Posted on 02/12/2009 3:34:48 PM PST by STARWISE
What Sen. Arlen Specter (R.-Penn.) dubbed the “moderates’ compromise” that he and two other moderate Republican senators voted for Tuesday is fast becoming the “last straw” with the five-termer for conservatives in the Keystone State.
“I consider Sen. Specter a friend and, despite disagreements on a number of issues, I admired his work to confirm [Supreme Court nominees] John Roberts and Samuel Alito,” Pittsburgh businessman Glen Meakem told me today, “But his support of [the $838 billion stimulus package] is too much. Pennsylvania voters are fed up with Specter’s perennial charade.”
Predicting that “there will be a Republican primary fight for Specter’s Senate seat in 2010,” Meakem echoed almost word-for-word the prediction made to me by another prominent conservative two weeks ago.
Referring to the 79-year-old Specter’s “very perplexing” behavior in asking tough questions of Obama attorney general nominee Eric Holder and then voting for his confirmation, former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Penn.) said that “his latest behavior regarding Holder means that Specter should definitely face a primary challenge next year.”
Today Toomey (who drew 48% of the vote against Specter in the ’04 primary) joined Meakem in weighing in against the incumbent’s pivotal support for the Obama-backed economic package.
Writing in National Review Online, the former congressman charged that Specter and Maine Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins (who also backed the stimulus package), “the Republican party lost the opportunity to pass a true compromise bill that would have encouraged economic growth.
By unanimously voting against the stimulus bill, House Republicans empowered Senate Republicans to demand substantive, pro-growth amendments. After all, without sixty votes in the Senate, President Obama would not have been able to pass any bill, good or bad.”
When he had spoken to me about his disappointment with Specter’s votes for Holder, Toomey had also cited his former opponent’s niche as the only Republican senator to vote for “Card-check” -- Big Labor’s cherished measure to end the secret ballot in union elections.
Meakem brought up “Card-check” as well, and also said that there will be key votes on abortion coming up in the Senate in which Specter’s position is unclear.
“As the Obama Administration prepares for an effort to make abortion as legal as possible, I don’t know what the senator’s position will be,” said Meakem, “But all of the latest developments are not encouraging.”
Calling the stimulus package “the revenge of the left,” Meakem noted what he called “its trial lawyer provision, which would encourage state attorneys general to federalize actions against companies that have violated health insurance and private accountability acts by deputizing private contingency-based trial lawyers to file suits on behalf of the government.”
So who’s going to take on Specter in the primary next year? Toomey has long signaled that he will run for governor in 2010, when two-term incumbent Ed Rendell must by law step down.
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Blame Bush & Santorum for bailing his sorry a$$ out when he was losing to Toomey.
You’re right. BUSH’s FAULT!
“Blame Bush & Santorum for bailing his sorry a$$ out when he was losing to Toomey.”
I agree with you!!!
Know what? President Bush is out of office, he should no longer be the scapegoat, he can no longer act on what has occurring. Lay the blame where it belongs, at the feet of Specter, the harpy duet from Maine, and the Dems who cannot possibly love the U.S. The latter are the most greedy, self-serving, buzzards, I have ever witnessed.
We need to look forward at solutions, not back with the blame.
PS My dogs will have better health care than we will if this travesty passes.
Ding, diing, ding ... we have a winner.
Yeah whatever, he was in office when he backed Specter.
How do these sorry old bastards get the idea that they are so valuable to America, the world and humanity in general that they should stick around and meddle to this age??????
It’s the truth and the Kool-Aid has already struck once.
I don’t mind.
I know, but he didn't vote him in, the citizens in the state of Pennsylvania did. Many states are stuck with poor choices, look at McCain.
kennedy isnt going to be there to vote...we could have filibustered this deal if not for those three turncoats.
So the endorsement had no impact?
arealconservativeforachange has a valid point.
Bush backed this idiot RINO over other conservative folks because Bush needed his votes for his own leftwing future nutty programs. It was very disappointing.
Don’t ask me who the others were because that disappointment is in the past.
Neither is Coleman, not saying Coleman is a Conservative.
Specter has never cared what the people think or want. He only cares about what “He” wants for the people.
If Bush was so unpopular in PA, how could he have helped Specter? Did Bush carry PA?
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