Specter’s shrewd HuffPo op-ed

Here’s Arlen Specter’s basic problem: Though establishment Democrats are lining up behind him, more and more liberal activists and bloggers are encouraging Joe Sestak to launch a primary challenge against him in 2010.

In an online straw poll sponsored by a handful of prominent liberal blogs, 86% of respondents said Sestak should run.

Which is why whomever advised Specter to write this op-ed is very shrewd. If you want to win over the netroots, exalting the phenomenal role of the internet in spreading democracy and freedom is basically a no-brainer. Doing so on Huffington Post is even better.

Titled “Breach the Cyberwalls!”, Specter’s op-ed urges the U.S. to tear down barriers to online access:

The United States must fight fire with fire in finding ways to breach these cyberwalls, which dictatorships use to control their people and keep themselves in power. Tearing down these walls can match the effect of what happened when the Berlin Wall was torn down. No one understands this better than the dictator states.

Read the rest here.