and Big Insurance--$1,058,655-- than most of them do.) Oh... and there's one more difference: Admiral Joe Sestak. Joe Sestak's constant pressure on behalf of working families has pushed Specter away from his unswerving support for his corporate donors. Petrified of being defeated in the Democratic primary, Specter sounds like he's almost a Democrat.

It was in the spring of 2006 that Blue America first started following Admiral Sestak as he sought, successfully, to dislodge another corrupt Republican barnacle obstructing progress in Washington, Curt Weldon. He was one of the first candidates our PAC ever endorsed and we have been immensely impressed by something that has distinguished Rep. Sestak from almost all the other members of Congress we've worked with. He is a critical thinker who seems to relish a debate of ideas. We don't always agree on every single issue but he never gets all brittle and uptight when challenged and he is always eager for input and eager to go through the thought processes that led him to make a decision. If there's one thing I've learned since starting Blue America, it's that no one is buying a member of Congress with an endorsement and no member of Congress will agree with you on every single vote. (Barney Frank once famously said even you wouldn't agree with you on every single vote.) What we do look for is someone with a sterling character who is open-minded, courageous and with inherently progressive sympathies. That's why we've continued to support Joe Sestak and why we asked him to come over to Crooks and Liars today for a live chat. He'll be joining us this afternoon at 3pm (PT), 6pm back in Pennsylvania. And he's bringing along another ole Blue America friend, Ned Lamont.

When I spoke to Rep. Sestak on the phone last week about the health-care debate, he was very forceful. "I'm going to have a very difficult time if I'm asked to vote for a bill that doesn't have a public option," he began. "I support a public option so that individuals are no longer stuck in insurance markets with no choices and no competition to bring down costs... I want to end unfair rationing by insurance company executives, like the small business owner who came into my District office because to complain about not being able to purchase insurance for herself or her employees because she had ovarian cancer ten years ago... As vice-chairman of the small business committee, I understand the need to reduce health care costs for small businesses. Only 62% of all small firms (less than 200 employees) offer health insurance, as compared to 99% of large firms. When they do offer insurance, it costs roughly 18% more than for larger employers."

You can find the rest of Specter's real health care record at DownWithTyranny. Meanwhile, please join us in the comments section below for our chat with Joe Sestak and Ned Lamont. After you've heard them out, if you'd like to sign up as a volunteer or donate to Rep. Sestak's election fund, you can do it on his website.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1521)

PLAYS: (2872)

Sen. Arlen Specter told Fox News' Chris Wallace that the Republican Party was the party of "no, no, no" when it comes to passing meaningful health care reform. While Specter believes the public option is "gaining momentum" within the Democratic Party, the GOP is the "party of obstructionism," said Specter.

UPDATE: Joe Sestak and Ned Lamont will be on C&L live chatting with us tomorrow, Monday Oct. 19th at 3pm PST/6pm EST so don't miss it.

One of the bloggers on a conference call with Sen. Arlen Specter this week was pressing him on increasing health insurance premiums for overweight Americans. Specter gently corrected her. He said his son, a resident psychiatrist, has explained to him weight is a matter of many complex factors and it wouldn't be fair to financially penalize an entire group based on things they couldn't control.

I was appalled at the question. I've put on 50 pounds in two years of inactivity as a result of my (until recently undiagnosed) ankle injury and the last thing I need is someone charging me more money for it.

As policy, this is an especially uninformed and insensitive position because every study shows that rural and inner-city residents (who have the highest obesity rates) actually have little access to affordable, healthy food. (And that's not even touching the research showing that the chemicals in foods have all kinds of harmful effects on your body that encourage weight retention.)

So if people could educate themselves about these issues, we won't have to waste time on discussing what amount to punitive measures:

Get in shape or pay a price.

That's a message more Americans could hear if health-care reform provisions passed by the Senate finance and health committees become law. By more than doubling the maximum penalties that companies can apply to employees who flunk medical evaluations, the legislation could put workers under intense financial pressure to lose weight, stop smoking or even lower their cholesterol.

The bipartisan initiative, largely eclipsed in the health-care debate, builds on a trend that is in play among some corporations and that more workers will see in the benefits packages they bring home during this fall's open enrollment. Some employers offer lower premiums to workers who complete personal health assessments; others limit coverage for smokers.

The current legislative effort would take the trend a step further. It is backed by major employer groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers. It is opposed by labor unions and organizations devoted to combating serious illnesses, such as the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society and the American Diabetes Association.

Critics say employers could use the rewards and penalties to drive some workers out of their health plans.

President Obama and members of Congress have said they are trying to create a system in which no one can be denied coverage or charged higher premiums based on their health status. The insurance lobby has said it shares that goal. However, so-called wellness incentives could introduce a colossal loophole. In effect, they would permit insurers and employers to make coverage less affordable for people exhibiting risk factors for problems such as diabetes, heart disease and stroke.

"Everybody said that we're going to be ending discrimination based on preexisting conditions. But this is, in effect, discrimination again based on preexisting conditions," said Ann Kempski of the Service Employees International Union.

The legislation would make exceptions for people who have medical reasons for not meeting targets.

Supporters say economic incentives can prompt workers to make healthier choices, thereby reducing medical expenses. The aim is to "focus on wellness and prevention rather than just disease and treatment," said John J. Castellani, president of the Business Roundtable.

Ezra Klein on the real reason Chuck Grassley is trying to sandbag healthcare reform:

The more plausible argument is that Grassley fears his fellow Republican senators. I'm hearing that Grassley is getting reamed out in meetings with his colleagues. The yelling is loud enough that staffers in adjacent offices have heard snippets. But the real threat isn't the yelling of his colleagues. It's their capacity to deny Grassley his next job. Ruth Marcus hints at this in her column on Chuck Grassley today, but it's worth explaining in a bit more detail.

This is the final year that Grassley is eligible to serve as ranking member — the most powerful minority member, and, if Republicans retake the Senate, the chairman — of the Senate Finance Committee. His hope is to move over as ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, or failing that, the Budget Committee. But for that, he needs the support of his fellow Republicans. And if he undercuts them on health-care reform, they will yank that support. It's much the same play they ran against Arlen Specter a couple of years back, threatening to deny him his chairmanship of — again — the Judiciary Committee. It worked then, and there's no reason to think it won't work now.

So once again, I ask the question: Why are we negotiating with Republicans at all?

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1372)

PLAYS: (4932)

(John Amato: I was involved in breaking the Specter story and asked him at the time if Grassley should be kicked out of the negotiating process because of his egregious statements. He said that if all Senators were kicked out of things because they made wrong statements there would be no Senators.

Well, Arlen Specter said he'd call Grassley about his "pulling the plug on Grandma" remark, and he certainly tried. Maybe he even got through!

Via Greg Sargent, something the corporate media has virtually ignored:

This passed unnoticed, but it’s a big deal: Over the weekend, and very quietly, Senator Chuck Grassley completely retracted his widely-reported claim last week that people have “every reason to fear” that the House health care proposal would create a “government program that determines if you’re going to pull the plug on grandma.”

The retraction was buried deep in this Washington Post article on Grassley’s role, with a spokesperson admitting Grassley doesn’t really believe what he said about “grandma”:

Grassley says he opposes that counseling as written in the House version of the bill, but a spokesman said the senator does not think the House provision would in fact give the government such authority in deciding when and how people die. The House bill allows patients to decide for themselves if they would like such counseling.

Let’s be clear: By clarifying that Grassley doesn’t think the House bill would “give the government such authority in deciding when and how people die,” his spokesperson completely repudiated his widely discussed claim. This goes much farther than Grassley did in a statement released Friday clarifying he’d never used the words “death panel” and was merely worried about “unintended consequences.”

So, either Grassley made his claim about “grandma” to a crowd in his home state last week and didn’t believe it; or he changed his mind since then.

Grassley’s retraction will get nowhere near the coverage his initial statement did. False or outlandish claims are “controversial,” so they get rewarded with media attention; their subsequent retractions tend to pass unnoticed, because the press has moved on to the next false or outlandish claim. The big news orgs blared Grassley’s initial assertion at the electorate for days, but almost no one will ever learn that Grassley didn’t really mean it.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (781)

PLAYS: (4063)

Sean Hannity was evidently distraught about Logan's post last Thursday about the teabagging Glenn Beck fan Katy Abram, who showed up at Arlen Specter's health-care town hall to spout Glenn Beckian nonsense. Logan remarked:

Granted, Abram isn't a professional pundit, but when questioned it became clear that she is the poster child for the entire undereducated, under-informed mob that make up the right wing town hall protesters.

Hannity gulps at this:

Hannity: Lovely. I guess the tone in Washington has really changed.

Of course, it hasn't. It hasn't because Sean Hannity and his Fox compatriots -- particularly Beck, who has even characterized President Obama as an anti-white racist -- as well as the Limbaugh-Coulter sector have seen to that.

But of course, on Planet Wingnuttia, it's been the liberals who are mean and nasty:

Hannity: Now what do you make of -- now we've watched all these politicians attacked. We've seen how Gov. Palin was treated, we saw how George W. Bush was treated. This is the first time, though, American citizens are being attacked by a party. Are you part of a mob? Are you a political terrorist? Do you like Tim McVeigh? Uh, any sympathies toward the Nazi Party?

Abram: No! [giggles]

Hannity: No racist views in your life?

Abram: No.

Hannity: No. What do you think when prominent Democrats have been making these charges?

Abram: I think it's ridiculous. I have heard Nancy Pelosi say, you know, we're a mob, swastikas, and all that stuff. I'm sorry. I'm a stay-at-home mom. I take care of my kids. I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. And you've got these people that are in charge of the country calling the people of this country ... awful names. Awful names! I mean, my original question to Arlen Specter was going to be, "I want you to denounce what Nancy Pelosi has said about the people of this country. It's ridiculous! It's ridiculous!

Yep, that's what we mean when we say "undereducated and under-informed." Pelosi didn't "call the people of this country" Nazis; she called out the morons who bring signs with swastikas -- comparing Obama to Hitler, as has been done frequently by prominent figures on the right in recent weeks, from Beck to Limbaugh. You know, awful names!

Of course, you can go back and look at what she said on Donnell's show for more evidence of this kind of blithering idiocy:

...You know, yeah, I mean, there are programs in place that the founders did not want to have here. I know there are people out there that can't afford health insurance, that can't afford a lot of different things, and, you know, with the founders, they thought and hoped that the goodness of the people would allow the people to take care of those who are doing without. And I know that may seem naive in today's, you know, world...

Ouch. My head hurts. Another wingnut who has read Glenn Beck but hasn't read Thomas Paine.

Continue reading »

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1020)

PLAYS: (2114)

Sen. Arlen Specter has faced angry protesters at his town hall meetings about health care. But Specter says that the protesters are not representative of most Americans. "I think we have to bear in mind, although those people have a right to be heard, they're not really representative of America in my opinion. We have to be careful here not to let those town meetings dominate the scene and influence what we do on health policy," Specter told ABC's Jake Tapper.

Newt advises Sarah (h/t Blue Gal. Click here for larger.)

Can you believe it? I'm actually looking forward to this morning's shows. No, not George Snufflupagus on This Week or William the Bloody on Fox News Sunday, but our very own Rachel Maddow is subbing for David Gregory is on the panel opposite Dick Armey on Meet the Press. Rachel has been relentless in the last couple of weeks on the astroturfing of FreedomWorks, so this promises to be a lot of fun. Around the dial, it's all about the health care reform bill, with HHS Sec. Kathleen Sebelius on This Week and State of the Union, Robert Gibbs on Face the Nation and executives from the AMA and AARP on Fox News Sunday. Arlen Specter will be on This Week, to share his take on the recent Town Hall shout fests. Fareed Zakaria will continue his interview Sec of State Hillary Clinton and you can bet her defensive responses in Africa will definitely be brought up.

ABC's "This Week" - Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius; Sens. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - White House press secretary Robert Gibbs; former Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.; former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - FreedomWorks chairman and former Rep. Dick Armey, R-Texas; Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.; former Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D.; R. Bruce Josten, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.; Gov. Bill Ritter, D-Colo.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Rick Stengel, Trish Regan, John Heilemann, Kathleen Parker. Topics: Has the domestic "change" President Obama promised stalled? How has Woodstock in 1969 impacted the politics of the past forty years? Meter Questions: Will outspoken fringe players dominate GOP for the rest of Obama's term? YES: 9 NO: 3; If unemployment is still high next year, will Obama revise his tax proposals? YES: 11 NO: 1.

CNN's "State of the Union" - Sebelius; Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo.; Reps. Mike Ross, D-Ark., Tom Price, R-Ga., and Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - The first television interview with Michael Oren as Israel's new Ambassador to the United States. Plus, the Prime Minister of Kenya and an unusual event in Nairobi featuring Hillary Clinton and Fareed.

"Fox News Sunday" - Sens. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and Richard Shelby, R-Ala.; J. James Rohack, president of the American Medical Association; John Rother, executive vice president for policy and strategy at AARP.

So, what's catching your eye this morning?

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1372)

PLAYS: (4932)

I went to the Arlen Specter/Joe Sestak Q&A panel today at Netroots Nation that was led by our own Susie Madrak. Specter answered questions about why we should trust him since he switched parties and he made his case. He's a skilled politician and did a pretty good job trying to defend his lefty creds. We didn't act like the Beckerwocky teabaggers do and he was treated with dignity, even if most of the audience supports Joe.

When he was questioned about Chuck Grassley's ""We should not have a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma" he adamantly said Grassley was wrong and he said he would speak to him later today. I yelled out "call him now!" and several other audience members also yelled the same thing. I waved my phone and said, "You can use my cell phone!" He said he would call him right away.

I followed him to the back of the arena and a bunch of us surrounded him as he made good on his promise. He tried to reach Grassley, but got no answer. As he was leaving, I was able to ask Specter if President Obama should kick Grassley out of the negotiating position he has for spreading egregious statements and falsehoods about health care.

Specter said that we shouldn't kick Grassley out of the Finance committee because senators are wrong at times, but he promised to stay after Grassley. I think Obama should have Baucus kick him out of the negotiating process because he's violated his duty by spreading lies about a health care bill he's trying to legislate over.

UPDATE:

John Amato: Senator, one more quick question. I'm John Amato of CrooksandLiars. Does Senator Grassley's irresponsible statements and the fact that he's on the committee that's negotiating for this health care bill, doesn't that disqualify him, in other words, shouldn't Obama say, why should I even have him at the table if he's going to make such outrageous statements?

Specter: Does it disqualify him, no. When he made that statement, it's wrong. If you disqualified every Senator who is wrong about something, there wouldn't be any Senators.OK?..

Well, now Specter and Grassley are involved in a Twitter war:

Well, Grassley never picked up. So Specter tweeted all about it.

And Grassley is not pleased.

And in a narrow sense, Grassley's right. He didn't use the term "death boards" or "death panels." He said "There is some fear because in the House bill, there is counseling for end-of-life. And from that standpoint, you have every right to fear.... We should not have a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma."

But in the broader sense, Specter's got Grassley pegged.

Citizen journalism rocks! We proved that once again.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1180)

PLAYS: (6448)

Ed Schultz takes on the Republican fear mongering that's stirring up the crazies at these town hall meetings.

But first, tonight's "OpEd."

Goofy? Yes. Spooky? Yes. And a guy shows up with a gun at a presidential town hall.

If that's not dangerous, I don't know what is.

Now, to do all of this justice, I have to show you this first tonight. Take a look at what happened inside the town hall meetings of Senator Arlen Specter and Senator Claire McCaskill today.

Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You and your cronies in the government do this kind of stuff all the time. Well, I don't care!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I do not want to pay on a health care plan that includes the right for a woman to kill her unborn baby.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't want this country turning into Russia, turning into a socialized country.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What it says is, as a 74-year-old man, if you develop cancer, we're pretty much going to write you off.

MCCASKILL: You don't trust me?

AUDIENCE: No!

MCCASKILL: Hey! Hey!

OK. Ma'am-OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHULTZ: Fear, fear, and more fear.

Continue reading »

Next Friday, August 14, Sen. Arlen Specter will visit Netroots Nation to participate in the Pennsylvania Leadership Forum along with Rep. Joe Sestak. They'll be answering questions asked by moderators Ari Melber and "me, Susie Madrak" (sorry, couldn't resist an Al Franken joke), as well as those submitted from the crowd.

If you have suggestions for what we should ask Sen. Specter or Congressman Sestak as they embark on this heated campaign for PA's Democratic Senate nomination, please leave them in the comments.

You might be interested to know that since Sestak announced he might run (it became official this morning), Specter's record has turned sharply Democratic. (Maybe pushing from the left is a good idea, huh, Rahm?)

Oh, and you can still register to join in the fun at Netroots Nation.

Race tracker wiki: pa-sen