Say Anything Blog

NRSC Vice-Chairman Orrin Hatch said today that he doesn’t believe former Congressman Pat Toomey has a chance to beat newly turned Democrat Arlen Specter in next year’s Senate race in Pennsylvania. Hatch even suggested that the NRSC may seek to recruit a candidate to run against Toomey.

  “I don’t think there is anybody in the world who believes he can get elected senator there,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch, the vice chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

  Asked if the NRSC would back Toomey, Hatch said, “I don’t think so” and that the party should look for “someone who can win there.”

The Chairman of the NRSC, Texas Senator John Cornyn, has yet to endorse Toomey and said today that he wasn’t sure that Toomey would be the “only candidate” or the “strongest candidate” either. In fact, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham suggested a name today that has been thrown around in political circles since Specter’s defection - Tom Ridge.

Ridge is the only Republican who makes Specter appear conservative. He is pro-abortion, anti-school choice, and pro-tax. He was also not exactly stellar as Secretary of Homeland Security, though the present Secretary there makes him look sharp in contrast.

The beltway Republicans just don’t get it.  Specter was bad for the Republican party.  True it’s not at all convenient to lose him at the moment, but if we want to rebuild the party we have to come up with some Republican principles that mean something.  That isn’t going to happen while we have clown’s like Specter, McCain or Grahamnesty in the Senate representing us.

All they do is throw the elections to the Democrats like happened last November.

The thing for the national party to do right now is to butt out.  They’ve already got one candidate who’s well known for this point of the campaign.  (Well enough known to have forced Specter to avoid a primary fight.)  If another candidate shows up whether its Ridge or not sobeit.  That’s what primaries are for. 

The thing not to do is to push a Ridge through the party process.  That will probably ensure the Republican party in Pennsylvania stays out of office for a generation. 

This is what the beltway Republicans did 5 years ago to get Specter past Toomey in the primaries then.  How’d that work out?