Sestak: My Senate race is Bill Clinton's 'top priority'

The Pennsylvania Senate race is now former President Clinton's top political priority this fall, Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) asserted Thursday.

Sestak, the Democratic candidate in the race, said that he'd spoken to Clinton's people the other day, and that he was informed that Sestak's candidacy was the former Democratic candidate's top priority.

"Actually, I was talking with them the other day, and they just want to know what days," Sestak said of Clinton during an appearance on MSNBC. "They told me I'm their top priority, and I'm going to keep working on that."

If true, Clinton's heightened interest in Sestak's candidacy would certainly mark a shift from earlier this year, when President Obama's staff dispatched Clinton to meet with Sestak and encourage him to drop his Democratic primary challenge to Sen. Arlen Specter.

Sestak stayed in the race and eventually beat Specter, but not before Republicans in Congress sought an investigation into the circumstances of Clinton's actions, focusing in particular on an allegation leveled once by Sestak that he'd been offered an administration job in exchange for dropping his primary challenge.

Clinton has hit the campaign trail for Sestak since then, though the congressman and former president didn't get a chance to appear together due to the emergency special session of Congress for which lawmakers were recalled to Washington in early August.

Sestak suggested Clinton was likely to campaign again for him this fall in the Keystone State, where the Clinton brand remains popular. Hillary Clinton won the state's Democratic primary for president in 2008 against Obama with nearly 55 percent of the vote.