There was no secret that the Obama administration and Democratic leaders in Pennsylvania wanted to avoid a divisive primary fight and rally around Specter. But Sestak refused to stand down, and then caused a stir in February when he told veteran TV journalist Larry Kane that he had been offered a significant federal job to forgo a challenge. Kane asked whether the post was Navy secretary, and Sestak declined to comment.
He has stayed mum since on the details of the job claim, and the White House, when it would address the subject at all, has said nothing inappropriate happened.
Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the top Republican on the House government-oversight committee, has demanded information from the administration on conversations with Sestak, and he has called for an independent counsel to investigate the matter. He has been rebuffed on both counts.
Last week, Issa said he was considering filing a formal ethics complaint against Sestak on grounds that he has withheld knowledge of a potential crime.
If the Obama administration did in fact offer Sestak a job to protect Specter from a primary challenge, it may be that the Obama administration took a page from the play book of the Beshear administration.
Gov. Steve Beshear has been picking off Senate Republicans for some time by offering them plummy jobs.
As Patrick Crowley wrote last fall for BloodHorse, quoting Kentucky Sen. President David Williams, “The governor is methodically going about giving jobs to Republicans to replace them not just with any Democrat, but Democrats that favor his slots proposal,” Williams said.
The parallels between the tactics of the Obama and Beshear administrations underscore that the lack of transparency in buying off the opposition is not the Kentucky way, it's the Democratic way.
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