Meanwhile, closer to home...
Tomorrow, we in Pennsylvania will be having our Primary elections. I'm not going to rehash my rant about how ludicrously late in the year this is as regards the national race, though I am going to continue to press for reforms on that score. The primaries in all states should be as close together as possible so that a handful of states can't warp the political map.
Instead, I'll mention a race I won't even be able to vote in: The GOP race for Senate candidate between incumbent, moderate Alen Specter and "real" Republican Pat Toomey.
Toomey's running on the basis that he's a "real" Republican, who has found Specter to be too Liberal because, among other things, he's not vehemently anti-abortion, as Toomey is.
Specter's received report from President Bush and several other members of his administration, as they're not only hoping to help swing Pennsylvania towards the Bush win column this year (a horrible, horrible thought), but - presumably - because they know that while Specter is popular with moderate Republicans he does well with most moderate Democrats, too.
I'd meant to write something on this race earlier, but as with so many other topics that cross my mind I didn't make the time. However, with the race coming up tomorrow, I came across a discussion of this race over on Daily KOS, the combination nudging me to make some comments.
The host of Daily KOS has taken the interesting position that a Toomey victory might not be a good thing for the Democrats, because of a perceived lack of fire in the campaign of Democrat Joe Hoeffel. Personally, I believe he's over-analyzing the situation, and that if placed against a frothing Right Winger such as Pat Toomey that the electorate of PA - from all Democrats through most of the moderate Republicans - will come out for Hoeffel.
Over on Ruminate This, Jack K. has pulled together a piece concentrating on a recent Hardball appearance for Toomey, which should give you some idea of what the man stands for. Follow the piece down to at least near the end if you start it, though, as the first half is set-up.
Toomey has managed to mount a strong campaign in terms of a very folcused support base, especially among the hardest of hardcore anti-taxation and the staunch anti-abortion votes. Especially after reviewing all that, I can't help but return to the idea that a Toomey win tomorrow would be a solid lead-in to a Democratic win. The pro-Hoeffel/anti-Toomey forces simply have to keep punching, punching, punching on Toomey's hardline stance on the abortion issue, and it'll make it uncomfortable for Dubya, at least, to come back for yet anoter visit to PA (he's been here 27 times since the 2000 "election", if I recall correctly) to back the new guy. After all, while Bush wants to push the anti-abortion message he'd very much prefer to pitch it directly to the "pro-life" lobby, not as part of a general campaign message that would help alienate many moderate Republicans.
If Toomey does somehow manage to take it tomorrow - if, as some worry, the highly-polarized Toomey supporters hit the polls while wan moderates let it slide - it'll be interesting to see if the GOP will be able to manage to get Specter to throw his support behind his Right wing nut of an opponent. One can get a good feel for how nasty the Toomey campaign's gotten not only by doing a Google search for Pat Toomey sites, but misspell Specter's last name and type in "Arlen Spectre", and look at the sites that come up.
If nothing else, this race has managed to make tomorrow's primary elections far more interesting than I would have expected even a month ago.
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