Pa. Senate race is seen as a clash of left, right

Pennsylvania's U.S. Senate race between Republican Pat Toomey and Democrat Joe Sestak may boil down to a simple question: Do voters hate Wall Street or Washington more?

Strategists and analysts looking ahead to the general election in November see the campaign playing out as a classic clash between champions of differing worldviews, one liberal and one conservative.

Expect Sestak to try to caricature Toomey as a Wall Street insider whose vision of minimal regulation and tax cuts helped turn the financial markets into a big casino that wrecked the economy.

Toomey, for his part, will try to tag Sestak as a socialist advocate of greater Washington control who sits in Nancy Pelosi's lap eating bonbons.

"In my mind it's going to be a question of who brands whom first," said Charlie Gerow, a Republican political consultant based in Harrisburg. "It will all turn on what happens in the relatively near future."

The match was set Tuesday, when Sestak defeated Sen. Arlen Specter, who was running for reelection as a Democrat for the first time. Toomey easily won the GOP nomination over conservative social-issues activist Peg Luksik.

On Wednesday, Toomey began his general-election campaign as the Republican nominee with a news conference at the Northeast Philadelphia Airport Jet Center. He later traveled in a twin-engine Piper PA-31 Navajo to Wilkes-Barre, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, and Erie.

Toomey argued that Sestak was on the far left of the Democratic Party, noting that the Democrat voted for federal bailouts and for the $787 billion stimulus - and saying that Sestak believed it should have been $1 trillion. He said Sestak also favored an even more aggressive "takeover" of the health-care system.

"Joe is not just in lockstep with this agenda in Washington, but he wants to take it even further to the left," Toomey said. "He does have a 100 percent voting record with Nancy Pelosi this year. . . . So we're going to have a very clear choice this fall. Joe's a very honorable, decent man . . . but it is a very different vision of government."

Toomey said that reducing deficit spending and stopping the staggering growth in the federal debt were his priorities.

Meanwhile, on a day that took him from campaigning in Center City to extended rounds of congressional committee voting in Washington, Sestak on Wednesday began laying out how he will run against Toomey: almost the same way he ended his campaign against Specter.

The two-term representative went negative, with considerable return on investment, in the closing days of the primary campaign by reminding voters of Specter's support, while he was a Republican, of former President George W. Bush.

Sestak's first official day of general-election campaigning focused on equating Toomey with Bush's "savage, regressive" tax cuts and spending policies.

"Pat takes care of Wall Street, and with President Bush, he took care of the very wealthy," Sestak told one questioner during a series of media interviews.

Toomey, 48, represented a Lehigh Valley congressional district from 1999 until 2005. He was a Wall Street trader, then owned a small chain of restaurants and founded a community bank. Upon leaving the House after narrowly losing a Republican primary to Specter, Toomey headed the Club for Growth, a group devoted to advocating fiscally conservative policies that is financed in part by Wall Street firms.

Asked about Democratic criticisms of his ties to financiers, Toomey said there was "no substance" to the attacks. He said his opposition to the federal bailout of banks and other financial institutions proved his independence from the industry.

"On Wall Street, I learned that those firms are the last firms that taxpayers ought to be forced to bail out," Toomey said.

Gov. Rendell told reporters Wednesday that Toomey was a formidable candidate with a big weakness - his advocacy for financial-industry interests. "People mistrust Wall Street most of all," Rendell said.

Sestak, 58, is in his second term representing a Delaware County-based district in the House. He served for 31 years in the Navy, retiring as a rear admiral. Sestak decided to challenge Specter, who switched from the GOP last year and won the backing of Obama and the Democratic establishment.

On Wednesday, Rendell and other party leaders were busy talking up Sestak's strength as a candidate. They had argued for weeks that Specter would be stronger against Toomey because of his track record of winning independent voters during a 29-year Senate career.

In fact, most polls taken at the end of the primary campaign found Sestak performing better against Toomey than Specter did.

Democrats may have a tougher time pigeonholing Toomey than they might think. Muhlenberg College pollster Christopher Borick said Toomey more closely matched Pennsylvania voters' attitudes at this point, with rising concern over federal spending.

"A year ago I would have said that Pat Toomey was too far to the right for Pennsylvania, but not anymore," Borick said. "Concern with government spending and concern with government interference are high. That's his message, and his timing is good."

There are six months to go, and a lot of potential events could change the public mood. Some analysts say the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has reinforced the value of government regulation in the public mind, but it's unclear how deep that goes or how long-lasting it will be.

Toomey and Sestak debated each other twice during primary season, in civil tones, and both have said they will stick to the issues and their ideological differences.

"What people don't like in campaigns are mean-spirited personal attacks and attacks on character," Toomey said. "I respect Joe Sestak and honor his service."

He said he would not pick up on Specter's demand that Sestak release his personnel records to clear up the circumstances under which he was replaced in a top Pentagon job in 2005. News reports said it was for "poor command climate," a term for bad morale among his subordinates.

"It's not an issue I care to talk about," Toomey said.