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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/United States Senate Democratic primary election in Pennsylvania, 2010/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Karanacs 20:55, 20 September 2011 [1].

United States Senate Democratic primary election in Pennsylvania, 2010 edit

United States Senate Democratic primary election in Pennsylvania, 2010 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): — Hunter Kahn 01:25, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There are very few FAs about elections, let alone one about a primary election, but I believe this article meets the FA criteria and documents a pretty interesting campaign to boot. It is already a GA and has undergone a peer review. I anxiously await any comments or questions. Thanks! — Hunter Kahn 01:25, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:17, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Ref 4: retrieval date?
  • Use consistent italicization. For example, is CBS News italicized or not?
    • I found similar problems with WPXI and Fox News, but I've fixed them now, as well as CBS News. — Hunter Kahn 04:23, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • AP is not a work
  • FN 83: page B01 of what? Nikkimaria (talk) 16:17, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Can you sort out some confusion in the text? We have "Starting in April 2008, the media began to report growing speculation that Chris Matthews, news commentator and host of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, might challenge Arlen Specter in the Democratic primary." First, "in 2008" is rather vague - early, middle or end? Secondly, you need to specify the Democratic primary you are talking about. Thirdly, a little later we read that Specter was a Republican until April 28, 2009. So why was there talk in 2008 of him being challenged in a Democratic primary? Brianboulton (talk) 16:54, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'm not sure what you mean by your first comment; the current text reads "April 2008", so I'm not sure how it could be further clarified. I agree with your second and third comments; I meant to indicate that he would run in the Democratic primary so he could later challenge the Republican Specter, not that he was running against Specter in the Democratic primary. I've changed it to read, "(Matthews) might run in the Democratic primary for the United States Senate Pennsylvania seat then occupied by Arlen Specter". Is this better? — Hunter Kahn 17:08, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't know what my first point meant, either, so forget it. Your redraft largely resolves the other two confusions. I think however tha the year of the primary should be indicated, and Specter should be identified as a Republican, Thus "...might run in the 2010 (?) Democratic primary for the United States Senate Pennsylvania seat then occupied by the Republican Arlen Specter". Brianboulton (talk) 23:18, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • "Long-time Republican Senator Arlen Specter switched to the Democratic Party, in part he knew he was unlikely to win the Republican primary." - grammar
    • Whoops. Changed to "...in part because he believed he was unlikely..." — Hunter Kahn 18:52, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Flag_of_Pennsylvania.svg is tagged as lacking author info. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:42, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • I wasn't sure what to do about this because that picture pops up automatically as part of the "Infobox Election" template. For now, I've simply removed the state "Pennsylvania" from that template, so no flag is showing up in the article at all. I've reached out to the original uploader to see about the author info, but until that's resolved, I'll just keep it out of the article altogether. — Hunter Kahn 18:52, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Nice article, well-referenced, but there are some curious ommissions. Most importantly, the article does not seem to mention the negotiations that happened when Specter switched parties- he only switched once he had a guarantee from Harry Reid & Obama of keeping seniority and being backed in any primary. This was all over the place when he switched, and basically confirmed once Obama & the Democratic establishment strongly backed Specter - which makes sense, they had to preserve credibility for any future officeholders considering switching. Yet this is never mentioned in the article, letting a casual viewer wonder why the Democratic establishment so strongly backed Specter. (On the off-chance this deal was never *confirmed*, it was at the very least *speculated* on endlessly, and practically assumed as a fact by all commentators on teh election.)

Another issue: the lede finishes on this passage

"This drew allegations from Republicans that the administration violated federal statues forbidding government employees from interfering with a Senate election, although no formal investigation was ever held."

I'm not liking the implication on the last clause, which implies some kind of dark cover-up. Number 1, as the article notes, the Republicans gained control of Congress after the 2010 elections, and didn't bother investigating. Number 2, it implies that there "should" have been such an investigation, and the absence of one is notable. I'd rather move this up to the second paragraph, where the Democratic Party efforts to avoid a primary are already mentioned, and withhold judgment on if "investigations" were necessary. I took a shot at editing the lede, feel free to modify.

On the same issue, I think the "Alleged White House job offer" section is a bit slanted. It wasn't an "alleged" job offer; it definitely happened, although it sounds like it wasn't literally an Administration job inside the White House, which makes sense. To avoid confusion, I recommend "Clinton job offer to Sestak" which makes it clear who offered it. Otherwise... well... how to put this. Full disclosure: I'm on the liberal side of politics. I'm pretty sure there was commentary by people to the effect that this was a complete non-issue in the sense that this kind of petitioning and favor-offering happens *all the time* in primaries to avoid primary fights by both parties. Obviously, this kind of back-room dealing doesn't make for good publicity, so of course the White House is going to be fairly circumspect in talking about it... but... nothing in the section currently brings up this point. But we do have a big quote box from Darrel Issa where he just flat states that this is illegal, a rather remarkable position since no election law agency ever came close to picking up the case, and it'd have been a huge loser if they had. Issa himself dropped it after they decided it wasn't going anywhere. I'm pretty sure this isn't just me talking; I read similar thoughts in the likes of the Washington Post, I'm pretty sure... could these views be included in that section to counterbalance Issa's views? For someone not familiar with American politics, they might think that Issa is correct in this quote that this wasn't "politics as usual", which is just a false statement about American politics pretty much. SnowFire (talk) 03:27, 19 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks very much for the comment, SnowFire. I believe I can address them in short order, and will try to do so tomorrow (Friday). — Hunter Kahn 03:31, 19 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Actually, change of plans: due to a minor emergency that will keep me away from the computer for the weekend, I won't be able to address this until Sunday night or Monday at the very latest. I'm sure it won't take me long when I get back though. Sorry for the delay! — Hunter Kahn 12:52, 20 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Works for me. Did some Googling myself, and while some journalists drew a straight line and flatly stated "Obama offered his support as part of the deal", there are other sources where the White House of course denies any quid pro quo. On the record. Uh huh. I like your passage which doesn't directly say it was part of a deal, but lets readers connect the dots as Obama announces he'll support Specter immediately after Specter switched parties, which is true. The Clinton job offer section is much improved with the addition you made, as well.
Four mega-nits, doing anything is optional: A). Image:Arlen Specter.jpg is a meh picture. The out-of-focus questioner is needed in the picture to explain the giant blurry microphone that would be left if she was cropped out. If there are any better pictures, it'd be good to switch one in and replace this. B) You use "maintains" twice in short succession for section titles. It's probably the best word in each individual context (better than "Specter stays in lead" for example) but still a little repetitive. If you can find an equivalent phrasing for one of them, that'd be neat, but keeping two "maintains" is fine as well. C) The "see also" FAC police will disagree since it was already linked in the article, but I think that there should be a "see also" section with just one link: United States Senate election in Pennsylvania, 2010#General election. Yes, it's linked in the first sentence, but it's easy to miss, and this is a logical continuation to this story - now that you're done with reading the primary article, go see how the general went, as currently the article does not discuss the results of the general election at all. A tiny See also section accomplishes this better than an awkward "General election" section with a "main" template and two sentences that note Toomey's eventual victory. D) I looked around the category system a little, and it seems that Category:United States presidential primaries exists, but there is no category for primaries in general? Weird. It'd be way cool if somebody made a "Primary elections in the United States" category (with Prez primaries as a subcategory) and stuck articles like this into it. But like I said, this and the other three nits are just optional ideas. SnowFire (talk) 04:00, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • "bringing Specter's five-term Senatorial career to an end" - technically his career didn't end until the end of his term
      • I changed this to "which led to the end of Specter's five-term Senatorial career". Is that better? — Hunter Kahn 14:30, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Just prior to the start of the primary campaign, after serving in the Senate as a Republican for 29 years, Specter had switched to the Democratic Party in anticipation of a difficult primary challenge by Pat Toomey, who would go on to defeat Sestak in the general election." - that's a bit lengthy. Furthermore, the [who] in the last portion is somewhat ambiguous whether it refers to Specter or Toomey. Given that's a rather crucial part, it should be clearer, IMO.
      • I broke in apart a little bit by adding a semicolon. Let me know if this works. — Hunter Kahn 14:30, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • It's better with the semicolon, but now you have "Pat Tommey; Toomey". Could you rework that? ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 15:15, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
          • I changed it to "...Toomey; Sestak was ultimately defeated by Toomey in the general election." — Hunter Kahn 15:37, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Specter grew more critical of Sestak as the race progressed, attacking his House attendance record, accusing Sestak of failing to pay his staffers minimum wage and claiming Sestak was demoted while serving in the U.S. Navy for creating a poor command climate." - that's pretty poorly worded, IMO. You use [his] when you refer to Sestak, but then you use "Sestak" two more times for a total of three in the same sentence. I see several other sentences in the article where you use either Sestak or Specter more than once in a sentence unnecessarily.
      • I'm not sure, but I think you're saying the two additional "Sestaks" are not necessary? I've changed them to "he". — Hunter Kahn 14:30, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • "the media began to report growing speculation" - that's a rather broad statement, since the "media" is pretty generic. Who in the media? Political writers? Gossip columnists?
      • Well, it's sort of broad on purpose because it was the broad spectrum of the media in general that was speculating this way. I don't have a source that makes it any more specific as to which members of the media were speculating as such. — Hunter Kahn 14:30, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • Alright, and I see how it's a lead-in to explain subsequent sentence. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 15:15, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Speaking of Matthews, the timing is a bit off. You go from April to November, and then you mention an October fundraiser.
    • When you write things like "X said...", that implies that there should be some sort of quotation. If you're avoiding a quote by doing a paraphrase, you should use a different word, such as a person "opined", "believed", "remarked that", etc.
      • I will make this change if needed, but are you sure about this? In newspaper writing, you're specifically supposed to avoid those other types of word and stick strictly to "said" because other words usually attribute emotion/motives/etc. to the subject, whereas said is always neutral. I know Wikipedia isn't a newspaper, but I find that rule of thumb to generally be a good one. — Hunter Kahn 14:30, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • Well, when you use "says", that implies a quote, at least in my opinion. At the very least, when you say "said", I think you should say "said that". That would remove any implication of an exact quote. --♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 15:15, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
          • I've gone through the article and changed a few of the "said"s by either adding new words or changing them to "said that" as per your concerns. I didn't do this with every instance of the word said that doesn't have a quote, as in some cases I felt the word alone was appropriate. Let me know if you feel this is enough. — Hunter Kahn 15:37, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • When did Specter make that quote that he was running as a republican? Since you give a date when he switched, I think it'd be rather interesting to say how late he was still going as a republican.
    • "The event was expected to raise about $2.5 million" - how much did it actually raise?
      • Sources do not indicate. — Hunter Kahn 14:30, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

More later. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 14:14, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: This is a very comprehensive and in many ways enjoyable article, but unfortunately the prose does not, in my view, meet FA standards at present. I have made a few copyedits, but I am defeated by the constant repetition of "claimed" or "claiming", which occur at least 50 times in the article. We even have "claiming the action contradicted claims" on one occasion. Someone needs to go through and find some alternative phrasing. Another thing that bothers me slightly is that no mention is made of the fact that Specter was over 80 years old at the time of the primary. Might that not have been a factor in his defeat? Brianboulton (talk) 23:11, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • In all the sources I reviewed, I don't believe Arlen Specter's age was ever discussed. Honestly, I can't recall anybody ever suggesting it was a factor in his defeat, nor were any concerns raised about whether he could continue to do the job; and of course, the man put up an extremely vigorous fight for re-election despite his age. With regard to the copyedits, is the claimed/claiming thing the main problem here? Because this article has gone through a peer review, and also neither of the other two reviewers raised major prose problems. Perhaps I could give a try (hopefully this weekend) at fixing the claimed/claiming thing and then you could take another look? — Hunter Kahn 00:52, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • OK, I've gone through and reworded most of the "claims", which I agree with you were a bit much. I believe this was the main grammatical concern you had identified, but please let me know if you feel what I've done so far is enough. — Hunter Kahn 23:38, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Just FYI, I've pinged Brian to see if I've addressed his concerns and he said he will try to come back and weigh in. — Hunter Kahn 18:41, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • Note: Apparently, Brian has gone on a wikibreak, so I'm not sure where this leaves things with regard to his comment. However, since I have addressed his specific concerns with regard to grammar, and nobody else has raised prose concerns (and a PR was previously done) I'm hoping that the prose issue has been addressed. — Hunter Kahn 18:25, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support: My wikibreak was somewhat involuntary, but I'm back now. I've looked again at the prose, and I think that the efforts made to improve it during the course of this review, including the responses to my own concerns, have been effective. The article reads well now, and I am happy to add my support. Sorry for the delay. Brianboulton (talk) 22:57, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks very much, Brian! — Hunter Kahn 00:18, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support by Ruhrfisch. I lived through this election, and while I am not an expert on it, this article gets it right as far as I recall, and it gets the feel right too. I have a few quibbles that do not detract from my support.

  • Quibble - the MOS says that after a person in introduced using their full name, only the last name should be used in most cases. While I am fine with keeping titles to help identify the players (i.e. using Governor Rendell, and not just Rendell), I think this article goes too far by keeping the full name and the title. Thus I would say that instead of six uses of "Governor Ed Rendell", there should be two (once in the lead and once in the body, both on first use), with the rest switched to just "Governor Rendell" (the reference article title should not be changed, of course).
  • Not sure "Pennsylvania Governor" has to be used four times either.
  • I also think that "President Barack Obama" should just be "President Obama" in almost all cases. Here I wonder if even that is needed, since most readers will know Obama's office, once it is clear he has become President (he starts off as candidate Obama). This may be a MOS / style issue I am not aware of.
  • Overuse of Joe Biden vs just Biden, Pat Toomey vs just Toomey, etc.
  • Since Terry Madonna is at Franklin and Marshall, should the connection be made clearer here? A September poll by Franklin & Marshall College found Specter maintained a 37 percent to 11 percent lead over Sestak,...
  • Are both uses of "percent" needed here? ...but had recaptured a projected lead against Pat Toomey in the general election by a margin of 49 percent to 42 percent.
  • I know the article is on the primary, but I was surprised that there was no mention of Toomey's eventual victory in the general election after the lead. I knd of assumed that the general election result would be given towards the end of the article. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 02:31, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks Ruhrfisch! I will be out of town at a funeral all day today, but will address these items tomorrow. — Hunter Kahn 13:27, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • My condolences on your loss. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 15:57, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ok, I believe I've now removed all instances of repeated first names, but if I've missed any please let me know, or feel free to drop them from the article yourself. I also believe I've addressed your other grammar items like repeated titles, the percent thing, etc. (Regarding the Madonna thing, does this address your question?) With regard to the general election results, I tried really hard to keep this article strictly focused on the primary, since the general election has it's own page. However, I see what you mean, so I've tried to find a middle ground by adding just one sentence about the general election to the end of the "Results" section. Let me know if you think that's sufficient. Thanks again! — Hunter Kahn 01:49, 20 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Works for me, thanks for an intersting and well-done article. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 03:15, 20 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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