All PA DUers need to do your best to get some republicans out for Toomey

[DaisyUCSB]

against the wishes of the republican political apparattus, of both congress AND the whitehouse.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/politics/8523108.htm?1c

Toomey with troops, Specter at gun show as they hunt for votes

LARA JAKES JORDAN

Associated Press


PHILADELPHIA - The Republican primary race for the U.S. Senate remains tight, a poll released Monday shows, as Sen. Arlen Specter and Rep. Pat Toomey made a dash across the state in the final day before the election.

Specter leads Toomey by a slim margin, 48 percent to 42 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University survey of 617 likely GOP primary voters in Pennsylvania. Ten percent of voters remain undecided, the poll shows.

That's mixed news for the moderate four-term incumbent, who maintained his lead over the conservative congressman, but slipped further under 50 percent. A survey released last week by Quinnipiac had Specter with a 5-point lead over Toomey, 49 percent to 44 percent....

[GCP]

1. Don't you mean get them out for Specter?

eom

[DaisyUCSB]

4. No way. We cannot beat Specter. We can definetly have a substantial edge

over Toomey. And he will hurt Bush big time. Bush has to sell himself and his wing of the party as moderate if he is to win PA, which, WE need to win.

[PCIntern]

2. I saw a 48-48 poll today

I wish I could recall where but here in PA, there are Toomey signs everywhere. You can't take a dump without someone putting a Toomey sign in the toilet paper roll..
Appropriately, however.

Problem is, he could win a state-wide election - don't forget, we have Santorum already...

[lovedems]

3. I saw a profile of Toomey on the news and that dude looks scary!

Specter is not my favorite but damn, Toomey seems dangerous. Since the march was just yesterday, at least Specter is pro-choice!

[DaisyUCSB]

5. Which is why Toomey is so unlikely to beat Hoeffell

If Specter is the nominee, Heoffell is a sacrificial lamb.

[mdguss]

6. Agreed:

Toomey's the only way a Democrat can win in Pennsylvania.

[richabk]

8. But what about Rick Santorum?

My Pennsylvania senator history is non-existant, so please forgive me...
I agree that Dems probably have an easier time of winning the seat if Toomey wins the primary.....BUT.....then how did Rick Santorum get elected?

[tigereye]

9. he sold his soul to the devil

he is evil, he pretends to be moderate, and our state has, to quote Carville, Pittsburgh and Philly with Alabama in between.

On the other hand, I'm not sure that I want Toomey to win; there is just a chance that not enough Dems will even know who Hoeffel is ( my brother the lobbbyist knew, but I had never heard of him.)that Toomey would win. There is a lot of money behind him, the ads are unending.

I guess I would rather have Arlen with all his faults. Two Santorums ( you would think no one could be worse!) would be unbearable. JMO

[tigereye]

11. and that is a sad state of affairs, don't you think?

I wish Rendell had waited and run for Senator instead.

[AlinPA]

12. Hoeffel would be forced to run only to the left of Toomey.

This being the case, Toomey can push left easier than Hoeffel can to the right. PA has already shown that it can elect a right winger. This is how Santorum beat Wofford. Santorum kept edging left. Thats the way I see it.

[mdguss]

19. Santorum was going down in 2000:

But Ron Klink had to mortgage the house, the party was focusing on bringing the state to Gore, Ed Rendell was positioning himself to run for Governor in 2002 against Bob Casey, Jr. (that primary had a lot to do with Santorum getting a second term), and Klink had no money at all to run a campaign. People in Philadelphia showed up to vote for John Corzine (who had been buying ad time because he was running for the senate from New Jersey). Klink, despite being cast aside got 47 percent of the vote. Had the party supported Klink like it should have, he and not Santorum would be a Senator today. My guess is 5 million dollars worth of ads (and in the era of soft money the party could've found that amount) would've got Klink the seat.

So out of that, Pennsylvania was carried by Gore. An excellent field operation is more or less (thanks to Rendell and his staff) still in place, and the Kerry's likely to win it this fall.

But we got Santorum and Melissa Hart out of it. Hart's one to watch. She's an effective politcian, a nice woman and moderate on enough key issues to come off as sensible. She's the future of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania.

[lovedems]

7. Now I get it!

A little slow on the low down there! :) I live in Illinois so I don't know the juicy details of the race. That sounds like a good plan though!

[cjbuchanan]

10. I have got to disagree

Look, Toomey is a nut, but he has run a great campaign. If he knocks off a sitting senator in the primary, with the backing of Bush, that will show that he knows how to get his people out to vote.

Spector has run a horrible campaign.

If Toomey gets the nod, what happens if Hoeffel makes a mistake. What happens if he slips up and says something that causes a scandal and he loses. Do we really want Toomey in the senate?

The only way to guarantee a senate without Toomey is not to let him be on the ballot.

By the way, there is also the chance that a Toomey win could help Bush in PA. If Toomey brought out more of the far right vote, do you think they would vote for Kerry?

I would rather not risk it, but to each their own.

Finally, the most recent poll is 48-48 (pdf)(http://surveyusa.com/2004_Elections/PA040426gopsenprimary.pdf).

Oh, a great way to help out would be to donate to Hoeffel (http://www.hoeffelforsenate.com/).

[Robbien]

16. Toomy is being supported by the Club for Growth

He is one dangerous dude with tons of money behind him. According to this article:

But if the purge of Specter succeeds, the Senate could come to resemble the House and compromise will be more difficult. Even if Specter survives, centrists in the future could be intimidated by his primary challenge.

That's exactly what Toomey supporters are hoping for. The Club for Growth, a well-financed and rigidly conservative group, has spent about $1 million backing Toomey, and its president, Stephen Moore, says other moderates should learn a lesson from Specter's "near death" experience: if you're not pure, we'll come after you, too.

http://www.nashvillecitypaper.com/index.cfm?section_id=40&screen=news&news_id=32560

Not a good idea to support Toomey. Ever.

[MAlibdem]

13. I don't think it's a good idea.

I can respect Specter, he's not too bad.

Toomey, should he win, would be UNBEARABLE.

[enough]

18. Specter gave us Clarence Thomas to deal with for 40, 60 years or so.

Yes, he is TOO bad.

[Iris]

14. while I'd hate to see Specter lose, Bush is supporting him in hopes that

Specter will be able to seal up PA for him in Nov. according to an NPR report.

[DaisyUCSB]

15. you people saying it's a bad idea flies in the face of the RNC and DNC

political forces, who have both determined that Toomey would be a huge detriment to Bush

[enough]

17. Some very useful recent history about this from happyslug in the PA forum

post #23 in this thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=175x28

(happyslug likes to call Toomey "Tommie.")

Quoting happyslug:

Santorium is an import from the East, he ran for the Mayor or Pittsburgh as a Republican right out of law school (Whoever the GOP runs for Mayor of Pittsburgh was going to lose so this was just a move to give him name recognition in Western Pa NOT to win the election.

Santorium than ran against Walgreen for Heinz's old seat. This seat was curved in 1980 to make it as Republican as you could in South Western Pa (It circled around the City of Pittsburgh like a noose). Even than it had more Democrats than Republicans so the GOP to get Santorium elected made every effort to keep Walgreen in Washington during the Election so that it was all Santorium in the District. Santorium than won the race and I believe an Re-election before he ran for Senate.

My point here as I have said earlier, Western Pa likes to vote for local people if possible. Santorium, through an import, was viewed as being from Western Pa and thus won the Senate based on support from Western Pa. The above was his "proof" to the locals he was fromt he area.

Tommie does NOT have the name recognition of Santorium AND he can NOT pass himself off as being from Western Pa, thus Western Pa will tend to vote for the Democrat over the non-local Republican.

Thus if Specter loses to Tommie The Democrats have a Chance to win the Seat.