Posted on 10/27/2012 10:31:21 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The preponderance of conservative attention this year has quite understandably been focused on realizing the categorical imperative to defeat Barack Obama. But also important is the defeat of the president’s enablers in the United States Senate, that enough votes might be secured there to undo some of the damage they, together, have done. An opportunity to unseat one such enabler has emerged in an unlikely place — Pennsylvania — where first-term incumbent Bob Casey now finds himself in a fight he did not expect.
Pennsylvania has long been in danger of becoming a vestigial swing state, blushing red before settling in to a deep blue. But polls there are encouragingly tight, not just for Mitt Romney, who has closed to within five points in the Real Clear Politics averages, but for Casey’s Republican opponent, Tom Smith, who has erased double-digit deficits and now trails by as little as three points in some polls. Casey has allowed what many assumed would be a slam-dunk reelection to turn into a real contest, by underestimating both the resonance of Smith’s message and the poverty of his own record.
The case against Casey is simple: In his six years in the Senate since ousting Rick Santorum, he just hasn’t been very good — not on the issues that matter to conservatives, and not on the issues that matter to Pennsylvania. In a single term he has achieved the dubious milestone of sponsoring more than 300 bills, none of which has become law. Little wonder that Republican staffers have taken to calling him “Senator Zero.”
What Casey has done is become a reliable rubber stamp for the Obama-Reid agenda. Start with the Affordable Care Act. Casey has long claimed to be pro-life, and was elected in 2006 on that understanding. Yet he has also boasted that “no one in the Senate has worked harder” to pass Obamacare. He struck a concerned pose when the Obama administration used the object of his pride to force organizations, including Catholic ones, to cover abortion drugs. But beyond signing a feeble letter that is no doubt at this very moment reposing in a filing cabinet in Kathleen Sebelius’s office, Casey has not budged in his support for the president’s health-care plan.
Nor is this the only instance in which Casey’s conscience has proven conveniently plastic. Within months of coming to Washington, he voted for a Barbara Boxer amendment that provided funding to groups that provide abortion services abroad, overturning the long-standing Mexico City policy, which prevented such NGOs from receiving taxpayer dollars.
More recently, Senator Casey has turned his back on the Keystone State’s energy sector, which hovers precariously between resurgence and retreat.
In June, Casey voted against a bill to block a bundle of EPA rules known as Utility MACT, which stands for Maximum Achievable Control Technology, a fitting name for progressive job-killing regulations if ever there was one. Nationwide, MACT is expected to cost $9.2 billion, destroy 39,000 jobs, and result in 700,000 new hours of paperwork each year. In Pennsylvania, it has already caused five coal power plants to shutter, costing the Keystone State over 3,000 megawatts of electricity and hundreds of jobs while raising energy prices for Pennsylvanians. And its impact is only just starting to be felt; more than 20 other plants in the state could fall idle before all is said and done.
Just as damning is Casey’s dogged stewardship of the FRAC Act, which is threatening to gut natural-gas production in western Pennsylvania over flimsy environmental concerns about horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” The process is behind a virtual rebirth of the long-depressed Rust Belt, and is transforming western Pennsylvania into an epicenter of low-cost energy production, creating jobs not just in the gas industry, but also by facilitating a number of industrial processes that depend on natural gas, from aluminum to glass production. Casey’s bill would turn over regulation of drilling in the region’s Marcellus shale formation to the federal government at the worst possible time, endangering as many as 240,000 jobs and sending a message to his state’s own regulators that they aren’t up to the task of balancing environmental concerns against economic exigencies.
Tom Smith is in a good position to communicate just how devastating Casey’s energy agenda is. A self-made man who put off college to run the family farm when his father took ill, Smith later became a coal miner and eventually started a successful coal interest of his own. Like many in the Rust Belt, Smith was a lifelong Democrat who realized that the party had drifted away from him and found like-minded people in the nascent tea parties. His averred positions and demeanor mark him as a straightforward conservative with a mildly populist bent, with the right instincts on reining in spending and simplifying the tax code, and his campaign has been competent and cost-effectively run. He has demonstrated the ability as well to appeal to independents and Reagan Democrats (a term Smith frequently uses), and deserves to make Pat Toomey the senior senator from Pennsylvania.
The data and dynamics of the race make it a foregone conclusion that Casey and Obama will pay dearly for their war on carbon in western Pennsylvania, and Romney looks poised to win there by wider margins than did McCain. With a strong final week, and a bit of luck in the Philadelphia suburbs, Tom Smith could ride that wave to an upset victory over Senator Casey on November 6. And that would be good news, for Pennsylvania and for America.
I have long maintained that a good number of PA Dems thought, in 2006, that they were in fact voting for his dad..
For casey; not so much.
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Good article.
I didn’t realize Casey has been such a disaster for Pennsylvanians, can’t believe this race is even close.
Costing hundreds of jobs and and jacking up energy prices. 0 for 300 sponsoring bills? Unbelievable!
GO TOM SMITH!!
I absolutely agree.
I swear there are people here in western PA who think voting D means the steel mills and Kennedy will come back.
Thankfully the old fools are dying off so we’ve got a fighting chance.
It's the Casey name that keeps it close. If Bob Casey was named Bob Smith he'd be living under a bridge drinking Sterno. The guy really is a Zero. LOL!
LOL! That's right where he belongs.
What encourages me about this race is Casey has continued to poll under 50%, even at this late date.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/senate/pa/pennsylvania_senate_smith_vs_casey-3008.html
That’s really bad for an incumbent, and we know that late undecideds break for the challenger.
Here’s yesterday’s Rasmussen Poll. I think Smith has a real chance of pulling an upset, and helping Romney/Ryan in the process. Reverse coat tails! :)
..............
Pennsylvania Senate: Casey (D) 46%, Smith (R) 45% - Latest Numbers
October 26, 2012
Rasmussen Reports
The U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania is now essentially a tie. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in the Keystone State finds incumbent Democratic Senator Bob Casey, Jr. with 46% of the vote, while Republican Tom Smith attracts 45%. Nine percent (9%) are still undecided.
Pennsylvania now moves from Leans Democrat to a Toss-Up in the Rasmussen Reports Senate Balance of Power Rankings.
Prior to this survey, support for Casey has held steady at 49%...Ninety percent (90%) of likely Pennsylvania voters are certain they will vote on Election Day. Among these voters, it’s Smith 47%, Casey 46%. Smith draws support from 87% of Republicans in Pennsylvania and leads 41% to 31% among voters not affiliated with either of the major political parties. Casey, the son of a popular former governor and a one-time state official himself, is backed by 83% of Democrats.
http://tomsmithforsenate.com/news/icymi-rasmussen-casey-46-smith-45
WE in PA are looking forward to throwing out this mush-mouthed douchebag.
LOL, you got that right!
Welcome to Free Republic!!! :)
I know there's a lot of Dem veterans in PA and would guess there's many R's and I’s too. Do you think Obummer’s lying and posturing on the Benghazi disgrace is helping Tom Smith and if so could put him over the top?
Absolutely. About half of the guys at my VFW post are Dem’s. They fell for the Obama BS in 2008, but I’ve beem hearing alot of grumbling from them for the last couple years.
I don’t talk politics at the VFW, but I can’t help hearing these guys. My guess is alot of them will switch to Romney. As you point out, Benghazi has them steamed.
As for Tom Smith, his coal background will make a big difference here in SW PA. This is coal country. People around here hate MACT and the FRAC act. Tom Smith is making sure they find out about Casey’s votes for those bills.
Casey and Obama don’t stand a chance in this part of the state. Besides the coal and Benghazi, we cling to our guns and Bibles too!!! :o)
It'll be great to see PA go for Smith and Romney and to me it looks like it probably will. I still think Romney will beat the worthless turkey in the WH handily.
I have not seen ONE SINGLE Casey sign in Indiana County - but Tom Smith signs are everywhere!
Casey is the invisible senator. He has done nothing - NOTHING - in his term as a senator. He’s there collecting a paycheck and whatever perks he can get. He’s a useless waste of space in the senate. He needs to go! If Smith wins, we’ll have two very conservative senators from Pa.
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