Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak is challenging Sen. Arlen Specter in the Democratic primary this year. In an interview Thursday with RealClearPolitics, Sestak discussed Specter, the fallout from the Massachusetts special Senate election, and the lack of transparency and leadership from both parties in Washington.

RCP: In the wake of the Republican win, what’s the overall mood of the House Democratic Caucus?

Sestak: I just came out of a Democratic caucus [meeting], and I think the Caucus has finally woken up. I’ve said ever since last year when I went to the 67 counties of Pennsylvania to decide whether to get into the race for Senate against Arlen Specter after the leadership of the establishment of Washington, D.C., said, ‘Oh, we’re going to do this for the 60^th vote, we’re counting votes.’ All of a sudden this evidence that came out of Massachusetts that the change that citizens wanted hadn’t been brought about. It wasn’t about the health care debate. That was a part of it, don’t get me wrong. But it was about that they don’t get it down here. That you close a deal like Senator Ben Nelson did for a special interest, rather than shaping something for a policy purpose for the working family.

So it was a matter of listening, but it didn’t mean that you listen and then go vote. It means you sit and then discuss with the citizens you serve. That is what the Democratic leadership forgot. They believed they were given a mandate -- they weren’t. They were given an opportunity to lead. And leadership, as I learned in my 31 years in the Navy, means sitting down and discussing issues like I did at “captain’s calls.” As a matter of fact in “kitchen calls” now -- where you sit down, listen, and then discuss what you think of their ideas and where you’re going to go, and be willing to be held accountable for it.

The promise of governance -- that Washington, D.C., would change and not be doing deals -- that more than anything else is what I think they lost faith in: ‘Washington, D.C., you told us it was going to be different in your governance, and you’re still cutting deals, and we’re suffering.’

RCP: Is there a noticeable sense that Democrats are more worried about keeping their jobs now?

Sestak: Yes, without a question. That is what most irks America. Arlen Specter became a Democrat, and the Democratic establishment supported it because he said, ‘I cannot win in a Republican primary.’ Someone who sent the ‘United States Ship America’ aground. And Democrats say, ‘OK, we got it, because we’re going to do a deal.’ I have never understood why our public servants are more interested in their jobs. I just heard in the caucus, ‘Oh, we better change, or we’re going to lose in November.’ No, that’s not the discussion.

I’m not running for my job in Congress, even though you can do that, in a district that we won without spending a dime last election -- except on yard signs, even though it was 53 percent Republican/35 percent Democrat. I ran around the state’s 67 counties and saw how people were hurting because of the damage done to them. And still not understanding the Democratic establishment that was more worried about Arlen Specter’s job, because he’s in the good ol’ boy’s club, and more worried about whether Ben Nelson can take something back to Nebraska.

That’s the type of lack of transparency that I saw in the House Caucus a lot: ‘We’re doing deals to kind of get something through.’ Well, wait a moment, maybe it’s less important about the deal and who you’re dealing with -- insurance companies and others -- than saying, ‘Here’s what I’m doing, here’s what I’m trying to do, and I’m willing to lose my job over it.’ So I think that is what you heard from Massachusetts.

They have the same health care bill, Massachusetts does, that is in the House bill. I ran on the Massachusetts health care bill. When I got out of the Navy, my daughter had a brain tumor. And it’s 95 percent identical to what Massachusetts had, and polling shows they like it. This was something about Washington, and the way that the Democrats and Republicans and the establishment for generations too long have done business.

RCP: Can you give us the status on House and Senate health care negotiations?

Sestak: We had a caucus the other day, I talked to leaders on the floor, and just came out of a caucus now. There is discussion still going on between the Senate and the House, but there is also talk about other alternatives: Let’s scale down, get something through, that truly at least helps in what we wanted to get done; or let’s just vote on single, individual pieces at a time.

What I do know is this. Is that with 14,000 Americans losing their health care every day, with the costs of premiums in Pennsylvania going double in the last eight years and to double soon again. This year alone, I’ve had people come in and say, ‘I’ve already had my premiums double in a year.’ If we don’t do something, they will hurt more. So this doesn’t mean ‘stop on health care’ at all. What this means is, let’s have some more leadership, and not let the insurance companies have the right to influence senators so that the anti-trust provision -- the exemption -- is not removed.

 Now this is a time to remember that you need to come back to your district, your state, and hold those town halls, hold those meetings. And yes listen, but also explain. I think there was a lack of leadership to understand the bill, even. To come back, and for many of these individuals to have actually articulated what and why we were doing it, and maybe some changes would’ve been done. The people want to know they’re listened to. Doesn’t mean they always want to agree with you -- they don’t. They just want to know that you listen to them, tried to assess it and you won’t betray the trust of doing what’s right.

RCP: Back to your Senate race. A new poll found you trailing Arlen Specter by double digits in the Democratic Primary. What’s your plan to make that up for the next several months?

Sestak: We aren’t changing anything. We are doing exactly what I believe is right. I was told that Arlen Specter was to be the Democratic candidate. And I appreciated that the president, and Washington, D.C., and Vice President Biden, and Gov. Ed Rendell knew Arlen, liked Arlen, wanted him to remain in the Senate. I understood why they asked me to sit down. I said I’ll listen. And I actually decided after listening to people around America -- to their stories, to a farmer who said, however Arlen Specter had used his seniority down there the last 30 years, that it was time for a generational change. So I’m going to continue right on the path that we are. 

I know my challenge is name recognition, as you saw in that poll. And heaven forbid, you saw the polling for now-Senator Brown. Even Pat Toomey was 40 points down just a few weeks, I think, before his Senate bid. This is now when people are beginning to focus, and it’s going to be heightened by the Massachusetts election. They not only did not have my election to look at before, they also had their jobs to watch. So without a question, we’ll just continue to do -- much like Harry Truman did against Dewey, where he took a train everywhere to just talk to the groups and say accountability, the buck stops here -- that’s what I’m doing. We did 22 counties in a total of 20 days, and did over 200 events -- events that included tour boards, kitchen calls, women small business groups.

They need to understand that there is a choice. There is someone who is willing to lose his job, working hard for those who have lost their jobs and those who have jobs and are working -- those families. And who wants to say, this is where I sit with conviction, not convenience. I honestly believe what they most want is just someone they can trust that will actually be in it for them. I don’t understand. At times I just want to forgive Arlen Specter, except when I see the pain in my district -- when he permitted AIG and Lehman Brothers, to meet their request that there would be no oversight regulation or requirements to keep reserves as they gambled with derivatives, which are actually the pension plans of seniors in my district.

When Pennsylvania has had an increase in jobs of 30 percent in the last 30 years, but the rest of the nation did 60 percent, you can understand why our population of Pennsylvania has only grown one-seventh of the nation’s growth in those 30 years -- because the youth couldn’t find jobs. That’s why I went to the Small Business Committee -- they create 75 percent of jobs across America, if you give them the right incentives.

So I honestly believe that the people are looking for somebody they might not always agree with -- I don’t expect them to. It’s like when I was captain of a ship, they didn’t, but at least I’d listen. And then when I said something that I’d be working for, I really did work hard for them.