Toomey (whom I supported) would have been a freshman and would not have been the head of the judiciary committee.....
After Hatch, had Specter not won, Kyl or Cornyn were next in line. Cornyn wasn’t interested because he had the leadership of another committee... from what I’ve read in the archives at FR, Kyl is an okay guy.
There was also a grassroots campaign to stall Specter, which was talked about here on FR in 2004:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1274088/posts
From Human Events:
Specter Stands Alone:
No GOP Senator on Judiciary Committee Willing to Declare Support for Specter — Santorum Also Declines to Lend Support. 11/09/2004
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=5724
Sanctimonium is no different than other politician, but his holier-than-thou attitude causes him to offer himself as such. And a lot of people are believing in him, the same way they believed Barack, a wet-behind-the-ears senator, with a lot of emotion-laden rhetoric, who presented himself as America’s hope. It’s the republicans’ turn to be taken in, this time, by a republican Messiah. It is really a shame, they haven’t learned anything from watching how Barack did it.