Posted on 04/16/2009 7:40:49 PM PDT by yongin
Give Pat Toomey credit for this:
The declared challenger for the GOP nomination for Arlen Specter's Senate seat is willing to bet a career on a proposition that other conservatives only assert from the safety of the sidelines.
Toomey is betting that Republicans would do better in a blue-leaning state like Pennsylvania if they purged the last remaining moderates from the party. Hes (again) challenging Arlen Spectator - and this time, unlike last, he may well succeed. Just as Ned Lamont succeeded against Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary.
The grand problem that follows, for Toomey as for Lamont, is then: what happens next? In the Connecticut example, Democrats escaped lightly from the Lamont blunder. Instead of delivering the seat to the Republicans, Lieberman ran as an independent Democrat and won, and since then has voted more or less along the Democratic party line. In Pennyslvania, by contrast, the defeat of Specter almost certainly will mean the loss of both Pennsylvania Senates to the Democrats for a generation.
Toomey theorizes that Republicans would do better in Pennsylvania if they were more outspokenly prolife and defiantly opposed to the Obama economic plan. The reality: If nominated, Toomeys prolife views would cost him what remains of traditional Republican support in the Philadelphia suburbs and his anti-stimulus stance would damage him with working-clsas voters elsewhere in the state.
Take a look at this Quinnipiac survey:
Penn voters approve the Obama stimulus plan 50-37. They approve of Arlen Specter too, especially Independents and Democrats. And of course President Obama remains popular in the state.
On the other hand, maybe a Toomey nomination and subsequent defeat is just the kind of learning experience Republicans need to undergo. You might think we have had enough hard lessons as it is. But no. Im reminded of that old 1960s joke about the liberal judge who decalred that the experience of being himself mugged had not changed his lenient views. Punchline: An old lady at the back of the hall shouts, Mug him again. That seems to be the GOPs impending fate as well.
Frum is so off the mark here I can’t find the words to rebut his asinine reasoning. For once I’m speechless.
I am from PA. I will gladly take my chances with Toomey.
[And of course President Obama remains popular in the state. ]
Give it a year and a quarter when the depression is full bore and coal has been outlawed in Pennsylvania.
By the way, who anointed Frum to speak for conservatives?
News Week is propping Frum up as the reasonable voice of conservativism after he bashed Rush Limbaugh.
Frum. Asshat from Canaduh. Yet there are good people from there.
Yeah right...
Only in Philly, Erie, and Pittsburgh, and near New York and New Jersey. The rest of the Commonwealth can't stand the man.
So Frum needs to STFU.
I don’t come to FreeRepublic to see what Frum has to say about anything.
Specter voted for the Stimulus Bill.
And with it, he voted:
—against debate
—against reading the bill
—against informing the public of what’s going on
—against the committee hearings
—against the concept of a “deliberative body.”
Never mind the damage that will come from this.
We should vote for him because on rare occasions he votes with the GOP on critical issues? We can do better. And if the Dems take the seat, it’s admittedly a loss,
-——but a small one.
“On the other hand, maybe a Toomey nomination and subsequent defeat is just the kind of learning experience Republicans need to undergo. You might think we have had enough hard lessons as it is. But no. Im reminded of that old 1960s joke about the liberal judge who decalred that the experience of being himself mugged had not changed his lenient views. Punchline: An old lady at the back of the hall shouts, ‘Mug him again.’ That seems to be the GOPs impending fate as well.”
What is he saying? That Republicans have to act more like Spectre? If that’s the case, why don’t we just vote for Democrats?
“Penn voters approve the Obama stimulus plan 50-37. They approve of Arlen Specter too, especially Independents and Democrats. And of course President Obama remains popular in the state”
Oh, okay, leftists are popular. No need for an opposition party then, I guess.
Now I understand! Joe Biden imagined talking to President Bush, when he SHOULD have imagined himself talking to Frum.
The purge of RINOs must start. If we eventually lose the seat that's OK. It's better than trying to justify a RINO voting like a Democrat. All Republicans get a black eye when a politician wearing our label votes to support tax increases and large gov't spending (or the killing of babies) etc.
The reality? Moderate Republicans aren’t even holding their own in the Northeast. So what’s Dave Frum’s solution? As he wrote in another column, about us, it’s sort of like the Englishman on holiday...if the locals don’t understand you the first time, say it again, louder.
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