I dunno...I think Toomey would have lost in PA.
Yes - that and "supressing" the massive voter fraud in Philly...
Not likely, sorry.
No way to win PA until you get Pilly votes from 80% Demon to 65% Demon
Toomey will be back. There's talk of putting him up against Rendell.
Toomey would have definitely lost. However, it would have made no difference to Bush's showing in PA. I can understand how many think think the senate Republicans would be better off without Specter, but I disagree. This is likely Specter's last term, and I don't see him actively blocking the President's judicial selections.
It's based on a fundamentally incorrect assumption that conservatives didn't turn out, or if we did, we didn't vote for the President. The GOTV effort in PA was huge, and successful. And conservative Republicans went for Bush. We were angry over the endorsement, and we're still angry because Specter is such a hyperinflated windbag who's done so much to harm the conservative cause, and because unlike GWB and Rick Santorum, we know he isn't finished with that yet.
The "Republicans" who went for Kerry are Country Clubbers living in the Philly suburbs. Last time, they went for Gore. This time, they went for Kerry. If anything, Specter could have helped us with this group: they're his kind of "Republican." He did not. To my knowledge he didn't even make a single positive statement about the President during the campaign, anywhere, anytime.
To win Pennsylvania, Bush needed to flip two areas. He needed to get the votes of ethnic Catholics in Coal Country who went for Reagen twice. He made some progress, but he didn't get as much as he needed. He also needed to flip the Philly suburbs back into the Republican column. He didn't.
Theories about rampant fraud or derailment by angry conservatives don't wash. Fraud happens, but you don't come up 125,000 votes short. No significant number of conservatives was so determined to punish Bush that they stayed home. The stakes were too high.
Those of us who know Specter knew we wouldn't have to do anything to punish the President for his foolish lapse: Specter is going to punish Bush plenty in the next four years, without any help from deranged right wingers.
And, in the ultimate irony of this election, the GOP removed the main obstructionists for conservative judges in the Senate - only to have that role replaced by one of their own, that they could have gotten rid of as well.
Weigh this carefully. In the politics of yesteryear, as expressed by another President from Texas, LBJ, this would have been "Keeping his p****r in my pocket", but I am sure that George W. Bush is nowhere nearly that pragmatic or cynical. As it is, Arlen Specter is beholden to Bush now, and as chair of the Judiciary Committee, is in a position to steer the nominations for the Federal bench, all the way up to the Supreme Court. All Bush should have to do is pick up the phone, and the wheels are already greased.
If Bill Frist can show some cojones, and hold the Democrats' feet to the fire when they threaten a filibuster, by keeping any filibuster going non-stop until they sit down, he may just be able to break that tactic for good. At best, the Democrats will abandon the tactic for good, and at the minimum, it would put them on notice, there is just not much tolerance for disruptive activities.
You bet your ass!
What's worse is that Santorum also endorsed Specter...