Senate candidates Sestak and Toomey trade attacks in Havertown

Trading attacks within blocks of each other in Delaware County on Monday, the candidates in Pennsylvania's Senate race outlined the stakes in a nutshell:

Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak helped saddle the nation with scary amounts of debt with votes to bail out Wall Street and automakers, as well as for federal spending.

Or Republican Pat Toomey, a former House member from the Lehigh Valley, is to blame, along with former President George W. Bush, for earlier tax cuts and spending increases.

Toomey brought the fight to Havertown, in Sestak's Seventh District, with an appearance at the home of Mary Ellen Jones, a tea party activist and small-business owner. About 40 Sestak supporters stood on the sidewalk outside, waving signs and jeering.

A half-hour later and a few blocks away, Sestak gathered a group of people who he said represented "working Pennsylvania" for a rally in the backyard of local Democratic ward leader Tom Shiffer.

From 1980 until the stock-market crash of 2008, Toomey said, federal debt was equivalent to about 40 percent of the nation's economy, but he said it is projected to be 63 percent at the end of this year.

"It is unconscionable that we would inflict on our kids and our grandkids a level of debt that will prevent them from achieving the standard of living that we've come to enjoy," Toomey said. "No generation of Americans has ever done that."

Sestak said he supported the financial-industry and automobile-industry bailouts because "we had to repair the damage" that had been done under Bush, when the national debt tripled and regulation of Wall Street was light. He called Toomey, a former Wall Street trader, "out of touch" with everyday concerns.

Toomey, noting that he opposed all the bailouts as head of the small-government advocacy group Club for Growth, said, "Joe Sestak can say what he likes, but it's pretty clear who's been on the side of Wall Street."

Toomey blasted Sestak for introducing legislation that would provide government guarantees for refinancing of homeowner mortgages that are larger than the value of the property. The bill has not moved since it was introduced in March 2009, but is "illustrative of Joe's mind-set," Toomey said.

The Senate race began with both Toomey and Sestak expressing admiration for each other and pledging to campaign on their wide policy differences rather than making personal attacks, but the spirit of bonhomie may be fraying.

Last week, the Sestak campaign tried to discredit Toomey's claim to small-business credentials as an executive in the 1990s for a small family chain of bar/restaurants. It cited a deposition from a personal-injury lawsuit against the chain in which Toomey agreed with a lawyer's characterization that he was a "hands off" owner.

Sestak has since launched a Web ad featuring that contention and highlighting Toomey's Wall Street career from 1984 through 1991.

"I worked full time all day every day at growing this business," Toomey said Monday. "Now it is true that I didn't operate the fryolator," but he said he made all the major strategic decisions for the restaurant group.

"Joe Sestak never created a job in his life," Toomey told reporters. "He's never worked for a private company."

It is a refrain that apparently annoys the Sestak camp. The candidate's brother Rich, who is his campaign director, contended in a statement that Toomey has been denigrating Joe Sestak's 30-year Navy career, during which he achieved the rank of three-star admiral.

Not so, Toomey said when asked about it. He has nothing but respect for Sestak's service, he said, but it's just a fact that his opponent has never worked in the private sector.