Specter Wins 51-49 Republican Senatorial Primary: live thread

4/27/2004 | self

[rudy45]

My apologies if a thread already exists. I did a search on "Toomey" and found nothing.

I arrived at my polling area (suburban Philadelphia) at 6:45 am to hand out palm cards. The weather is terrific this morning, but turnout (I thought) was light (I had to leave at 9:15, but will be back).

Actually, I have a good feeling about Pat.

[Francisco]

Oh, and it is risible for you to claim that Arlen Specter is a better defender of the right to bear arms than Pat Toomey. I know that other FReepers have replied to you with factual evidence of Arlen being a gun grabber, but you still choose to ignore such evidence and support Arlen. While it's your right to vote for a gun-grabbing RINO, don't go around claiming that you're a pro-gun conservative.

BUMP!!!

[WOSG]

Joanie f,

If toomey wins, it will be because of folks like you.

I called my conservative republican friend in PA and he was going to vote for specter. i was actually shocked but the reasons of electability were where he was coming from. he didnt think toomey was electable, but I countered that. he doesnt like specter. I bet most of specter's voters arent thrilled to be doing it, just holding their noses. I asked him to vote for toomey and he said he would... so cross fingers, races are won one vote at a time.

[Sybeck1]

question: If Toomey does lose by a short margin today can Spectre expect those votes in November or will the conservatives just stay home then?

[JohnnyZ]

Praying for a political candidate to win, and then saying that if he wins it was due to prayer, and if he loses it is because god has other plans for him, is akin to praying for the Eagles to win the SB.

Right, because passing laws is equivalent to passing a football. Dope.

I think that God has bigger issues to deal with.

If you had a clue, you would know that God can pay attention to more than one thing at the same time.

[Born to Conserve]

Arlen Spector is OLD, and this is probably his last term (if he wins). I am very concerned that his true liberal inclinations will dominate his chairing of the judicial commitee. He won't care about getting re elected in six years, and he could see his place in history as being the two faced B-ST-RD who put the supreme court on the liberal side of the fence for the first half of the twenty first century.

Shudder.

Vote for Toomey, and if awful Hoefel wins, so be it. At least Spector won't poison the Supreme Court.

[WOSG]

"I decided I would not vote for Spectre. I verified I could vote for Toomey. Santorum came out for Spectre. I decided I could not trust a Santorum endorsement. I received a recorded phone call from Santorum in the AG race and ignored the name. I received a second such call and remembered the name of Corbett. I heard some negative ads run by Corbett's campaign and decided I would not want him for AG. I verified the issues and voted. I would trust Rick (for now) with an important vote in the Senate, but his endorsements are an empty noise for me."

I can understand that thinking.

Here in Texas our elected officials (eg Sen Cornyn, Gov Perry) have abused the privilege of endorsing lesser candidates in GOP primaries. In doing so, they destroyed a fine Republican candidate who lost to a liberal democrat (see my home page for details).

It has totally soured me on the whole concept of "establishment Republican" endorsements, which seem designed more to punish conservative stalwarts than keep the party on a winning conservative agenda.

[ContemptofCourt]

When it comes to elections, I believe in the will of the people, as opposed to the will of god....but if it makes you feel good that you think that you can change an election with prayer, then knock yourself out.

[Frohickey]

Quid pro quo, I'm guessing. Specter voted against the Assault Weapon Ban this time around. (Specter was one of the swing votes that set up the ban in the first place.) I'll bet there was some sort of backroom deal where he exchanged his vote for the endorsement. If so, it works for me. Had Specter voted for the AWB once again, I would have voted Democrat against him in November, assuming he won the primary. As it stands, I'll hold my nose and vote for him if he makes it that far.

I don't know if you were following the debate on SB1805 on CSPAN like a lot of pro-2A people were, but the AWB vote on SB1805 was a vote on an amendment. The vote for this amendment passed, and would have passed even if Spectre had voted 'YEA' instead.

The actual hero of the day is Senator Larry Craig of Idaho, who had the intestinal fortitude to kill the bill after it was poisoned with so many anti-gun amendments. The nice thing about the bill was that the 'enemies of freedom' have had their votes counted for all to see, and I am targetting each and every Senator that voted for the AWB amendment for defeat, NOT ONLY IN THIS ELECTION, BUT IN FUTURE ELECTIONS.

Spectre's vote against the AWB amendment is political cover for him, since he knew he was facing reelection.

[ken5050]

FYI, C-span will be doing LIVE broadcasts on the returns tonight...results, speechs from campaign HQs..their normal election coverage

[Robert A Cook PE]

Weel ABCNNBCBS will cover it only up the point where Pat T. might win.

Then they'll drop it.

[Frohickey]

In case you need more reasons to vote for Toomey, check out Ann Coulter's latest piece. Excellent! http://www.townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/ac20040422.shtml

You know the rules on FR about posting any reference to Ann Coulter.... where are the pictures!!! ;)

[aodell]

Joanie, if Toomey wins it will because becuase of people like you who took this election into their own hands. If he loses, it will be because there weren't enough of you.

Thank you, either way.

[JohnnyZ]

Oh, and it is risible for you to claim that Arlen Specter is a better defender of the right to bear arms than Pat Toomey.

Regarding the NRA endorsement of Specter, they endorse incumbents who are pro-gun, as a rule. Specter does have some pro-gun credentials. Toomey is almost certainly better on guns. But should the NRA endorse every primary challenger who is better on guns than the incumbent? What if the challenger is 76% pro-gun, and the incumbent 75% pro-gun? Is it worth losing the trust of all your endorsees if you might dump them for 1%? Of course not. Well, what about a 2% difference? A 10% difference? And what are the odds that the challenger will win -- should that factor into the endorsement?

The NRA has settled on a system where it endorses those incumbents with them the majority of the time (roughly -- I don't know the exact process). In this case, that's Specter. You need to have predictable ground rules for who you'll endorse and not endorse or you won't be trusted and won't be able to get legislation passed.

Individuals can, of course, make up their own minds that they don't want to settle for Specter.

[LdSentinal]

Bad news if true from PoliticsPA.

Unscientific Lancaster New Era Exit Poll Has Toomey Leading Specter, 52-48 (not enough to win statewide)

"Despite Toomey's apparent advantage in the first 2 hours of voting here, however, the poll suggests that he might not carry Lancaster County with a large enough plurality to win the statewide contest."

PoliticsPA

[mewzilla]

How reliable is PoliticsPA? Could they be trying to depress turnout?

[LdSentinal]

It's a non-partisan site, especially when relating to election returns.

[mewzilla]

Thanks. Well, turnout for Specter in past primaries/elections hasn't been anything to write home about, has it? Our local news reported it at somewhere between 10 to 25% of registered voters in years past. Toomey's voters, from what I've seen anyway, appear to be a lot more motivated.

[GraniteStateConservative]

They merely report what others tell them, mostly. They don't have an agenda. They are just a mouthpiece for informed sources who want to speak anonymously.

[Cboldt]

If Toomey does lose by a short margin today can Spectre expect those votes in November or will the conservatives just stay home then?

That question goes both ways. Will those who support the GOP party apparatus (which is so far aligned against Toomey) vote for a conservative? Or will they vote, but not pull the lever for Toomey?

[BlackRazor]

Unscientific Lancaster New Era Exit Poll Has Toomey Leading Specter, 52-48

On another site, they're saying this poll had a sample size of 113. The MOE on a sample size of 113 is around +/- 9%. If that's really how small the sample size was, we can't gauge anything from this.