http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/20/us/politics/20sestak.html?hpShortly after Representative Joe Sestak won an improbable victory Tuesday over Senator Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senate primary, President Obama called Mr. Sestak to congratulate him. The president pledged his full support, aides said later, and offered to campaign for him in the fall — if Mr. Sestak believes it will help.
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His seemingly quixotic yearlong quest to win the Democratic Senate nomination pitted Mr. Sestak against an array of Democratic power brokers, from the White House to the governor to organized labor to the party apparatus to Democratic donors.
“You have the whole world telling him he’s crazy to do this,” said Neil Oxman, a founder of the Campaign Group, the media firm in Philadelphia that made Mr. Sestak’s much-heralded television commercials. “It’s pretty remarkable when you can stand up against those odds and take on the longest-serving senator in Pennsylvania history.”
Now Mr. Sestak — despite an initially rambling and occasionally bewildering speaking style — appears to be one of the Democrats’ best hopes for keeping control of the Senate. How a relatively obscure member of Congress, with a consistently liberal voting record, made it this far says a great deal about who he is.