Sestak vs. Weldon makes Salon's 10 Great Races of 2006

Salon describes Weldon as "the hawkish 10-term Republican, obsessed with finding Iraq's elusive weapons of mass destruction, who is an odd match with the affluent Philadelphia suburbs (Delaware County) he represents."

The piece continues:

As Ken Mehlman, the Republican national chairman, put it in an interview last week, "What has always been a conundrum for guys like me who are running presidential campaigns is that we don't win in the Philly suburbs in recent elections, yet they vote Republican for Congress and they vote Republican in local legislative elections."

I'm sure Mehlman knows better. The Philly suburbs have changed demographically. And to understand the voters there as diehard Republican base is folly. There are leftovers of an entrenched machine in the 7th District, but the true party loyalty exists almost solely at the County level, and it's patronage-based. But stand around and talk to your ward's GOP committee person next election day. They're often social moderates--more Specter than Santorum. In fact, in 2004, they didn't wear any Bush regalia at our local Republican ward. They only wore Specter swag, who had just come through a tough primary challenge from his right flank.

Weldon's reelection fight against Joe Sestak -- a retired admiral who raised more money in the second quarter than the incumbent -- will be a prime test of these vestigial GOP suburban loyalties.

Vestigial is a good word to describe the true GOP loyalists. But it's the independents and large numbers of disaffected Republicans that are going to do Weldon in, especially as Sestak's name recognition increases in the fall.

Weldon has never faced a challenger like Joe Sestak.