Ridge was quite underwhelming during his stint in Congress (he was the most liberal member of the PA GOP House delegation when he retired in 1994). He drew a 3rd party opponent twice for Governor because he was a self-proclaimed abortion supporter, and as a Catholic, that was clearly an offensive position (and that is what cost him the VP nomination in 2000). Had he combined Bob Casey, Sr’s stridency on the issue with a solid Conservative record on the other issues, he might very well be the President today, but because of his squishy-ness, he pissed it all away.
As was mentioned, he’ll be another Dick Thornburgh type, and we all see what happened in his Senate run in 1991. If we’re going to run anyone absent Toomey, why not run Mark Schweiker ? Had Schweiker chosen to run for a full term in 2002 as Governor, he more than likely would’ve wiped the floor with Fast Eddie. He engendered a lot of warm feelings on his behalf. But until something else comes along, I think Toomey has worked his butt off and deserves our support. Ridge is just another symptom of what’s wrong with our party kow-towing to RINOs.
When Mark Schweiker became acting Governor in 2001, he had zero interest in running for re-election. Schweiker’s boost in approval ratings came in the summer of 2002, when the Western PA miners were trapped. Its unknown how Schweiker would fare in an election campaign.
In the case of Richard Thornburgh, outside factors were at work in the special election 1991. The economy then was in a recession. Harris Wofford claimed to be a pro-life Dem. Wofford, with the aid of James Carville, blamed the recession on Bush I and promised health care reform. Discontent with the recession allowed Wofford to pull that upset. Wofford’s victory provided the blue print for Clinton to beat Bush.