Saturday AM, the Arlen Specter campaign hosted an LGBT reception in Shadyside. Ledcat and I stopped by. We had a delightful conversation with Lt. Governor candidate Jonathan Saidal (read about him here) who is a bright, witty man. Put him in a room with State Senator Daylin Leach and you'd have a pretty erudite room with a lot of laughter.
The event was nice, but not particularly inspiring. Senator Specter is being touted as the only person who can defeat Pat Toomey, but that very morning Sestak took a two point lead in the latest polls.
Two quick points.
First, I need to take a closer look at Sestak which I will do this week. Clearly, others are doing so.
Second, here's where he lost me. A young member of the crowd asked about the repeal of DADT.
He has the endorsement of Liberty City and Steel City so maybe he's being coy, but “some time” sounds far too much like the Administration. Gates is going to block the repeal of DADT in 2010, until far past the mid-term elections. I was HOPING Senator Specter might have something more inspiring to say. We know he's a cosponsor; we need fierce leadership.
Overall the event was nice, but pretty mainstream. Less than 1/3 of the attendees were women so I continue to bemoan that we hand over the power of our commnity … where were all the women who have issues with Specter and missed the chance to ask him about Clarence Thomas and Alito and so forth? We do ourselves no favor by not showing up.
I can't see you missed much, but the opportunity to create a new dialectic.
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