[nonliberal]

Santorum has an albatross named Arlen Specter hanging around his neck.

[Man50D]

Realclearpolitics.com has Santorum as being down 10.2% in the polls.

Ignore the polls. Keep in mind the polls also predicted Dewey defeated Truman in 1948 and had Gore defeating Bush in Florida in 2000. The only accurate poll and the only one that counts occurs on November 7th.

[Sir_Humphrey]

I live next door to Pa here in Blue State New Jersey. Pa. is also a blue state driven by Philadelphia and Pittsburgh intercity Democratic machines. All area outside of those two places are Red State America. Murtha is from a Red State area so it's possible for that old fool to be voted out while the empty suit Casey is voted in.

[Nowling]

Worse environment for Republicans in 20 years. Our GOP majorities in MI are getting hammered, too.

The conservative base is not energized. Republican's haven't really given them a reason to be whereas the liberal left has been singularly focused on tying Repblican to Bush and their based is extremely fired up.

Republican's took the majority in '94 by saying "vote for us because we are different than those bums." But I can't see too much that they done in the last five years that distinguishes them from the Dims. When that happens, I think all the Independents we pulled to our side revert back to voting Democrat.

[End Times Sentinel]

It's a number of things.

Some of the C's in PA are angry with him over his support for Specter (RINO) in the 2004 election, turning his back on Conservative Pat Toomy. That's probably a small part of the electorate, but it's a crucially important one, cause those are the politically active folks who get the word out and write the checks.

There's strong national movement made up of Moveon.org/codepink/DU types that has been telling people for a couple of years that Santorum has stated that gays are like beastialitists and women shouldn't be allowed to work if they have kids. That's picked up some traction amongst those who can't be bothered to think for themselves ("Our candidates are debating tonight, but Everybody Loves Raymond is on and I've only seen it twice.")

There's a significant portion of Pennsylvanians who think they're voting for his father who died 12 years ago.

The perfect storm for Rickels.

[IllumiNaughtyByNature]

The only info you can trust is what Rove says about the race. Syncronize your wristwatch with your VCR clock and put a 4x4 square inch of tin foil on the antenna of the nearest blue chevy tahoe blazer to your house and Rove will send you a secret FReepmail with the internals...

/h

Don't believe what you read and EVERY poll that has been released has been oversampled with RATS.

[linn37]

I tried to get tickets to the event he is having tonight in Lancaster and they are all gone. Maybe his base is not as depressed as the press is claiming.

[MikefromOhio]

it's because Pennsylvania is NOT a conservative state.

The same thing is happening in Ohio, although DeWhiner isn't nearly as conservative as Santorum is.

The mushy-moderates seem to be going towards the Dems. Neither state has a conservative majority.

[Joann37]

Getting back to YOUR post, I wondered about that, too.

After doing a few searches, it does sound like Casey's father and his popularity have a lot to do with this doing so well in the polls. I've seen that others have made similar observations here as well.

But why on earth did Bush go to so much trouble to promote Specter (the RINO) a few years ago, at Pat Toomey's expense, of course, yet he's bailed on Santorum already? Why on earth would he do that?

[knarf]

I'm losing a ton of respect for a lot of old head FreepeRs today ... Apparently I'm stupid, out of the loop or I didn't gey the memo.

This big board looks suspiciously like the state board has been going for the last 5 months (until recently when big guns shot down small minds)