Shame on you for injecting commonsense into this arguement.
Arlen Sphincter is one of the worst Republicans ever, but now we have to deal with him. The saving grace is that the GOP took the senate handidly and Sphincter has to play ball to some degree in order to keep his power.
Remember Jim Jeffords? He predicted Bush would be a one term president.
His decision was a raw political calculation to advance himself and it backfired.
That is his 'mistake.'
Little Ricky made a calculated decision to back the liberal whose votes cancel out his own.
Little Ricky staked out the reputation of being 'the conservative Senator from PA' and Toomey -- a real conservative, threatened that. He had to stop him from winning because it just wouldn't do to be the '2nd most conservative Senator from PA.' He thought that it would undermine his run for higher office.
If there is a mistake, this is it:
He miscalculated the backlash from Toomey's supporters. If he had suddenly become the 2nd most conservative senator from PA, we would have two conservative senators and he would then be positioned as more 'reasonable' (earning him votes from pro life democrats) and would have earned the devotion of conservatives rather than their ire, and assuring his continued ascendency.
This assumes that he does hold conservative ideals and wants to see them advanced. I have serious doubts that this was anything more than a role that he was playing and that he couldn't care less about the issues that he claimed to share with conservatives.
Anyway, he is lost my trust and my vote.