Sestak Stumbles After Walk Across State

A new Quinnipiac poll has embattled Pennsylvania Democrat, Joe Sestak, dropping three points to Republican Pat Toomey on the heels of Sestak’s 422 mile walk across Pennsylvania as a means of kicking off his potential run for Toomey’s Senate seat.

The media coverage of the walk has been less than ideal, and now the subsequent poll drop isn’t helping, as this Philly.com item points out:

Joe Sestak just finished walking 422-miles across Pennsylvania — and slipped three points further behind Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.), according to a Quinnipiac University poll out Monday.

Toomey (R., Pa.) holds a 13 point edge over Sestak, a Democrat, in a potential 2016 match up, according to the survey. It found that 48 percent of voters would back Toomey in a head-to-head match up, against 35 percent for Sestak.

The Washington Post almost seemed to be having fun at Toomey’s expense in a report on April 2nd:

This journey, it sometimes seemed, was as much about solitude and self-reflection as retail politics or media outreach. He rarely slowed to shake hands. When he talked to strangers it was because he needed directions, sometimes darting into traffic to knock on a car window.

Ironically, in that same item, Sestak cited old advice from former President Bill Clinton as his reasoning behind the walk: “The former president, Sestak says, jabbed a finger in his gut — and told him to follow it.”

Chalk this up to just one more time it might have been better for Bill Clinton to keep his hands to himself.

To explain why he was walking alone for 25 days and 422 miles across Pennsylvania, U.S. Senate hopeful Joe Sestak recalled a bit of advice he got six years ago.

It was the day that Sen. Arlen Specter became a Democrat, a move that thrilled the party but complicated Sestak’s plans to run for the seat. That afternoon, Sestak had lunch with his old boss, Bill Clinton. The former president, Sestak says, jabbed a finger in his gut — and told him to follow it.