Clinton says Pa. Senate race is choice of disastrous GOP policies, Democrats who fix economy

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Clinton stumps for Pa. Dem in close Senate race

SCRANTON, Pa. — Former President Bill Clinton characterized Pennsylvania’s close and competitive U.S. Senate race on Tuesday as a choice between disastrous Reagan-Bush economic policies and the ability of Democrats to fix the damage they inflicted.

Clinton, perhaps the most valuable Democratic Party name in Pennsylvania, drew several hundred people to a rally for Rep. Joe Sestak. He told them to spread the message that it makes no sense to defeat Sestak because President Barack Obama and Democrats who control Congress haven’t pulled the nation out of the worst economic crisis since the Depression.

“You ought to say to people, ‘Sestak’s the best candidate and give this deal two more years,’” Clinton told the crowd. “We were in a deep hole, a year and a half wasn’t enough to dig us out of it.”

Without mentioning Sestak’s opponent, former Republican Congressman Pat Toomey, Clinton suggested that the alternative to Sestak is a candidate who adheres to trickle-down economic theories that benefit the wealthy but dig a deeper financial hole.

“Don’t elect the shovel brigade,” Clinton said. “Keep electing the builders.”

The Toomey campaign responded with a statement faulting Democrats’ handling of the economy.

“When President Clinton teamed up with Republican majorities in Congress, we had a balanced budget,” the Toomey statement said. “When President Obama teamed up with Nancy Pelosi and Joe Sestak, we got the largest deficits in American history.”

Clinton is on a swing through eastern Pennsylvania to raise money and stump for several Democratic candidates on the Nov. 2 ballot.

With President Barack Obama’s approval rating sagging in polls in Pennsylvania, Clinton is perhaps the biggest Democratic Party name in a state his wife handily won in the 2008 presidential primary.

Sestak, a second-term congressman from a Philadelphia suburb, missed the event at the Scranton High School gymnasium because he was in Washington for an emergency session vote on a bill extending recession-related aid to states and public schools.

While in the Navy, Sestak served in the Clinton White House as director for defense policy on the National Security Council. Before the rally, Clinton attended a Sestak fundraiser at a nearby diner.