Day 3
10:30 AM ET.

As promised, some notes and thoughts on Joe Sestak, the Democratic candidate opposing Curt Weldon in Pennsylvania’s 7th District. It’s an interesting district, made up of Delaware, Montgomery, and Chester counties and while the greater Philadelphia area has been trending blue for a while, Joe pointed out in his speech that there is only 22% Democratic voter registration. All three of us grew up no more than 15 minutes from the district. We talked to him on Tuesday night and should have the interview up at some point this weekend.

Joe, as he told the questioners to call him, entered the room around 9:30 pm or so after a long day of campaigning, looking tired but relaxed in blue shirtsleeves. He’d done his first event after declaring to run with the Swarthmore Dems so he was amazed at how far they’d come. The polls have been tightening and Joe raised more money than Weldon in the last quarter. He gave us his basic stump speech, though he may have made it a bit more wonky for the college crowd.

The beginning basically told his story: three plus decades of miliary service in the Navy, fighting in Afghanistan, and the sense of honor and community he gained from his service. He told the story of his daughter’s sickness and how it inspired him to run when he saw another sick little boy “on the other side of the curtain” in the hospital, surrounded by social workers discussing whether or not he could stay at the hospital due to his lack of health insurance. Admiral Sestak was lucky enough to have wonderful healthcare for his daughter through his taxpayer funded health insurance. “I owe this country…I owe the people,” he said.

My favorite quote? “All the military officers are Democrats, they just don’t know it yet.”

And he told us of his sense of an American spirt and determination that is in real danger due to the disaster of the Iraq war. He called for our troops to be out within a year.

Though he’d been up since sunrise greeting commuters at the train station, he then took questions from the audience where he talked about Darfur, Medicare Part D and the “donut hole,” the deficit, and even his support for the International Criminal Court.

Joe Sestak is gonna make a great Congressman. Help him out.

-Josh