Arlen Specter, a Republican fixture in the Senate for decades and who switched to the Democratic party this year, was defeated by Joe Sestak in a Democratic primary that was significant in the way Specter was double crossed by Obama.'On both the eve of the election and on the day of the election, the White House, seeing a close election and the possibility of a Specter defeat, abandoned Specter, refusing to lift a finger to campaign for him when he needed it the most, even though they had wooed him to the Democratic Party and Obama had publicly endorsed him.
According to MSNBC reports, the White House signaled it was going to throw Specter under the bus when they said about Specter, " He came to us ( meaning his switching party's) we didnt didnt go to him".
For those in the know that was another example of what Obama does best -- lie through his teeth since it was Obama and Joe Biden who had wooed Specter and made him promises if he would switch the to the Democrats. But it became obvious that when Obama's choice for the nomination was in trouble, Obama did not want to be seen as the loser and so, as he has done so many times before whether its with people or policy, ( as was the case with the public option) Obama reversed field and reneged on his pledge.
The single biggest issue when Obama ran for the Democratic nomination was color and his supporters based everything on an agenda based on electing the first African American president ( even though that is bogus also -- Obama as everyone knows including Obama is half black). But when it comes to politics, Obama has shown that his true color isnt black, it's, "politician" and his own political standing is what matters more than anything else. And so Obama abandoned Arlen Specter even though Obama had publicly endorsed him when he was up by 20 points.
On primary day, when Specter needed Obama to help get out the vote in Philadelphia, Obama was nowhere to be seen.
Actually, ironically enough, he was seen -- making a speech in Ohio less than seven miles from Pennsylvania. Ohio was the site of Obama's NAFTAgate lie promising to get rid of NAFTA while assuring the Canadian embassy through the back door that he would do nothing of the kind.
Obama was caught red handed in the lie to the people of Ohio ( who voted for Hillary Clinton in the primary by a landslide margin) and the press turned a blind eye to Obama's duplicity.
In the end, with Obama it's always politics not policy or conviction and Obama was more interested in saving his own face than saving Specter's seat in the senate, despite his pledges of support he gave to Specter.
Obama was clearly afraid of suffering another loss of prestige as happened with Martha Coakley in Massachusetts where a largely Democratic state rejected his endorsement. In this case it was a Democratic primary and a substantial majority of Democratic voters rejected Obama's choice, showing that an Obama endorsement will either hurt more than it helps in the fall or just not help at all.
And the fallout from the primary has taken an unexpected turn with the questions now arising about his offer of a job to Joe Sestak to get out of the race. Ironically the candidate who campaigned on the pledge that he was going to change the way Washington does business is now defending the offer to Sestak by saying its simply the way Washington has always done business.
Which also shows Obama's true colors.
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