Author: Sarah Courtney

PHILADELPHIA – He saw it coming and he wasn’t surprised, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell told Fox News Tuesday night after Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter delivered his concession speech having lost out the Democratic primary to opponent Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa.

The ballroom never filled for Specter’s post-vote party and it quickly emptied after the senior senator’s brief remarks.

“To some extent, it was both a challenge convincing Democrats who knew he’d only been in the party a year, and the anti-incumbent mood,” Rendell said.

Despite the many labor endorsements, the party couldn’t mobilize and get that vote out for Specter.

Rendell called the defeat a message to incumbents of both parties.

While the national trend this season seems to be leaning towards putting incumbents in the endangered species category, specific to the Sestak-Specter match-up, Specter’s thirty-year incumbency as a Republican was the main factor at play in Pennsylvania.

Specter changed from the Republican party to the Democratic party last year.

Sestak will face off with Republican Pat Toomey in the fall.

PHILADELPHIA – Arriving at Democratic Senator Arlen Specter’s primary night party shortly after the polls closed in Pennsylvania, Governor Ed Rendell told Fox News, “The rain hurt, no doubt about it.”

The governor, who has supported Specter all along, did go on to say the late afternoon improvement in the weather worked in Specter’s advantage, as people in Philadelphia voted after work. “The weather let up at four, five, six, the best voting hours helps us,” said Rendell.

However, Governor Rendell did not blame President Obama’s absence this past week in the Keystone state for poor voter turnout “it’s not important that he didn’t show up [in the final hours]. What’s important he wants Specter to win.” The president has been all over Pennsylvania in TV ads for the senior senator.

Obama spent election day just miles outside of Pennsylvania, speaking to factory workers in Youngstown, Ohio, many who live across the state line. His remarks focused on the economy and he made no mention of the primary.

LEECHBURG, PA – Tim Burns, the Republican candidate for U.S. Representative in Pennsylvania’s 12th district, told the lunch crowd at Kings Restaurant Sunday afternoon that he never intended to get into politics and his candidacy is a referendum on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Obama administration.

“I think we need people from outside the government, people with common sense business principles that can go to Washington and make decisions in the best interest of the country and the district. Not in the best interest of advancing their career,” Burns said in a interview with Fox News.

Burns accuses his Democratic opponent Mark Critz of pandering to the administration, saying “Nancy Pelosi is holding fundraisers for him, the Vice President Joe Biden was here and Bill Clinton is coming to the district so this is extremely important because people know that a vote for Mark Critz is a vote for the Pelosi-Obama agenda.” Burns also received his share of star power support when Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts campaigned for him on Friday.

“We made over 50,000 calls yesterday,” Burns told a group of local supporters, explaining that his support was coming from beyond the district, gathering significant national attention.

Burns only recently got into politics and was embraced by the Tea Party movement. He considers himself a quintessential conservative but relates to the Tea Party message, “the common theme I see running through the Tea Party are people who love this country and want to preserve this country for future generations and by that definition I certainly am.”

Burns was accompanied Sunday by his two sons, Brock, age 14, and Trent, age 12, who shook hands with voters along with their father. On Tuesday Burns hopes to win the late Representative John Murtha’s House seat, which has been in the hands of the Democrats for more than thirty years.