Sestak Says He'll Run Against Specter in Senate Primary

It's official: Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter is going to have competition in his first Democratic primary.

"I am going to get into the race against Arlen Specter," Rep. Joe Sestak told The Wayne Independent at the start of a three-week tour of the state's 67 counties. There were no caveats about family meetings and decisions in the newspaper's brief report, so Sestak's wife and daughter presumably have signed off.

Specter, elected in 1980 as a Republican moderate, pulled out a narrow win in a 2004 primary against conservative former representative Pat Toomey. This year polls showed he would lose to Toomey, a fact Specter openly discussed when he announced his party switch in April at President Obama's side.

Specter has been coming around on issues important to liberals. He reversed his opposition to a public health insurance plan as part of health care reform, and he is working toward compromise on a bill making it easier for labor unions to organize. But some on the left -- including Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas -- have been anxious for Sestak to get into the race.

As Politics Daily's Patricia Murphy reported in May, Sestak has been edging close to a definitive declaration for weeks. He is a retired Navy admiral who represents a heavily populated swing area in Southeastern Pennsylvania.

The Sestak news was circulated today by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, always alert to dissent in the opposition ranks and still smarting from Specter's defection.

Update: PoliticsPa.com reports that the Sestak run is not quite official yet., statewide tour and declarative sentence notwithstanding.