Waiting for Sestak

The Democratic Senate primary in Pennsylvania remains wide open, but Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) has gained virtually no traction with eight weeks to go, according to a new poll.

The latest Franklin and Marshall poll shows Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) well under 50 percent, at 32 percent. But Sestak has barely climbed out of the single digits, taking just 12 percent of the vote.

Franklin and Marshall tends to have high numbers of undecideds, but Sestak should still be registering more than 12 percent if he wants to make it a competitive primary. At this point, he doesn't appear to have made a compelling case as an alternative to Specter. The good news, is, he has a little less than two months. The bad news is, he has a little less than two months.

Sestak hasn't made much headway in any poll that regularly tests the race. He has run a (notoriously) lean campaign, and even though he had $5 million in the bank, he doesn't seem to have used much of it so far.

There's an opening with Specter in the primary, but as we've seen May 18 Senate primaries take off in other states (Arkansas and Kentucky), the Pennsylvania race has thus far been a pretty one-sided contest.

It will be interesting to see what Sestak has planned.