Real conservatives voted for Schwarzenegger.
Only those who wanted Bustamante as CA governor voted for McClintock. Anyone for Bustamante is no conservative.
It's the same thing here.
Specter = 100% Republican win in November, high confidence in retaining Republican leadership in the US Senate.
Toomey = 50-50 shot or worse at Republican win in November, high probability of turning over leadership of the US Senate to the Democrats.
If we had a comfortable Republican majority in the Senate, I would think Toomey is worth a shot, but not when we are on the razor's edge and that may be the election that throws control of the Senate to the Democrats.
But we seem to have many people who have the audacity of claiming to be conservatives, while actually wanting and even admitting that they want the Democrats to win, just to take revenge on some Republican.
FairOpinion, you are mistaken. Pennsylvania Republicans who are struggling with whether to support a real conservative or a more electable liberal need not fret. In Pat Toomey, we have the good fortune of having a candidate who is not only a true conservative, but also has a better chance of beating Democrat Joe Hoeffel in the general election than does Arlen Specter. And a Toomey nomination would greatly improve President Bush's chances of carrying PA, which would pretty much kill whatever chances Kerry has of becoming president.
In order for *any* Republican to win statewide in PA against a Montgomery County Democrat like Joe Hoeffel, he must win votes from blue-collar Democrats (who are disproportionately pro-life Catholics like Toomey) not only in the Pittsburgh area, but in the "T" as well. Arlen Specter is incapable of winning those votes, since he is pro-abortion and anti-gun and thus have nothing to offer those voters (and if they wanted to vote for someone who will raise taxes and toe the union line, they'd surely vote for the Democrat). Pat Toomey, on the other hand, has been elected and reelected in the blue-collar Lehigh Valley, centered in Allentown and Bethlehem, with similar demographics to the Pittsburgh-area districts held by Melissa Hart and Tim Murphy and to the one held by Rick Santorum before moving to the Senate (in fact, Toomey's district is less Republican than Hart's or Murphy's, although less Democrat than Santorum's old districts). Pat Toomey knows how to get blue-collar Democrat votes, and will beat Hoeffel just about everywhere outside of Philly and its close-in suburbs (well, Hoeffel will carry a few inner-city areas, but he is so brazenly anti-gun that he will get blown away in most of the "T"). Pat Toomey will win the general election, and given the fact that he's both more conservative and more electable than Specter, the choice is clear.
Some people point to Specter's easy victory in 1998 as evidence that he is more "electable," but Specter did not face a well-financed Democrat challenge that year, so it is silly to even look at those numbers. So let's look at the 1992 election, the last time Specter faced a strong challenge.
Specter won with 49.10% in the state, to Lynn Yeakel's 46.33%. Specter was below 50% overall even though he received 39.34% of the vote in Philadelphia (source:
http://www.seventy.org/stats/1992GeneralResults.htm), which is a ridiculously high percentage for a "Republican" in a city in which Clinton beat George H.W. Bush by 68.16% to 20.90% in 1992 and in which Gore beat George W. Bush by 80.04% to 17.99% in 2000. It is risible to presume that Specter would be able to win such a high percentage in Philly this time around, since (i) Philadelphia has trended even more Democrat than it was in 1992, (ii) there is more political polarization today than back then, so there is less ticket-splitting among Philadelphia Democrats, and (iii) Joe Hoeffel is from Abington Township, just across the Montgomery County border, and represents most of Northeast Philadelphia (which is the least heavily RAT part of the city) in Congress. The same holds true in the close-in Philadelphia suburbs of Montgomery, Delaware and Bucks Counties, in which Specter won 54.40%, 53.17% and 50.72%, respectively, in 1992 (source:
http://wilkes1.wilkes.edu/~wesp1/sen/PaSen1992.html), but have trended Democrat through the years and in 2000 these counties gave George W. Bush 43.81%, 42.66% and 46.29%, respectively. Outside of Philly and its 3 adjoining suburbs, Arlen Specter got only 49.97% in 1992, a pitiful percentage for a Pennsylvania Republican and much lower than Santorum's totals in his 2 statewide victories or even than Fischer's and Bush's losing statewide races.
Nowadays, because of demographic and political changes in Philadelphia, Montgomery, Delaware and Bucks Counties, Republicans can't carry Pennsylvania without getting at least 55% of the vote in the Pittsburgh area and in the "T." And for that, Republicans need to not only turn out their conservative base, but get votes from blue-collar Democrats, who are generally liberal on economic issues but pro-life, pro-gun and pro-military. Arlen Specter can't do either of those things, but Pat Toomey can, as he has proven in his blue-collar Democrat district in the Lehigh Valley. And if Bush carries PA in 2004 (as I think he will), it will be because he will increase his percentages among blue-collar Democrats, not because he can somehow convince pro-abortion, anti-gun and anti-military suburban RINOs to vote for him. While Bush and Toomey can get their share of suburban Philly votes because of issues such as national security, our road to victory in PA in 2004 goes through places like Allentown and Scranton and Wilkes-Barre and Erie and the Pittsburgh suburbs, not through Philadelphia and its RINO-infested close-in suburbs. President Bush would benefit if Toomey is nominated because it would guarantee overwhelming turnout from conservatives, while a Specter candidacy would just bring out pro-abortion RINO voters who would likely vote for Kerry.
So the choice is clear. If Pennsylvania Republicans want to win the 2004 elections, they need to support Pat Toomey in his primary challenge to Arlen Specter. GO, PAT, GO!
I echo the others on this thread who think you're wrong. I was actually in western PA this weekend (drove from Indy) to go door-to-door for Pat. Pat can appeal to blue-collar, conservative Dems in PA. Pat's GE opponent, Joe Hoeffel, was not the PA Dem Party's 1st choice. Hoeffel's pro-abortion, pro-gay, and anti-gun. Additionally, Toomey's got TONS of grassroots support.