GOP tea party leader Tom Smith to run against Sen. Bob Casey

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ^ | Wednesday, September 28, 2011 | Timothy McNulty, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

[brityank]

GOP tea party leader Tom Smith to run against Sen. Bob Casey

Wednesday, September 28, 2011
By Timothy McNulty, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Tom Smith, a former coal company owner and conservative tea party leader from Armstrong County, joined the widening Republican field trying to take on U.S. Sen. Bob Casey in 2012.

At the start of a statewide tour that kicked off Downtown Tuesday before stops in Harrisburg and Philadelphia, Mr. Smith criticized Mr. Casey for supporting the Obama administration while emphasizing his own business credentials. He repeatedly said he was "not a professional politician" and described why he joined the Republican Party only in the last month after years as a "Reagan Democrat."

"As a life-long conservative, I have supported common-sense Republican principles -- limited government and power that comes from the people, not from the professional politicians," the 63-year-old said while surrounded by his wife of 43 years, Saundy, and several children and grandchildren.

He criticized Mr. Casey's support of the health care overhaul, the 2009 federal stimulus and the 2008 Wall Street bailout. "There is nothing conservative about Bob Casey's record as a senator, and no politician deserves to be re-elected just because of their father's reputation," he said. Mr. Casey's father was a governor of Pennsylvania.

[brityank]

Ping to give Gleason a great big headache! :^)

[Lazlo in PA]

Is this guy genuine or a phony? He reads good in this article.

The lisping nit wit Boob Casey is going to lose this election. He swung voters away from Santorum by claiming he was a clone of his old man, especially on the Life issues. He totally exposed himself as a bold faced liar since then. He is done.

[tsowellfan]

Good news!

[brityank]

ABC

Anybody But Casey! :^)

[SatinDoll]

I smell a red herring.

Life-long Democrat, claiming to be conservative, switches party to unseat unpopular Democrat.

Don’t believe it. Don’t trust the Democrats.

[brityank]

Yep, it is. Saw that there are several others also contemplating running in the primaries against the Boob. Going to be a fun year.

[digital-olive]

No one is a tea party “leader” you moron wannabe journalists.

[Tribune7]

ping to give Gleason a big headache

[brityank]

Life-long Democrat, claiming to be conservative, switches party to unseat unpopular Democrat.

Hmmmm.
Shades of Reagan?     ;^)

[JSteff]

He is done.

Hopefully you are right. He is PA's obama @ss kisser in chief. Part of the reason I have NO health care even though I have an pre-exsisting-health condition.

In case anyone doesn't know, obama lied to get the health care joke signed into law. Casey's office was NO help to me when I had an expensive hospitalization last Christmas. Yes it was an expensive holiday season for me... and NO government entity helped at all.

Obama lied!!!

[SatinDoll]

No.

RR became a Republican long before he ran for President. He served as a Republican Governor of California.

No, this fellow in PA is switching to Republican much too conveniently. That’s why I said, “red herring”.

The Democrats fear losing Senate control. Nothing is too despicable for them to try and keep control.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks brityank.

[SueRae]

Hmmm. I’ll have to read more on this one, I admit I’ve never heard of him.

What happened to the story that Sam Rohrer was considering a run for the Senate seat?

[linn37]

Casey was voted in last time because his dad was a very popular governor. It might be another election cycle before people forget about that.

[Theodore R.]

What makes you think PA voters understand that Casey deceived them? Or did he deceive them?

[Erik Latranyi]

Casey voted for Obamacare.

Tell seniors in Pennsylvania (second only to Florida in number of retired citizens) that Casey voted to strip $500 billion from Medicare to make Obamacare look better on paper and he will surely lose.

[AuH2ORepublican]

This Smith guy is running for president? I agree, it’s too soon after he left the Democrats to give him the GOP nomination—after all, Reagan left the Democrats in the early ‘60s and didn’t get elected president until 1980.

No, wait, Smith is not running for president, he’s running for U.S. Senate. He pretty much left the Democrats a couple of years ago when he became deeply involved in the Tea Party movement and formally joined the GOP in 2011, and wants to be elected Senator in 2012; Reagan formally joined the GOP in 1964 (when he campaigned for Barry Goldwater for president) and was elected governor of California as a Republican just two years later (and by 1968 was the conservative favorite for the presidency at the GOP Convention). It seems to me that what Smith is doing is indeed very similar to what Reagan did.

Judge Smith on his words and acts, not on the fact that he used to have a different party label. I am not inclined to support him at the present time because I think that we need a more experienced and higher-profile candidate to defeat Casey (such as perhaps Congressman Lou Barletta), but I certainly have no reason to believe the conspiracy theory that Smith is a Democrat plant trying to stop the GOP from winning Casey’s Senate seat.

[rightwingintelligentsia]

I heard Dick Morris tell Hannity yesterday that he hopes Tim Burns runs against Casey. That would make Gleason happy.

[Opinionated Blowhard]

Poll numbers for the Democrat, who took office after beating Republican incumbent Rick Santorum in 2006, have remained relatively high despite Mr. Obama's dropping numbers in the state. The last Quinnipiac University poll in August showed Mr. Casey with a 48 percent approval rate in Pennsylvania . . .

Gotta love that spin. This reporter has to be high if he claims that a 48% approval rating for a sitting senator is "relatively high."