Toomey/Specter: 10 POINT RACE!!! Toomey Gains Big Time!!!

Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal's Political Diary ^ | March 15,2004 | Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal's Political Diary

[GeneralHavoc]

The following is from OpinionJournal's Political Diary March 15,2004:

Conservative Challenger Gains On Liberal Specter

There is a reason that Pennsylvania GOP Senator Arlen Specter has been spending so much of his $9 million campaign kitty on ads attacking his conservative primary challenger, Rep. Pat Toomey: The April 27 race is surprisingly competitive. A new survey by the Polling Company finds Mr. Specter has only a 47% to 37% lead over Mr. Toomey, a surprisingly low figure for a four-term incumbent. The survey roughly mirrors a Quinnipiac poll last month that found that only 49% of Republicans believe Mr. Specter deserves re-election.

Aware of his reputation as a liberal leaning senator, Mr. Specter has gone on the attack and begun questioning Mr. Toomey's conservative credentials. One ad accused Mr. Toomey of being pro-gambling and against abstinence education. Mr. Toomey says he voted in favor of a bill doubling money for abstinence education, but against a later amendment that would have provided even more funding for the cause. As for the pro-gambling charge, Mr. Toomey says the ad completely distorts a warning he made about state officials "getting addicted to this new source of revenue" if they legalized slot machines at racetracks.

The race has become a classic confrontation between liberal and conservative Republicans. While Mr. Specter is favored, conservative grass-roots activists are effectively targeting Mr. Specter as an obstacle to lower federal spending and tort reform. The race will only heat up between now and next month's primary and should start gathering national media attention.

[Temple Owl]

If Toomey is nominated, he will lose to Joe Hoeffel in November and the GOP will lose the seat.

No way! We are going to have the two best US senators in the country. Vote for Pat Toomey!

[Tribune7]

You're overlooking the fact that Hoeffel has consistently won elections in a 2-1 GOP district.

Montgomery County is a liberal GOP district. It's much more liberal than Delaware County even. Toomey won in a heavy (I'm not sure of the ratio) Dem district.

[hosepipe]

[ If I find out that Toomey is taking this kind of unjustified shot at the president, I'll withhold my vote for him. I won't vote for Specter, but I won't be voting Toomey either (if I find this to be true). ]

NO vote for Toomey doubles any vote for Specter..
because Toomey is weakened and a Specter vote is doubled in value..

Your damned if you Vote wrong, and double damned if you don't vote at all... re-thinking your position would be to YOUR advantage...

[GeneralHavoc]

If Specter wins the nomination Bush will lose, and we will lose the Senate seat.

We MUST support Pat!

[AuH2ORepublican]

Next time you have such excellent news, please ping me, General! : )

BTW, over at the blog at Politics1.com, the Democrats and RINOs are hitting our man Pat hard. I suggest that a few FReepers detour over there (http://www.politics1.com/) and click on the "comments" following the Specter-Toomey story. We need Pennsylvanians to understand that only an honest conservative such as Pat Toomey can win votes among blue-collar Democrats and defeat Joe Hoeffel.

[Bushbacker]

ONLY Specter can hold the seat. Ideological purity is not worth risking the control of the Senate over.
Then explain the other much more conservative senator from PA?

____Santorum ran against an old
fart (Harris Wofford) and a relative unknown (William Klink) who ran because Rendell refused to
seek the seat. He's lucked out twice against weak opponents.


anand explain how Toomey won in
\\aa democrat district?

____I know the Allentown-Lehigh Xounty areas very well...I grew up there and returned often on business...it is a very conservative Pennsylvania Dutch area which used to have a strong
union presence...but much industry (like Mack Trucks and GE) is gone...it's not as Dem as it oncwas...

To end my comments, I'd like to
see Toomey win the seat, but that is very unlikely against a centrist Democrat with a suburban
base like Joe Hoeffel.

[votelife]

bump...
think Arlen could be chair of the Judiciary under a Bush presidency...

[Sun]

They are talking on and off about the Toomey/Spector race on 1210 talk radio right now - in case someone wants to make a call. If you can't call tonight, I'm sure they will talk about it between now and the primaries. I think Don's show ends at 9 p.m. each evening.

[Jorge]

Mr. Specter has only a 47% to 37% lead over Mr. Toomey

"Only a 47% to 37% lead"???

Yikes! If Bush the "incumbant" had this kind of lead over Kerry, Bush supporters would be celebrating all over FR.
I can't believe people here are so excited that Toomey is "only" ten points behind this close to the primary.

[mickie]

Here in Southern Chester County, for every Specter lawn sign there are 10 for Toomey.

Go, Pat, go!

[Bushbacker]

Hoeffel won election in a district
that is close to 2-1 GOP. What
does that tell you about his
vte-getting ability?

[Sun]

Be wary of polls; now and then they are wrong. I live in NYS and the Quinniapiac (spelling ?) poll had a Republican Comptroller candidate behind by almost 15 points. Yeah, he did lose, but only by 3 points!

[LdSentinal]

Hoeffel is extremely unlikeable and liberal. Toomey has a nice base in usually Democratic Lehigh and Northampton counties.

This is also a state that elected Rick Santorum to the Senate, let alone Arlen the RINO Specter.

[Captain Peter Blood]

Does anyone know what the latest Poll shows in this race???

[The Old Hoosier]

New polls tomorrow...

[JohnBDay]

If Toomey is nominated, he will lose to Joe Hoeffel in November and the GOP will lose the seat. hHoeffel captured the 13th Congressional district after 100 years of GOP dominance and could not be defeated. He voluntarily gave up the safe seat to run for seantor. Hoeffel has mastered the trick of being an ACLU Democrat but appearing to be a centrist. He will not beat Specter with that ploy but he will beat Toomey.

Lies propagandized by the George Soros wing of the Republican party.

[Sun]

What a difference 6 weeks makes! I heard on the radio that there's a poll that has them neck and neck.

And also, here's a poll from April 20:

Monday, April 26, 2004

Associated Press

The Republican primary race for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania remained tight, a new poll showed today, as Sen. Arlen Specter and Rep. Pat Toomey campaigned across the state on the last day before the election.

Specter held a slim margin over Toomey, 48 percent to 42 percent, according to the Quinnipiac University survey of 617 likely GOP primary voters. Ten percent of voters remained undecided. The poll, conducted April 20, has a sampling-error margin of plus or minus 4 percentage points.