Word: campaigners
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Surprisingly, many of the state's veteran political observers and activists say no. "It's going to require an insurgency campaign, kind of a storming the gates with pitchforks and torches kind of campaign," says strategist Mark Nevins, who advised Hillary Clinton in her successful primary campaign in Pennsylvania last year. "That is difficult to run but can be very effective in this kind of environment...
Most important, the campaign must be keyed to Specter's unexpected defection from the Republican Party last spring. On April 28, he announced he was switching parties after admitting he would lose the GOP primary to conservative challenger Pat Toomey. Specter's blunt and clinical explanation for why he switched did little to endear him to many of the Democratic partisans who will vote in the May 18 primary election. "He lost his first and best opportunity to really make people believe that it was a fundamental shift in his ideology," Nevins says. "Instead he made it sound opportunistic...
Still, early polls aren't encouraging. Quinnipiac University reported in July that Specter would beat Sestak easily in the primary, 55% to 23%. According even to Sestak's campaign, at least 70% of primary voters don't know enough about him to even form an opinion. But the Quinnipiac poll and others also found troubling signs for Specter - his job-approval numbers statewide, for example, have fallen to their lowest point in the poll's history: 47% approve while 46% disapprove. (Read about why Specter switched parties...
Specter himself professes to be completely unconcerned. Campaign manager Christopher Nicholas says Specter is "fighting trim" physically and is politically committed to Democratic ideals. "There are folks on the extremes of either party who will never be satisfied," Nicholas says of liberal voters suspicious of Specter, "but you have to plow ahead and work with those folks who are with you and try to minimize the impact of those that are not with...
...Congressman Kendrick Meek - and that he's starting with a 30-point lead over his GOP challenger. Crist also raked in a state-record $4.3 million in the second quarter, swamping Rubio's $340,000; the media are speculating that Rubio will run for attorney general instead, and his campaign manager and chief fundraiser are already gone. (Read "Florida's Senate Seat: The [Premature] Martinez Opening...