I think we have a difference of opinion here. I got to meet Mr. Toomey (VERY briefly) I like him both as a person and candidate, I just think republicans would have lost the seat. Either way, Specter needs to be dealt with now.
Toomey had the same problem against Specter in the Primaries that Hoeffel had running against Specter in the general election -- people really didn't know who the other guy was running against Specter. Specter ran some hard-hitting negative ads against Toomey that quite frankly made him (Toomey) look like an idiot {I can't remember all the specifics right now, but they really hurt Toomey in the eyes of many of the people that don't have the time to delve deeper and make researching Politics a 2nd (part-time) job}. I think the negative ads helped far more than the President's endorsement.
As a Pennsylvanian, I'd rather have a senior Senator like Arlen in the Senate. But Toomey did have some good ideas on Social Security Reform in the House of Representatives. But having a moderate Specter in the Senate will ultimately help in getting at least partial Social Security privatization (IMHO). Hoeffel was against privatization. Specter is at least susceptible to partial (limited) privitization. However I would say the Specter is more like to go for the 2% solution rather than the 6.4% solution.