Until Specter begins to vote like a Democrat, he will be an easy target for a primary fight.
Sestak really has noting to lose. If he wins the primary, he will most likely become the Jr. Senator from PA, if not, he goes back to his seat in the House, gaining a bit more state-wide name recognition.
Specter will need to help the Democrats by providing key cloture votes. If he doesn't, I see no way that the party bosses can clear the field for him.

Of course Specter would prefer not to be accountable to anyone-- and since Democrats are famously undisciplined, it sounds like a good match. But the other side of the Democratic party ethos is the itch for a good fight, and Specter may not be entirely prepared for that eventuality...

John D'oh, the only problem is, Sestak would NOT go back to his seat in the House. If he runs for Senate, he is forced to give up his House seat. And it's a swing district, so it's not a sure bet that a Democrat would replace him.

Furthermore, as is detailed by Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com, it's not as if Sestak is some kind of progressive champion. He's not all that different from Specter in terms of his voting record! I, for one, would certainly prefer it if the primary challenge came from an actual progressive who would leave behind a safe congressional seat.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/05/is-sestak-right-choice-for-left.html

Nevertheless, I certainly hope that the prospect of a primary challenge serves as a wake-up call to Specter, signaling that he'd better not take anything for granted.

Does he have to resign to run?

If he runs in the primary, is it possible for his sister to run for his seat in the primary, with the intent to vacate the nomination for him should he lose the Senate primary?

This is exactly what we need. A capable and legitimate primary challenger that will keep Specter honest. He will have no choice but to move to the left.

Caped is right that Sestak would have to give up his Congressional seat, and that he's not as progressive in his voting record as many Dems would prefer. However, given that Sestak took the '08 contest with 60% of the vote in the swing district, I'd bet that he could recapture the seat in 2012 from a GOPer if he wanted to return to the House.

To me the big question is just how likely is it that a much more progressive/liberal Dem can capture the Senate in Pennsylvania. I don't live in the state so I'm not greatly familiar with voting patterns there statewide, but offhand I wouldn't think that an electorate that could send a wingnut like Santorum to the Senate would make a swing heavily in the other direction. The guys that immediately come to mind winning statewide office in PA (besides Santorum) are Hugh Scott, Tom Ridge, Bob Casey, and Specter. I think for the most part they would be considerate moderates with respect to their party affiliation.

Who are the most plausible progressive Dems to jump into the primary besides Sestak and Specter?

Specter, a Republican up until extremely recently, apparently feels like the nomination should just be handed to him, regardless of his votes.
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Typical Republican attitude. What's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine too.

What's weird is, the Democratic Party leadership feels like the nomination should just be handed to him regardless of his votes too.

I'm so old I remember when the Democratic Party supported actual Democrats.

Sestak may not be very progressive--coming from his district, he probably couldn't be. But I would trust him more than Specter, and he doesn't act nearly as arrogant and entitled. And we need another Democrat in the Senate more than we need one in the House.

Specter's just being Specter. If you look @ Snarlin' Arlen's entire career, it can be best-described as self-interested. Even though he was a registered Democrat, he ran for Philly DA in 1965 on the GOP ticket, b/c the Dems wouldn't allow him on the ticket (similar to the reason why Michael Bloomburg switched from Dem to the GOP to run for NYC Mayor). Now, 40 years later, he sees that he can't win as a Republican, so he switches back to the Dems.

Amazingly enough, I agree 100% w/Michael Steele's assessment of Specter's switch: it has nothing to do w/anything larger than self-interest.

Yes, the GOP has moved significantly to the right since Specter was first elected to the Senate in '80. But, Specter will continue to be Specter, and that means that he can't be counted as a party vote for *anything.* As I said elsewhere, I was planning to vote against him if he reached the general election as a Republican, and I'll vote against him in the Democratic primary.

-Z

Don't really give too much of a damn if the candidate is liberal or blue-dog, or outright conservative at this point. We have 60 Senators.

My only requirement for any of these guys is that they tow the line on procedural votes.

I'm a registered Pennsylvania Democrat, and based on what I know about Sestak and Specter, Sestak would win my vote easily.
It's great to have Specter caucus with the Dems for the next year or so, but he clearly doesn't stand for anything but Specter--and gave a big f-you to a couple of key Dem constituencies on Sunday. I can't imagine labor groups blindly endorsing someone who said he'll support a filibuster on EFCA. Won't even allow a vote.
I don't know where Sestak stands on specific issues, but he's clearly willing to listen to his party and actually wants to earn our vote, rather than acting like an entitled d-bag.

My only requirement for any of these guys is that they tow the line on procedural votes.

That's not Specter. He still supports Repub filibusters on key issues, so what's the difference besides the aesthetics of a nominal 60 Dems?
I would seriously consider voting for Ridge over Specter, at least Ridge would be honest about who he is, and Ridge is pro-choice.

If Sestak says that he'll at least allow EFCA to come to a vote, he would have a good chance at winning in a primary against Specter.
It's the old rule, as with Republicans, if people have a choice between a real Dem and a DINO, they're going to choose the real Dem, especially in a primary.

Is Ridge a sure winner in a GOP primiary? Seems to me that Toomey can paint him as part of the Big Government Conservative problem, what with his bad management of a massive federal bureaucracy.

Should the State of Arlen be admitted as the 51st State, who will be the other Senator?

What Mary Contrary said.

We already have enough votes to win a majority vote. What we DON'T have is enough votes to necessarily over come every Republican procedural roadblock.

If Specter wants to BLOCK his own party's proposals, then he is no Democrat.

And contrast this to what Specter did for the Republican party... he would always talk and talk and talk, but would never block, and almost always voted for the legislation. He's off to a very bad start.

joe sestak is my congresscritter and a great improvement over his corrupt predecessor. it is true he is not especially liberal, but he is the perfect rep for this center-right, heavily catholic district-the alternative would be another republican hack chosen by our corrupt county rethug machine. as a statewide candidate, too, joe is a good fit for a state that is wary of democrats but loves the military and responds to mildly populist, mildly good government candidates. the big question might be-is there anyone credible on the rethug side who can beat toomey and provide real opposition? if ridge gets in, lots of independants and some republican moderates could rejoin the party to affect the primary outcome.in any case, i could never vote for arlen-to republican, too self-serving and too old!

If you want an example of someone who is a loyal Democrat even though he isn't with Democrats on every issue, just look at Bob Casey Jr.--he's pro-life, but on just about everything else, he's with the working people(EFCA, health care, minimum wage, etc.)
If Sestak is in the Casey mold, then I'll take him over Specter any day. I at least want someone who will allow a damn vote on major Dem legislation.
I'll admit I was happy at first, but I don't think Biden, Rendell or Obama thought this through--or even asked Specter the right questions before welcoming him.

I don't see Sestak taking on Ridge.
If Ridge stays out, Sestak can run.

Sestak isn't "considering his options"
He's waiting for Ridge to confirm or deny.

Why give up a relatively easy race for a longshot?
Can you imagine surrendering a Congressional seat to take on Specter AND Ridge?

That's take chutzpah bought in bulk.

Sue, thanks for the local insight... I was an out-of-state contributor to Sestak's campaign against Crazy Curt Weldon, and Joe's resume simply screams "US Senator." Sestak is far from a troglodyte bomb first/ask questions later military man, and he would make a great fellow Dem Senator to Jim Webb. I think Ridge would be a much tougher candidate for the Dems to face than Toomey, especially since he's fairly attractive to independents and moderates in both parties, although I'm not sure how tarnished he got from serving in Junior's clusterf*ck administration. Maybe that means all PA Dems should heartily support Toomey in the GOP primary...

I wish they'd have also done a poll on how Pennsylvanians would vote in a Sestak v. Ridge matchup.

And jayackroyd asked a key question. Can Ridge win the GOP primary? If the media is correct, most of the moderates in Pennsylvania have left the party and the only republicans left are right wing nutters and dyed-in-the-wool partisans. Can a pro-choice candidate win the race to represent them? That section of the electorate has never been particularly pragmatic.

The missing piece here is how would Ridge do against Toomey in the primary? I don't think Ridge will enter the primary unless he'd be all but guartanteed to win it, and him beating Toomey is hardly a sure thing.

Pretty much nothing less than complete support of Obama's major objectives will dissuade me from donating to a primary challenger of Specter.

Which would of course include never participating in a filibuster attempt AND voting for cloture. That way we can have those up-or-down votes he used to defend a few years ago.

short of that: I'll be sending money to a worthy challenger.

My only requirement for any of these guys is that they tow the line on procedural votes. -Mary Contrary

The only thing '60 Democrats' will yield for us is a Republican talking point for the 2010 election cycle the the 'out-of-control' Democrats have too much power.

Anything else is a pipe dream.

I don't live in Pennsylvania, so maybe someone can tell me: how popular is Ridge? Can he beat Toomey in a Gop primary when Specter couldn't? If so, can he go on to beat either Sestak or Specter? Considering that Specter has yet to show his value (quite the contrary) maybe we should have been in less of a hurry to accept him into the Democratic caucus. We may have just opened the door for Ridge and thus lost what would have been a sure Democratic seat if Toomey had run against any generic D.

I realize Obama is lightyears smarter than me, and always three moves ahead of everybody else, and may have had his reasons for an upfront endorsement of Specter in the Dem primary, but I'm worried.

On the other hand I can imagine a conversation in 2010 when Specter, having screwed us the way he screwed the Republicans, hears Obama say "Support you in the primary? I don't remember promising that. Rahm, do you remember that? Harry? David? Sorry, Arlen, you're on your own."