opposition and certainly striking fear into the hearts of those moderate senators across the country. nbc s vaughn hillyard in maryland, thanks for joining us and for your golf announcement voice because i m sure the constituents there appreciate it very much. on to another personal story that is making waves across the one in pennsylvania. protesters have been leading vigils at republican senator pat toomi s office. he was on the health care working group and was involved in some of the proposed medicaid cuts. a mom who lost her son to drugs warned that the fight against opioid addiction will face a crippling setback if the bill becomes a law. look at this. and if you have not seen someone in the throws es of thi addiction, you are not equipped to know that it is a disease. i know t t. it looks like cancer in the last stages, and there s certainly a lot of other types of patients i m concerned about losing health insurance. but i have gone to too many funerals of young people in t
voted for president obama. that list includes senate veterans chuck grassley, susan collins of maine as well as wisconsin ron johnson, mark kurt, rob portman, pat toomi, marco rubio and kelly ayotte. nevada s dean heller was the only to win in a blue state in the 2012 cycle. he narrow will he won over shelly berkeley despite the president winning the state by six. they have a none of the above. susan collins was the only other senator on the list to face voters while president obama was on the ballot. she won her third it term in 2008. the other seven were all elected or re-elected in the big republican wave of 2010. could republicans take back some of that territory in 2014 is this joining me now political analyst and editor and publisher of the cook political report, charlie cook. charlie, we have a senate announcement today. this is happenstance. we planned this last week and we can talk about 2014 and jay
stimulus, candy. toomi had announced he was going to run for governor. i really had a clear shot all the way. look here, you mentioned the pittsburgh post-gazette editorial but also the philadelphia enquirer daily news. the newspapers look carefully at the voting records, they go behind the scenes, they interview the candidates. and the harrisburg patriot in endorsing me was very emphatic that my vote was a vote of principle and that i was really at odds with the republican party. there were irreconcilable differences, but they were caused by my stimulus vote. and my stimulus vote was not only about my job, in fact it wasn t about my job, i had a clear shot at re-election. it was to save a depression in this country. well, while your race does seem complicated by the shift in parties because you have on the one hand there was a headline
obama agenda and sestak can t do it. you just saw him. wouldn t answer any of your questions. ducks and dodges, and weaves. you ve got to face up to the issues, you ve got to be strong and you ve got to be tough and i m the guy had to do it. i want to ask you something that i asked him. this has been a very seemed very personal race. your side has felt that he has tried to make you seem too old for the job. his side feels that you ve tried to smear his military record, et cetera, et cetera. in the end, senator, if joe sestak wins this race, will you support him? sure. i m going to support anybody against pat toomi. it s not going to happen, but i ll answer your question, candy. he wouldn t answer your question as to what he has to hide. he wouldn t answer your questions all over the lot, ducks and bobs and weaves. one thing i ve always been is
paid for without adding to the debt. and notice by the way against pat toomi arlen specter loses and i m tied with him because people know from the military an my three years in congress, i do believe in the right investment. but in an accountable way. republicans i believe before george bush used to have a sense of accountability but arlen specter with george bush threw out that fiscal conservatism that i believe in. there s an article titled the democrats civil war. if you lose this primary will you support senator specter and urge your supporters to do so? what i know is this, that in a war you always know you re going to succeed and so i m going to win and i m looking forward to senator specter s after 18 may. and if you look forward to his support, can he look forward to yours? never deal with something that s not going to happen. we are going to win because the working families are the ones