Toomey, Sestak have different campaign styles

At the start of their final week campaigning for U.S. Senate, Pat Toomey and Joe Sestak had little in common other than their tasseled loafers.

The two candidates crisscrossed the Philadelphia area Monday, demonstrating that their personal styles diverge as dramatically as their political ideologies.

At 7:30 a.m. at the Ambler train station, bells clanged and a loud recording warned: "A train is approaching! Please do not cross the tracks."

A few impatient commuters ducked under the lowering barriers, peered up and down the rails, sized up their chances, and dashed across.

When they reached the boarding platform, Sestak, in a green bomber jacket and loose pleated trousers, ambled toward them. He pulled a glossy political ad from a stack tucked under his arm and offered it to each passerby. "Hi!" he said. "I'm the guy in that brochure."

With seven days left before the election, the candidates are hustling across their own perilous tracks - promising to repair the economy, elevate the national mood, and cooperate with their (reasonable) prospective colleagues across the aisle.

Courting votes, Sestak appears comfortable engaging in one-on-one confabs with people. He allows his news conferences to ramble until he has answered the last reporter's complete list of questions.

Looking ahead toward the final days of the campaign, his staff has allowed for improvisation and schedules him just 24 hours ahead.

"Events are in flux," said his press secretary, Jonathan Dworkin.

Toomey is more disciplined. His final week on the trail will be filled with radio interviews, private meetings, and organized rallies with fellow candidates. He keeps to a tight schedule and has a tendency to abruptly end his interactions with the press when he decides enough is enough.

The Ambler stop was Sestak's second meet-and-greet of a day that started at 6:45 in Jenkintown and would take him across Montgomery County up to Bucks, back down to Northeast Philadelphia, and, during the evening rush hour, to Center City.

Along the way, he would stroll shopping districts, chat up small business owners, distribute political fliers, and field questions from voters, reporters, and volunteers.

"You're probably tired by now," one supporter said sympathetically.

Sestak leaned close, locked his gaze into the man's expectant eyes, and in his characteristic library-carrel voice, said: "I'm running on adrenaline. This is actually the most exciting part."

Meanwhile, Toomey was en route from his home in Allentown, heading for West Chester. He ran into traffic and fell 15 minutes behind schedule. At 8:45, he strode into the Penn's Table Restaurant.

The startled diners looked up from their grilled sticky buns and coffee to see Toomey, in a dark sportcoat and khakis, disappear into a throng of waiting reporters.

"He was polite and very businesslike," said Nikkii McNichol, the restaurant's 40-year-old manager. "It was a fast kind of little meet-and-greet. He thanked us for having him. I think he stayed about five minutes. We told him we were very honored that he chose to visit us."

From West Chester, Toomey bolted to make a 9:30 meeting with the Delaware and Chester Counties' Chambers of Commerce.

When he walked into the conference room, the 13 men and three women who had been chatting over coffee fell silent and distributed themselves evenly around a half-moon of tables.

He delivered his stump speech, tapping the lectern in indignation over the bank bailout and health-care overhaul, promising to relieve small businesses of their tax burdens and predicting dire consequences if the Democratic agenda proceeds.

"You might as well put padlocks on the gates of U.S. Steel," he said. "They would have government bureaucrats dictate the terms of a contract. . . . The coal industry's done if they pass the cap-and-trade."

He concluded: "Joe Sestak and Nancy Pelosi have been taking us in the wrong direction."

After his remarks, he took half a dozen questions from reporters, until one of his aides announced: "Thank you. You need to leave now."

The remainder of the meeting, an informal discussion with chamber members, was private, she explained. For the rest of the day, Toomey attended no more public events until 7 p.m., when he spent half an hour with volunteers at his campaign office in Quakertown.

"It's a big state, and there are a lot of radio stations," said Nachama Soloveichik, Toomey's communications director. "We want to get Pat on as many as we can. Then there are thank-you cards to sign, phone messages to return . . ."