Joe Sestak and Forward
Happy Labor Day! I hope you are having a wonderful holiday with family and friends. I'm heading to St, Louis on Thursday for a MO Forward Party kick-off and am looking forward to it.
Of all of the people who have joined Forward, perhaps the most exciting for me has been my friend Joe Sestak. Joe and I met when we both ran for President in 2020 though I’ve admired him from afar for years.
Joe’s exploits are the stuff of legend. He served in the U.S. Navy for 31 years and commanded the USS George Washington aircraft carrier strike group in the first Gulf War. He led fifteen thousand sailors who trusted him with their lives, though he would say it was the other way around. He became a three-star admiral and received 10 medals of distinction and part of the National Security Council. He got a PhD from Harvard years after graduating second in his class from the U.S. Naval Academy. After leaving the Navy, in part because he took the stance in 2005 that they should invest more in cybersecurity and less in ships, he ran for Congress in a Republican district in his native Pennsylvania. He shockingly won, and then won his re-election by 20 points without spending a dime.
“People would say to me, ‘you’re a retired Navy admiral? And a Democrat?’” on the trail during his first Congressional campaign. I interview Joe on the podcast this week, which will give you a powerful sense of him and his story. “A lot of people in Pennsylvania have family who served, so I kind of appealed to those who leaned to the right. Most of the people in military service lean the same way. I would tell them ‘I’m an Independent who happens to be a Democrat.’”
After being named one of the most productive members of Congress, Joe ran for Senate in 2010. All establishment Democrats, including the Governor Ed Rendell, Senate Majority Leader at the time Harry Reid and the entire Obama Administration backed Arlen Specter who had just switched from Republican to Democrat. Despite this, Joe overcame a 29-point deficit and prevailed over Specter 53 – 47 in the primary before losing a tightly contested race to Pat Toomey 51 – 49 in the general.
After such a narrow loss, it was very natural for Joe to run again in 2016. He decided to walk across the state – 300 miles over 28 days – to meet people and generate press. The sensible thing to do if you were the Democrats would be to say, “Okay, Joe defied us last time by running but he is going to be the strongest candidate against Toomey. He already has statewide recognition in all 47 counties and has a track record of appealing to people across parties as someone who won a Republican district in this state by 20 points.” You can tell from my writing this that the Dems did the opposite. They spent more than $6 million in the primary backing Katie McGinty and attacking Joe with negative ads, including at least one that was classified as “false” and “sleazy” by the Washington Post. McGinty would go on to lose in the general and both the people of Pennsylvania and the country lost an opportunity to have a truly great Senator.
In June of 2019, Joe joined me in the presidential field. He declared late because his daughter, Alex, was struggling with cancer and he wanted to make sure she was okay. I met Joe and saw him speak several times and thought to myself, “Wow, what a true patriot.” If you have commanded thousands of sailors and held such massive responsibility, it shows. Joe emanated both command and character in person while remaining down to Earth.
Indeed, Joe decided to walk across New Hampshire – an easier task than Pennsylvania – during the presidential to meet voters. But, due to lack of media attention, Joe’s campaign never took off. He conceded about six months later.
Still, he and I kept in touch and are now working together to bring Americans together with Forward. I couldn’t be more honored.
“I think that we’ve just lost trust in America. The average age of the sailors on the Navy ships I commanded was only 19-and-a-half years old. Yet they would regularly put their lives in each others’ hands because that’s the only way that a ship can operate. That’s the kind of trust we need to regain. I see Forward as a way to help re-establish that trust.”
It means a lot to have Joe with us – if anyone can rekindle the trust of a divided nation, it’s him.
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I hope that you are excited about Forward – if you haven’t already done so, please sign up or make a donation! After my trip to St, Louis, I'm heading to Houston with Joe and hundreds of others for the Texas kickoff on September 24th and then out to support candidates and ballot initiatives around the country. Join us.
