The general election campaign for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania between Republican Pat Toomey and Democrat Joe Sestak has started "ugly," according to Jay Newton-Small. In her May 20 Swampland blog post, the Time magazine staffer offered as evidence the former's press conference yesterday in which:
[H]e spent much of the speech blasting Sestak. In his 7-minute opening remarks he said “I” or “me” 52 times – including the thank yous – and “Joe or “he” 43 times.
For John Kerry in 2004, for example, the label flip-flopper proved fatal. And Barack Obama successfully portrayed McCain as part of the status quo, the establishment problem.
All the same, Newton-Small portrays Toomey as inordinately "blunt" in his talk about Sestak and concludes that "this is shaping up to be one nasty contest to replace Specter."
