What you say is partly true. I dislike Specter intensely, but he did shepherd those two supreme court appointments through the Senate successfully, as he promised to do, even if he was talking out of the other side of his mouth to the press while he did it.
Personally, I think Bush and Santorum were mistaken to have backed Specter. But I also think it was a grave tragedy that conservatives let Santorum be defeated as a result. He made ONE MISTAKE, and otherwise has been a very reliable pro-life conservative. Casey voted pro-life in the recent stem cell vote, but I don’t trust him to be as reliable as Santorum, and he will vote with the Dems on most issues.
Letting a Democrat win because Rick made one mistake was a very stupid thing to do. We lost one of our best senators with considerable seniority as a result, all because people’s noses were out of joint.
I don't believe that there was anything the conservatives in PA could have done to save him. The country club Republicans never voted for him, the Reagan Democrats who supported him twice defected and "went home," plus he endured the constant daily drumbeat of negative news by the local liberal press for two years longer than Bush did (look what the liberal press has done to Bush's numbers) because he was the # 1 Scalp the Soros bunch set out to bag.
I live in Pittsburgh, and I don’t think that’s why Santorum lost. He still picked up conservative votes — he lost mostly because Casey gave the pro-life Reagan dems an alternative.
There was also Rick’s absurd contention that he and his large family lived primarily in a tiny two-bedroom house in a modest neighborhood (because Rick long ago criticized congresscritters for moving to DC, and didn’t want to admit that he ended up doing the same thing). On top of that, there was the issue of sending his kids to PA cyber-school even though his main residence is in DC, and charging the taxpayers for that (he ended up refunding the money, as I recall). None of this did Rick any favors.