After weeks of playing footsie with the media about his intentions to run against Sen. Arlen Specter for the Democratic Senate seat, U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak officially announced that he will run. Except not really.
Twitter and the internet started buzzing this morning after The Wayne Independent posted a teaser from an interview with Sestak this morning. Sestak is kicking off a tour of all 67 counties in the state, and Independent reporter Steve McConnell asked him why. McConnell said he asked Sestak “straight off the cuff” if he had “higher political ambitions.”
He said Sestak told him, “I am going to get into the race against Arlen Specter … for senator.”
The delicious morsel of certainty was a meaty treat to the pack of hungry political reporters, antsy for Sestak to make it official. By noon, political websites had re-posted a link to McConnell’s brief story and Sestak fans were cheering him on.
But Sestak hadn’t made it official. Spokesman Jonathon Dworkin said Sestak made no formal announcement and told McConnell the same story he’s been saying for weeks: that he is still discussing the matter with his family. Sestak intends to make an official announcement in about a month, Dworkin said.
“Nothing has changed in the last four hours,” Dworkin said around noon. “There has been no announcement.”
McConnell admits that Sestak did say he is still discussing it with his family, but it sure sounded like an announcement to him.
“Maybe he slipped,” said McConnell, 26, who is a general assignment reporter at the paper and has worked there 10 months.
McConnell did his homework on where Sestak was in the announcement process and said when he heard the quote, “I knew I had something, so that’s why I just rushed to get it out there.”
UPDATE: Although McConnell in an interview earlier Wednesday said that Sestak “did kind of hedge with me too” about his Senate run and did “mention a little bit about his family and talking to his wife,” the reporter now says upon review of his taped interview, Sestak did not connect the two. Sestak said he would run for Senate, and talked about his family later in the interview, McConnell said in an email.
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