Virtue, Liberty and Independence?

Not from the Club for Greed, with its motto of "Invade The World, Invite The World, In Hock To The World". And not, therefore, from Pat Toomey, as Daniel Patrick Sheehan writes:

U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak claims China is getting away with murder, the American economy is the victim and Pat Toomey is guilty of aiding and abetting. That was the gist of the Democrat's brief news conference Friday afternoon in his Allentown campaign office on Hamilton Street. Sestak slammed his Republican opponent in the U.S. Senate race for coddling China to benefit corporate interests at the expense of the American worker.

Sestak — trailing by 7 percentage points, according to the latest Morning Call/Muhlenberg College poll — drew applause from supporters as he detailed Toomey's record on policies he said have cost Pennsylvania thousands of jobs through outsourcing. "We're going to lose a half-million jobs in America this year because of the way we've done policies in regard to China," he said, saying that nation undercuts fair trade and commits intellectual property theft, among other economic sins.

The Wall Street Journal on Friday detailed how China has become a bipartisan bogeyman this election season, with Democrats slamming tax incentives that encourage companies to move jobs there and Republicans blaming Democrats for a federal deficit that forces the United States to borrow from the communist giant. "Candidates are looking to speak in a visceral way to the fears and concerns of voters about jobs," Lawrence Jacobs, a political scientist at the University of Minnesota, told the Journal. "Bashing China is safe."

Sestak said Toomey has a long record of supporting policies that favor China, not only from his time as a Lehigh Valley congressman but also from his tenure as head of Club for Growth, a Washington group that supports free trade and limited government. The Democrat hit a particular sore spot for the Valley when he pointed out that China is now a leading producer of clean-energy wind turbines, each of which uses hundreds of tons of steel. Competition from foreign steel exports was a factor in the demise of Bethlehem Steel.

Sestak's quick but energetic visit cheered the faithful. "He has a good heart and he's pushing for more jobs," said Tom Fels of Allentown, a laid-off production worker who stopped by the headquarters after spending a few hours job hunting on a computer at the Allentown Public Library. On the sidewalk, some young Toomey supporters held signs reading "Joe, Where's the Jobs?" The signs had a double meaning, linking Sestak to high unemployment under the Obama administration and underscoring Toomey's record of private-sector job creation as an entrepreneur.

From 1991 to 1998, Toomey "owned and ran several small businesses with his brothers in the Lehigh Valley and Lancaster and created hundreds of jobs for people in Pennsylvania," Toomey's campaign said in a statement. "During that time, Pat learned that the best way to create jobs is to keep taxes and government burdens low to give small businesses the flexibility to thrive and hire new employees. In contrast, Joe Sestak has never created a job in the private sector. And it shows." Fels, for one, said he was growing weary of the partisan blame game and just wants someone to put Americans back to work. "This economy," he said, shaking his head. "What a nightmare."