Free Republic

Rick Santorum backed Arlen Specter over Pat Toomey in 2004. It was a tough race with Toomey mounting a credible, well-financed challenge. Toomey’s candidacy, by his own estimation, was one of the precursors to the Tea Party movement: The “battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party” between big spending moderates and committed conservatives that was evident in 2004 may have inspired subsequent Tea Party efforts, Toomey suggested. Despite losing out on key endorsements from leading Republican figures in 2004, Toomey believes his primary campaign created a strong foundation for conservative activism that translated into victory in 2010....

What would President Reagan do if he had had a good conservative challenging Sen. Arlen Specter in a primary in Pennsylvania? Former Sen. Rick Santorum is taking a lot of heat in his presidential campaign for backing the RINO Specter over true-blue conservative Pat Toomey in 2004. We need more conservatives like Ronald Reagan. I agree. But let's remember what Reagan actually did. In 1982, Sen. Lowell Weicker (R-Conn.) faced a possible challenge from Prescott Bush, Jr., elder brother of Reagan's vice president. "God himself could not keep me from challenging Lowell Weicker," the Bush brother said. But when the...

Just how unserious are Republicans about defeating Barack Obama in November? So unserious that, in Iowa, at least, they came painfully close on Tuesday night to making Rick Santorum their putative standard-bearer. Mr. Santorum, the former congressman and senator of Pennsylvania, came within eight votes of defeating former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. It was the closest finish in the history of the Hawkeye State caucuses. Santorum bills himself as the conservative alternative to Mr. Romney. But saying you're a conservative doesn't mean you are one. (Think John McCain.) Oh, indeed, the Virginian (ne Pennsylvanian) has the corner on the theological...

<p>Conservatives, frustrated by the Republican leadership’s role in Tuesday’s Pennsylvania Senate primary victory of liberal Sen. Arlen Specter, publicly are directing their anger on one of their own — Sen. Rick Santorum. “The person our members are most infuriated at is Rick Santorum,” said Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, which helped lead a conservative crusade in support of Rep. Patrick J. Toomey’s Senate primary bid against Mr. Specter. In one of the most fiercely contested Republican Senate primaries in recent memory, Mr. Specter eked out a 51 percent to 49 percent victory on Tuesday. “Santorum undermined fellow conservatives in a really ignoble way, telling people a conservative can’t win. Our members won’t forget that for a long time,” said Mr. Moore, whose national organization contributed $1 million to the Toomey campaign and spent another $1 million in television ads on the candidate’s behalf.</p>

On the Third Day of Christmas (Dec. 27), the former senator who resided in Pennsylvania but represented himself for 30 years took to the stage of the Helium Comedy Club in Philadelphia to really let we Keystone Staters know what kind of cue balls we have been. (snip) "Bill Clinton is a friend of mine because I was a friend of his," he joshed. "I voted not to impeach him. And that's a hell of a thing to do considering the evidence." So much for "Scottish law".

Ex-Sen. Specter’s new career is comedyBy Joshua Altman - 12/28/11 12:11 PM ET Former Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) found an open mic and performed Tuesday at a Philadelphia comedy club to tell “some of the inside stories” of Washington. Specter spun tales of former President Clinton and former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D), and just the mention of former presidential candidate Herman Cain elicited some of the biggest laughs of the act. “I should have started with Herman Cain, he gets a helluva laugh just by being identified,” Specter said with a shrug. Comedy is not just a hobby Specter...

So an ex-senator walks into a comedy club . . . That's not the setup to a joke - it's what happened Tuesday night when Arlen Specter took the stage at the Helium Comedy Club's open-mike night in Center City. "I've been in comedy now for 30 years," the former senator explained. Taking a try at stand-up was a natural step after spending so many years in the "sit-down comedy" of Congress - and, Specter noted, it was considerably less expensive. While some of his jokes are unprintable in a family newspaper - don't ask about the paraplegic who wanted...

Former U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter has been outside the Beltway for more than a year, but the longtime politician is still in the loop. “The gridlock in Washington is really more like a war,” said Specter during a speech Wednesday at an annual fundraiser at the Abramson Center for Jewish Life in Horsham. Politics was just the tip of the iceberg. The 81-year-old and longest serving senator from Pennsylvania offered the crowd of 150 guests a state-of-the-nation type speech, addressing everything from the economy and Occupy Wall Street movement to the 2012 presidential election and Israel. Specter spent most of...

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department is investigating whether Guantanamo Bay detainees charged with roles in the Sept. 11 attacks were improperly given photos of CIA officers or contractors, according to a person familiar with the investigation. The investigation, headed by the Justice Department's counterespionage chief, John Dion, is trying to determine if military lawyers defending the detainees divulged classified information or compromised covert CIA officers, according to the person, who was not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke only on condition of anonymity. It is a violation of federal law to identify CIA covert personnel, and it is a...

Departing Republican-turned-Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter on Tuesday said conservative Republicans who backed Tea Party challengers against establishment candidates in the recent elections engaged in political cannibalism. In his final floor speech, Specter complained there's scant room for centrists like himself in a polarized Senate where civility is in short supply. "In some quarters, compromise has become a dirty word," said Pennsylvania's longest-serving senator, who lost his re-election bid after three decades in the Senate. Specter complained that some GOP senators had helped Tea Party challengers beat incumbent Republicans like Utah Sen. Bob Bennett and Rep. Mike Castle in his Delaware...

WASHINGTON - The family photographs came down Monday, packed in bubble wrap and boxes for the trip home, leaving nothing but some nails and sun-faded outlines on the walls of Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter's inner office. After 30 years on Capitol Hill, the state's longest-serving senator is clearing out and heading back to Philadelphia. Specter, 80, will deliver his final floor speech Tuesday morning, decrying a gridlocked Senate that has lost its political center and the sense of collegiality that once kept senators from campaigning against one another. "Eating or defeating your own is a form of sophisticated cannibalism," Specter,...

One of the most ignominious political careers of the modern era will at last sputter to a pitiful end when the 111th Congress finally relinquishes its strangle-hold on the American Republic. Arlen Specter, outgoing senator from Pennsylvania, personified the sort of elite, politically opportunistic, government careerism that the American people have grown to so justifiably loathe. He will not be missed. Educated at Yale Law School, Specter first sought public office when, though a registered Democrat, he ran for district attorney of Philadelphia on a Republican ticket in 1965 because, as TIME once noted, “ he failed to secure the...

Sen. Arlen Specter urged “mainstream Americans” to turn out in droves to prevent a total rejection of moderate challengers and incumbents. “Mainstream Americans must march to the polls this November to express themselves forcefully to stop extremists financed by undisclosed contributors from stifling our democracy,” the Pennsylvania Democrat said in a floor statement Tuesday morning. Specter, who left the GOP for the Democratic Party last year after determining he could not win the Republican primary in his state, noted this year’s primary process has been particularly devastating to moderates. Specter, a moderate, is one of three incumbent Senators to lose...

As the National Institutes of Health fights in court for permission to resume long-term funding for research involving human embryonic stem cells, some members of Congress are coming to the agency’s defense with a proposal to make President Obama’s stem-cell funding policy the law of the land. Monday in Washington, D.C., Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Penn.) spoke in favor of the Stem Cell Research Advancement Act. This bill would make clear Congress' intent to allow federal funds to be used on the promising research, which is controversial because the cells themselves are derived from days-old human embryos, which are destroyed in...

Sean's complete showdown with Democratic senator over party switch.

It appears lame-duck Sen. Arlen Specter, sometime-Democrat from Pennsylvania, hasn't had enough of the Obama administration job-for-politics merry-go-round. Not one to go gentle into that good night, Mr. Specter is angling to be a special envoy to Syria. At the same time, he is abandoning his own standards in order to support the Supreme Court nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan, all while giving the cold shoulder to Sept. 11 victim families even though those victims are trying to help his own legislation. Mr. Specter's sellout adds new skulduggery to the increasingly troubled ethics of the Kagan nomination. It is...

The numbers remain little changed this month in Pennsylvania’s race for the U.S. Senate, with Republican Pat Toomey continuing to maintain a slight lead over Democrat Joe Sestak. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in the state shows Toomey with 45% support, while Sestak earns 38% of the vote. Six percent (6%) prefer some other candidate in the race, and 12% are undecided. Last month, Toomey held a near-identical 45% to 39% lead. In fact, except for a brief surge after his mid-May victory over incumbent Arlen Specter in the state’s Democratic Senate Primary, support for Sestak...

Sources tell ABC News that Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pennsylvania, has informed the White House that he would like to consider remaining in public service after his Senate term ends at the end of this session, and White House officials are keeping an open mind about possible job openings for him.

Sen. Arlen Specter was a wild card when it came to Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court, but today said he'll support her even though the confirmation hearings this month were a "charade." It's a change of heart for Specter, who voted against her February 2009 nomination to the solicitor general post when he was still a Republican. He was the most likely Democrat to oppose her, but Specter's support clears the way for a smooth confirmation vote next week in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Specter (D-PA) announced today that Kagan did "just enough" to win him over. At...

WASHINGTON — While Solicitor General Elena Kagan remains almost a dead-certain lock to be confirmed, and likely sometime before the August recess, as of right now she's down in the vote count 2-9. Al Franken was the first senator to commit to voting yes, which he did during a news conference call while in Vietnam. Sen. Mark Udall, a freshman Democrat from Colorado, is the only other committed yes vote so far. Nine Republicans, all of whom opposed Sonia Sotomayor, are now on record as saying they'll oppose Kagan, according to National Journal's The Hotline, which is tracking official statements...

The United States of America used to be a fearsome power but one with a soft touch. Peoples of the world looked to this great nation as that "shining city on a hill" and came here by the millions to become the next new American citizen. Producing its greatness were great men and in memory of those great men landmarks, and worthy institutions were named after them by a proud and thankful people. We had Washington City named for the father of our country. We had schools and libraries named after the first man of the people, Andrew Jackson. We...

Organizing for America tells us everything we need to know about Joe SestakWe received the following from Elizabeth Lucas, Pennsylvania State Director, Organizing for America The choice is clear: we must elect Congressman Joe Sestak to be our next U.S. Senator. Learn how you can help Joe Sestak -- a strong ally of President Obama -- and his campaign for U.S. Senate. Right, Lizzy, isn't this the same Joe Sestak whom your boss and/or his associates attempted to buy off with the offer of a prestigious position in his administration, possibly in violation of laws that forbid the use of...

Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) on Monday accused the Supreme Court of a constitutional power grab. In a nearly hour-long floor speech, Specter said the court had ignored congressional will and ceded federal power to the presidency. The outgoing senator, defeated in a Democratic primary last month, criticized Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito by name, saying both had paid “lip service” to Congress during their confirmation hearings. Specter also urged his committee colleagues to take an especially sharp look at Solicitor General Elena Kagan, whose confirmation hearings for the Court begin next Monday. Otherwise, he said Congress risks...

Congressman Joe Sestak’s post-primary bounce appears to over, and he now trails Republican rival Pat Toomey by seven points in the U.S. Senate contest in Pennsylvania. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Pennsylvania shows Toomey with 45% support, while Sestak earns 38%. Five percent (5%) prefer another candidate in the race, and 12% are undecided. Two weeks ago, just after his widely covered primary victory over longtime Senator Arlen Specter, Sestak posted a modest four-point lead lead over Toomey. Prior to the primary, however, Toomey tended to enjoy modest leads over Sestak. The current polling shows...

Joe to Joe By The Prowler on 6.1.10 @ 6:09AM MISSING IN ACTION Some Democrats on Capitol Hill were caught off guard by the White House announcement on Friday that placed former President Bill Clinton and Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel at the center of the Rep. Joe Sestak job bribery scandal. "We expected at the end of the day that somehow Joe Biden would be involved," says one Democrat leadership source. "He was much more involved in the Specter recruitment and had more invested in getting Specter what he wanted." Indeed, Specter and several senior advisers, according to...

Did you hear the one about how President Obama got Slick Willie Clinton to offer second-term Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak an unpaid appointment to an obscure White House advisory panel in return for dropping his primary challenge to incumbent Sen. Arlen Specter? Obama and his Chicago boys are still guffawing over how all the chumps in the media reported that one with a straight face. Hey, it's a just another reason why running a gangster government is nothing but laughs for the Obama crew in the White House. The reality is that nobody outside the White House gang and...

Friends tell The Daily Beast that the departing senator, injured by Obama's failure to show last-minute support, may well shift right on key votes from Kagan to financial reform. With party unity crucial to Democrats’ hopes for passing significant legislation before the midterm elections, Arlen Specter’s primary loss could pose a new problem for the White House. The Senate could vote on any number of crucial bills before the midterms, including a new jobs bill, immigration reform, climate-change legislation, and a final financial-reform package, making Specter’s continuing support more important than ever. But several longtime friends and associates tell The...

During yesterday's press conference, President Barack Obama was asked about allegations that someone in White House offered US Representative Joe Sestak (D-Pennsylvania) a job if he would bow out of a Democratic primary race against Senator Arlen Specter (D-Pennsylvania), His response was that there will be an official response "shortly". So we now have the answer to the question 'How long does it take to tell the truth?' It's ninety-eight days and a "shortly".

In Washington, you can safely assume the air is beginning to stink when administration apologists play the “Politics isn’t a crime” card, as the Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen has here in reference to the brewing Joe Sestak job-offer scandal. [See who supports Sestak.] Funny, I don’t remember Democrats being in such a forgiving mood when the Bush White House was accused of politicizing the Justice Department by firing a batch of U.S. Attorneys. Or when Rep. Tom DeLay launched his notorious K Street Project and helped to favorably redraw Texas’ congressional district boundaries. These efforts went beyond the pale of...

At the Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association Dinner, back in March:

Illegalities Or Politics As Usual? Within days, former Democratic Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich will go on trial for allegedly trying to sell Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat after Obama won the presidency. In 2008 Patrick I. Fitzgerald, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, released tape recorded conversations with then-Governor Blagojevich, alleging that Obama's vacated seat was available to the highest bidder. Blagojevich was indicted. He now faces charges of corruption for trying to sell or trade Obama's seat and pressure potential Blagojevich campaign contributors. Blagojevich has fervently denied these allegations and he is pressing that all of...

So, when will the Obama White House come clean about Rep. Joe Sestak? The Pennsylvania Senate nominee has charged for months that the White House "offered [him] a job" -- reportedly secretary of the Navy -- to abandon his primary challenge to Republican-turned-Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter. But Sestak stayed in and last week defeated Specter. Then, on "Meet The Press" Sunday, he reiterated the claim. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs and special adviser David Axelrod both say the matter has been "looked into" and nothing "inappropriate" occurred. Sure they'd say that. Otherwise, they could be facing criminal charges. At least...

Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., said Sunday the White House had offered him a job if he would withdraw from the primary race against Sen. Arlen Specter. Sestak, who defeated the five-term incumbent Specter to win the Democratic nomination in the Senate primary, was asked on CBS's "Face the Nation" if the Obama administration had offered a position in exchange for his agreeing not to run. "Yeah, he replied. "I was asked that question months after it happened. And I felt an obligation to answer it honestly. I said, 'yes.' Asked what job, Sestak said: "No, no … and I said...

Arlen Specter (D-Pa.-cum-R-Pa.-cum-D-Pa.), a.k.a. "Snarlin' Arlen," a.k.a. "Specter the Defector," is one of the most unloved people in politics. He is ornery, vain, disloyal and a brazen opportunist. He lacks a discernible ideology, puts his finger to the political winds before casting a vote and in the end does what is good for Arlen Specter. I will miss him. I will miss him because, whatever his faults, he fought the forces of party unity and ideological purity that are pulling the country apart. "Let me tell you," he complained in 2005, before both parties disowned him, "it's heresy -- I...

Obama Defeats Specter By Jeffrey Lord Wait a minute. Let's back up and stay focused on why, exactly, Arlen Specter lost this race -- and had his career ended. Two words: Barack Obama. Story time. Last April, in 2009, Senator Arlen Specter, then the Republican senior Senator from Pennsylvania, stopped in Harrisburg for a meeting with a group of Pennsylvania conservatives. This was a fairly routine thing for Specter to do. He had had a career's worth of disagreements with conservatives, but he had also had some serious agreements. While his famous opposition to Robert Bork is prominent among the...

Congratulations to Congressman-elect Mark Critz on his extraordinary victory. Voters in this election responded to Mark Critz's commitment to providing independent leadership that puts Pennsylvania jobs first. This was the only race in the country today where a Democrat faced off against a Republican and the results are clear. Mark Critz focused on creating jobs for middle class families, while Republicans practiced the politics of fear and distortion. For all of their bluster about building a national wave this year, including RNC Chairman Michael Steele's guarantee of victory for Tim Burns, Republican policies were once again rejected when it came...

Pretty much the same way it worked for Martha Coakley. Now we hope Obama will endorse proven liar Joe Sestak.Another Obama minion bit the dust in yesterday's election. Arlen Specter, who has represented Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate for almost 30 years was just removed despite endorsements from Barack Obama (Arlen should have asked Martha Coakley how that worked out for her) and Robert Casey. It is to be remembered that Senator Casey accepted the endorsement of an anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic hate group. It is with a sense of sadness as opposed to triumph that we see Arlen Specter go....

WASHINGTON - Tuesday's balloting is a fresh reminder of what all the combatants have understood for months: It's a lousy year to be a Democrat, an incumbent or President Obama. At the very least, Democratic majorities in the Senate and House will shrink significantly this November. For the first time, however, it's not just Republican dreamers chirping that the I-loathe-Washington riptide could cause one or both houses of Congress to flip in the fall. "If the election were held today we'd lose both," a top Democratic strategist acknowledged. "Thank goodness it's not being held today - but we still might...

WASHINGTON – The role of endorser in chief isn't working so well for President Barack Obama. Sen. Arlen Specter became the fourth Democrat in seven months to lose a high-profile race despite the president's active involvement, raising doubts about Obama's ability to help fellow Democrats in this November's elections. The first three candidates fell to Republicans. But Specter's loss Tuesday to Rep. Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania's Democratic senatorial primary cast doubts on Obama's influence and popularity even within his own party — and in a battleground state, no less. Of course, it's possible that Democrats will fare better than expected...

PHILADELPHIA — Early on, Senator Arlen Specter’s supporters knew that the 80-year-old Republican-turned-Democrat was in trouble. “Turnout was terrible,” Gov. Edward G. Rendell said less than two hours before the polls closed here. And just about two hours after they had closed, he blamed the rain and the low turnout in Philadelphia for ending Mr. Specter’s 30 years in the Senate.

.S. Rep. Joe Sestak was declared the winner over incumbent Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania's Democratic U.S. Senate primary Tuesday night. The Washington Post projected Sestak the winner, as he led Specter 53.2 percent to 46.8 percent with nearly 76 percent of the vote counted.

Senator Arlen Specter has been defeated in his bid for a sixth term by Democratic challenger joe Sestak

This was every ad voters saw in PA. To the voters, it was a referendum on obama, make no mistake about that.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter on Tuesday was defeated in a Democratic primary in his bid for a sixth term after taking the risky step of switching from the GOP.

WASHINGTON – Political novice Rand Paul rode support from tea party activists to a rout in Kentucky's Republican Senate primary Tuesday night, jolting the GOP establishment. Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter lost his struggle for political survival in Pennsylvania, a five-term incumbent offering experience to voters clamoring for change. Another Democratic incumbent, Sen. Blanche Lincoln, led narrowly in early returns in her race for nomination to a third term in Arkansas, but she risked being thrown into a costly run-off. In a fourth race with national implications, Democrat Mark Critz moved ahead of Republican Tim Burns in a contest to fill...

We needed Toomey to GOTV but he really had the , if it had been Toomey v Specter I think Burns would have had a much better chance of winning. Turnout was key and having competitive Senate and Governors races helped the Democrats turn out nearly 1 million voters. Burns also has a serious primary challenge by Bill Russell since he ran against Murtha last time out. It would be wild if Burns pulls this out against Critz but loses the primary to Russel, a lame duck unless he can run Independent like Charley Crist.

Says serial party switcher Arlen Specter, who fled the Republican Party to run as a Democrat last year. Specter now claims that without him the Tea Party will “take over.”

Specter strongly defends his vigor and then basically runs out of gas...

Democrats Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas face strong tests from the left. Also, a Senate race in Kentucky between a Republican establishment favorite and a conservative "Tea Party" activist will test the strength of that loosely organized movement.