In what his Republican opponent called a "hypersensitive reaction," Representative Joe Sestak (D-Pennsylvania) was able to get two television stations to stop running a campaign ad for two days. The stations have now reversed their decision and are running the ad that was paid for by the US Chamber of Commerce and claimed Mr. Sestak was in lockstep with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California).

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The ad contains the claim that Mr. Sestak "voted with Nancy Pelosi 100 percent of the time" and voted for a "government takeover of health care." That caused Sestak campaign lawyer Jared G. Solomon to write a letter to 14 TV stations around the state which began running the ad on Monday. Two of those stations (WPGH and its sister station WPMY), agreed that the "100 percent" assertion was false and agreed to pull the spot on Thursday. (source)

Republican Pat Toomey, Mr. Sestak's opponent in the race for US Senate, had nothing to do with the ad but held an impromptu conference call with reporters about what he called Mr. Sestak's "hypersensitive reaction." While the Toomey campaign cites Congressional Quarterly statistics that show 97 percent of Representative Sestak's votes align with Pelosi's, the candidate said, "This is about Joe Sestak denying that he's in lockstep with Nancy Pelosi, which is shocking to me. It's very interesting and illustrative the lengths Joe Sestak will go to try and mislead the Pennsylvania voters." (source)

The controversy over the pulling of the ad has garnered more attention than the ad itself would have achieved without it. In addition to showing that hypersensitivity of the Democratic candidate, it has also caused the "voted with Pelosi 97 percent of the time" fact to spread through the Pennsylvania media like wildfire and will most likely be the piece of information that stays with Keystone state voters.

US Chamber of Commerce spokesman J.P. Fielder told reporters right after the ad was pulled that he expected it to be back on the air soon and sure enough, the Chamber was able to announce that the two stations who succumbed to the Sestak lawyer's demand have reversed their decision and are restoring the ad. (source)