October 21, 2010

Is Toomey Worried?

Former Rep. Pat Toomey | ToomeyforSenate.com

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At least one person is worried about Rep. Joe Sestak’s recent surge in the polls in the Pennsylvania Senate race: his GOP opponent, former congressman (and derivatives trader) Pat Toomey. That’s what Toomey’s telling his most fervent supporters at least. In a message to a conservative email list, the Toomey campaign warns that “The Liberals are Coming!” and says Toomey needs help right away. Here’s an excerpt [emphasis added]:

Dear Reader,

It’s simple.

The agenda that President Obama and Nancy Pelosi have advanced in Washington has moved our country in the wrong direction and it’s prolonged our economic downturn.

Congressman Joe Sestak has supported this agenda, without exception, 100% of the time.

We’re in a very competitive race for the United States Senate here in Pennsylvania — in fact, Fox News just called our race, “neck and neck.” I’d very much appreciate your help as we close in on the campaign’s final days. Please consider making a contribution of $25, $50, $100 – or even $500, $1,000 or $2,400 – right now.

 

The rest of the message is along the same lines, bashing Obama and liberals. The email list this was sent to is more conservative than Pennsylvania, and the text is more right-wing than most of what Toomey, who’s tried to paint himself as a moderate, has been sending this election season. Toomey has to tread carefully though—although Obama’s not nearly as popular as he once was, Pennsylvania is still a state with a strong Democratic majority. He probably needs to win some Democrats (and Democratic-leaning independents) to win. If Sestak can prevent that by demonstrating that Toomey is a radical, he could still pull off the upset. If he can do that after coming from behind in the primary against Specter, he’ll be a two-time comeback kid.

 

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It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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