PA Senate Race: Sestak, Toomey Share a "Beer Summit" at ABW

Read all about the 9/2/2009 event:

The Hill’s BLOG BRIEFING ROOM “[It was a] night of bipartisan discussion and imbibing…”

The Philadelphia Inquirer “The beer’s on me,” Toomey said.

The Morning Call “The two candidates have agreed to meet afterwards at the Allentown Brew Works over a beer.”

And From Politics PA.com:
Sestak, Toomey share a Brew at “beer summit”
By Alex Roarty
PoliticsPA Staff Writer
roarty@politicspa.com

ALLENTOWN – They arrived at Muhlenberg College, they answered health-care questions, they spoke to reporters afterward.

And then Pat Toomey and Joe Sestak drank.

Following through on an idea meant to echo President Barack Obama’s famous “beer summit” with Henry Louis Gates Jr. and James Crowley, the two Senatorial candidates and their staffs met at Allentown Brew Works shortly after their health-care town hall. The downtown location was near Toomey’s campaign headquarters, and the bar’s relatively close quarters meant the campaign staffs, on completely different sides of the ideological spectrum were forced to mingle.

Not that that was a problem for the candidates themselves. The two shared a table for about an hour, each with a beer. The town hall had gone well, with neither candidate personally attacking the other. In fact, the two took time to compliment the other for engaging in honest, civil public discourse.

The two campaigns had mostly set up on either side of the narrow bar area. Facing away from the bar itself, the Sestak staffers sat on the left, Toomey staffers on the right.

Perhaps even more appropriately, a small group of Specter campaign members sat in the middle.
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NOTE: Not wanting to leave out Senator Arlen Specter, I was able to say hello to him too in Philadelphia recently. 😉