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.

[ClintonBeGone]

As far as Rove goes, it's better to be lucky than good. He got hooked up with a good man (President Bush), and ran against a bunch of incompetents in both 2000 and 2004.

Point taken. What matters in the end is you have the check in the winner's box on election day.

[steveegg]

I'm presuming, you're writing this from the other side of the Delaware from me, so trust me, I understand the effect of the election results.
I also understand what it's like to be a conservative behind enemy lines.

More like the other end of the Great Lakes, but since it's Wisconsin, I know what it's like. I've got a couple stories to share; two where the "Country Club" abandoned the conservative candidate and one where a conservative stormed the lieberal bastion.

First, there's the 1998 Senate race here. Mark Neumann won the primary and was running against Russ (Slimeroad) Feingold. There was absolutely no support from the Republican establishment (i.e. former Governor and HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson), and after a bitter campaign with a questionable late influx of cash to Slimeroad's coffers (so much for Campaign Finance Reform), Neumann fell just short.

Next, the 2002 governor's race. Tommy got miffed that his replacement, Scott McCallum, actually sought financial responsibility (Tommy pushed for and got the state to pay for 2/3rds of education costs on the canard of "property tax relief"; in response to the financial mess that caused, McCallum wanted to eliminate municipal revenue "sharing"), and had his brother (mayor of Tomah and most-infamous operator of illegal slot machines) run as a Libertarian. We got stuck with Jim (Craps) Doyle, who has vetoed a property tax freeze, a "conscience clause" that lets doctors opt out of certain medical procedures, concealed carry, voter ID, legislative oversight of Indian gaming compacts (this after he started signing eternal contracts that give very little money to the state),....

Yet, there's hope. In 2002, a pension scandal in Milwaukee County (the county dominated by "smokes-for-votes" Milwaukee and one of two RAT Machines) hounded the county executive (it's non-partisan, but Tom Ament was a member of the RAT Party) out of office. Scott Walker, a Pubbie legislator, ran for and got the seat, carrying 18 of 19 communities (he even carried Milwaukee), admittedly against a weak candidate. Earlier this month, he won re-election by essentially the same margin against a hired DemonRAT hack who made it clear he was running as a RAT. The difference here is the Pubbies didn't actively work to abandon Walker.

A different perspective - every state Bush wins, isolates the far left further and further to fringes allowing "decent" people of conscience to be drawn back into fill the power vacuum.

Agreed, though I don't see how Specter helps Bush win Pennsylvania. What Specter uniquely brings to the voting booth is more likely to vote for Ke(rr)y than for Bush.

How does this help America as a nation? Democrat "moderates" will be forced to work with Republicans on "conservative friendly" legislation and judicial appointments.
The judicial appointments are the brass ring.

That might (and does, with a strong executive) work at the state level, but the stakes are simply too high on the Federal level (after all, the Fed courts have decided nearly every last social and political issue the last 50 years). Hence the need for 60 Pubbies, preferably with spines and conservative constitutions. While Specter is nominally a Pubbie (and thus help keep the balance at least where it is), he has lost both his spine and conservative bearings.

[steveegg]

Actually, the latest results I've seen (http://www.nbc10.com/politics/3242632/detail.html) show Specter clinging to a 16,641-vote lead out of 1,038,089 votes cast. It shows 9,347 precincts reporting out of 9,416 total precincts....

NBC10 hasn't been updating their totals; the Secretary of State has a Specter lead of 41,091 (573,019 to 531,928) out of 1,104,947 votes cast (representing 97.38% of the districts - no mention of how many districts beyond the percentage - and last updated 8:19 am EDT).

I agree that it would be too large of a lead for Toomey to make up . . . unless the fraudulent vote announcement from Bucks County was not an isolated incident.

I missed that one; got a link?

Okay, let me stop speculating and wait for the "HUGE Announcement."

Ditto.

[AuH2ORepublican]

"Specter now owes Bush and Santorum, at least through 2006. I think he's gotten the message."

---

Or else what? Specter will never face a GOP primary ever again. If he gets reelected, what's to stop him from veering even further left? And since he's already proved that he can get Santorum and Bush and George Allen to cover for him whenever someone points out that he's more liberal than several Senate Democrats, all he has to do is publicly consider switching parties and Santorum and Bush and George Allen will again come to his rescue. Let's face it, if Specter wins reelection, he will become the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, block as many conservative judicial nominees as he wishes, and the Senate Republicans won't do a damn thing about it.

So here is what I propose conservatives do. If there's a chance that the Democrats will recapture the Senate if Hoeffel defeats Specter, then we have no choice but to hold our noses and support Specter, since a Republican-controlled Senate with Specter as Chairman of Judiciary is less bad than a RAT-controlled Senate (no matter who chairs Judiciary---and believe me, he'd be even worse than Specter). However, if it appears that the GOP will have at least 51 Senators even if Specter loses, I think we'd be better off voting for the Constitution Party Senate nominee. Mind you, I have never before suggested such a course of action. I'm 100% pro-life and a conservative across the board, but in 2000 I supported the pro-abortion RINO Lincoln Chafee over the pro-life Democrat Weygand in the Rhode Island Senate race because Senate control was in play, and a Republican-controlled Senate with one fewer pro-lifer would be able to approve many more pro-life bills than a Democrat-controlled Senate with one more pro-lifer, since if the RATs controlled the Senate they would not let pro-life bills get to the floor (as they proved during the 18 months in which Daschle was majority leader after Jeffords switched). But the marked difference between 49 and 50 GOP Senators is leagues greater than the difference between 52 and 53 GOP Senators. Arlen Specter's liberalism, chicanery and seniority makes this the one case in which a Senate with 53 Republicans (but with Specter chaiting Judiciary) would be worse than a Senate with 52 Republicans (but with Kyl chairing Judiciary). So if it looks like any three of Richard Burr (NC), Jack Ryan (IL), John Thune (SD), David Vitter (LA), George Nethercutt (WA), Tom Coburn (OK), Bill Jones (CA) and whoever get the Colorado, Wisconsin and SC nominations will win, we would have at least 51 Republicans in the Senate even if Specter loses (since Georgia will be a certain GOP pick-up). And I have to tell you, right now I think we have the edge in at least 5 of those 10 Senate races, so if it looks like Specter's election would merely boost the GOP Senate majority from 53 to 54, I will do something that I have never done before---hope that a Republican Senate nominee loses. Unfortunately, it would be the only way to ensure that Bush's judicial nominees receive fair treatment in the Senate.

[kittymyrib]

He would be 80 in '06. Even liberals have to die sometime.

[steveegg]

What matters in the end is you have the check in the winner's box on election day.

Or at least the most-conservative choice (and one with at least a realistic chance of winning come the general election). If I were in Pennsylvania, I would end up holding my nose as I pull the Specter lever in November only because the alternatives are even worse (I can't depend on someone in, say, Wisconsin, bailing me out for a November protest vote, though I'll do my best to flip Feingold off the seat here).

(John Kerry is the Democrat's Bob Dole)

Nice tag, though I trust you're comparing only political careers here.

[steveegg]

We were discussing the dems, now W.

Noted (now where's that Dew?)

[ClintonBeGone]

Nice tag, though I trust you're comparing only political careers here.

Exactly. In terms of his likely performance as a presidential nominee.

As for your vote in the PA Senate race, I would have taken a different approach. I would have voted for Toomey, but I wouldn't hold it against Spector, Bush or Santorum that he won. I think that's what seperates someone like me from some of the goofier posters on this thread. The primary is your time to dream. The general election is the time to move back into reality.

[calcowgirl]

FYI

You might want to check those SOS numbers you posted...
I think you have the Hoeffel and Specter #'s... not Toomey.

(btw... if you check the county detail at the SOS site, you'll find that Bucks County still has the bogus overcount #'s included, and therefore the totals are also distorted).

[steveegg]

As for your vote in the PA Senate race, I would have taken a different approach. I would have voted for Toomey, but I wouldn't hold it against Spector, Bush or Santorum that he won. I think that's what seperates someone like me from some of the goofier posters on this thread. The primary is your time to dream. The general election is the time to move back into reality.

Can't say it better (BTW, my Senate primary in Wisconsin isn't for a few months, so we have some time to hash things out between 3 leading candidates), at least as long as control of the Senate is in doubt (or we have a chance to get to 60; something that just isn't happening this or next time around). Now, if reasonable doubt could be removed on getting to 53-54 without Specter (which it can't at this point and probably won't before November), I'd be at least moderately inclined to dump him like last week's trash.

[steveegg]

FYI

You might want to check those SOS numbers you posted... I think you have the Hoeffel and Specter #'s... not Toomey.

(btw... if you check the county detail at the SOS site, you'll find that Bucks County still has the bogus overcount #'s included, and therefore the totals are also distorted).

D'OH (that makes the "official" lead for Specter even worse). Other than a couple of references to the Bucks County "overcount" here, I haven't seen anything else about it.

[calcowgirl]

The overcount is real. It can be verified by going to the Bucks county site and comparing their numbers with those at the SOS site.

SOS Site          (Toomey/Specter):  39,324	126,952
Bucks County Site (Toomey/Specter):  22,001      28,037

[AuH2ORepublican]

Steve, don't pay attention to those "official" numbers. Check out the Bucks County results: http://web.dos.state.pa.us/perl/elections/elec_results/dsf/county2.cgi?eyear=2004&etype=P&office=USS

There is NO WAY that 166,000 voters turned out for the GOP primary in Bucks County. Here is what the SOS site provides for Bucks County:

Bucks County

Candidate Votes


HOEFFEL, JOSEPH M. (DEM) 23,460


TOOMEY, PAT (REP) 39,324


SPECTER, ARLEN (REP) 126,952

Apparently, the Secretary of State still has not corrected the mistake made by Bucks County officials when they misreported like 95,000 additional votes for Specter. Torie, you posted regarding the mistake, do you have a link? I did not see the article, but heard about it from a friend whom I called last night, although I did see Specter's margin on the NBC 10 site go up from 52%-48% with 43% of the precincts in to a ridiculous 59%-41% with 55% of the precincts in, and the website later corrected the mistake.

Since Specter is up by 95,000 votes in the official numbers, and the official numbers still haven't erased the erroneous vote tally for Specter, I would have to assume that they would actually be tied with the 98% of the vote reported in the SOS site. The NBC 10 site shows Specter up by 16,000 with 99% of precincts reporting (although I don't know if that includes absentee ballots), which I assume is correct and more up-to-date than the SOS site. http://www.nbc10.com/politics/3242632/detail.html But a 16,000-vote margin is still insurmountable unless there was another mistake in the count similar to that in Bucks County.

[steveegg]

The overcount is real. It can be verified by going to the Bucks county site and comparing their numbers with those at the SOS site.

Thanks. Time to do some fancy math...

Substuting the Bucks County Board of Elections numbers for the Secretary of State numbers, that would make it 540,526 to 526,332, Specter (a lead of 14,194, or 1.3%). Still (sadly) insurmountable in a recall.

[AuH2ORepublican]

As calcowgirl pointed out, the Bucks overcount added 95,000 fake votes to Specter, but it also added 17,000 fake votes to Toomey. That means that Specter would be up by around 17,000 through 98% of precincts if the SOS numbers were corrected, which is a bit more than his lead through 99% of precincts according to NBC 10.

So unless there's another Bucks-type mistake that hasn't been caught, Specter won a very close race.

[calcowgirl]

There are some other weird anomolies, e.g. Westmoreland looks right for Specter but is short about 2K votes for Toomey. I sure hope Toomey's campaign is analyzing these #'s.

[johnfrink]

I think it's going to be an announcement that he and Tom McClintock are going to go on a "Frustrated Conservative Losers, 2004" summer speaking tour. The highlight of the show will be a rousing rendition of "Wouldn't it be nice..." Should be a rousing good time. Bring the kids.

[KQQL]

Yep, Spector will defeat Toomey by 5-6%.

---

So I was off by 3%. Most people here had predicted that toomey will win by 2-4%.
I said Spector will win thanks in part to BUSH and Rick.
Otherwise, Toomey would have won by 2-3%.

---

RE: ME And RI
Someone here had said now Collins, Snowe and Chaffey will shape up too, because they saw the power of W in helping Spector win over Toomey.

I said dream on, unlike PA, RI and ME are Dem states and W will have little effect on them or their voting patterns.

[HamiltonJay]

THe worst thing Toomey could do if he has an desire for political future is call for recount and allege misconduct at the polls... he'll just wind up looking like Sore/Loserman and destine himself to being his districts congressman at best for the rest of his political life.

I hope he is smart enough to understand this... if he does call for a recount, he's even worse than I thought. He made a good showing and lives to fight another day when the situation is different... he pulls that kind of stunt, he's done.

[HamiltonJay]

Hahahahaha!!!