I still think it would be a positive if Ridge ran in the primary. While those of you who don’t live in PA immediately associate him with Bush, many PA Dems associate him with a positive period in PA. Times were good when Tom was Governor. Toomey would have to show me something for me to vote against Ridge in the primary.

I admit, I don’t know much about Toomey and am looking to learn more. I am not opposed to Toomey per se, just need more info and need to hear more FROM him. He needs to start hitting the airwaves if he wants to beat Arlen. Arlen is already pushing Toomey as a greedy Wall Streeter who helped ruin your 401K. Toomey needs to beat this back and lay out his platform.

Not sure which would be more satisfying: having our candidate beat him in the general, or watching him lose the Dem primary.

Dem voters aren’t stupid - they don’t trust a turncoat any more than we do.

The GOP leadership doesn’t get this.
We live in the age of the permanent campaign.
You can’t start a year out and expect to get any traction.
It’’s like saying we’re going to have a massive party, but we wait until the week before to plan, and the day before to send out invitations.

Ridge has the name recognition. He just needs funding, party support and to stop hesitating.

Then he needs to call for a complete overhaul of labor relations in the state.
Why? Because it evokes images of change.

Specter is mired in cronyism and the old school.
People can see that more than ever now.

He’s a cynical power whore in the age of “HopeNChange.”

What will be delicious is watching Specter cower as his new “friends” kneecap his campaign. They’ve already started planning.
He’s not communist enough for them.
There’s no substitute for planning (short of billions in illegal Soros campaign cash, that is).
Even Obama doesn’t get that all the time, because he’s so wrapped up in himself and his “Brand.”
It’s like they say. “Hope is not a strategy and change is not a plan.”

Perhaps you’re right that Specter is weakened by some of his positions, but even taking this into account, he is still at 49% Toomey may very well gain some in the polls before next year once more of his positions are made known, but I think it very unlikely that he will get enough of the remaining undecideds to make that much of a difference. A number of them will still gravitate over to Specter (or the Dem candidate, whoever it may be), putting them well into the 50s. The fact that most voters don’t know who Toomey is at this point in the process will be another large challenge for him to overcome.

Specter also has high name recognition with voters in PA and a number of Dems voted for him in ‘04. When all is said and done (if he survives a potential Dem primary), he should win against any GOP challenger. Last week on Hannity’s radio show, both Rasmussen and Zogby backed up the findings of the Quinnipiac poll, each stating that Toomey would get trounced. I agree with Farstar99 that Ridge would do better against Specter because he has better name recognition than Toomey, but I still think he would lose as well, although it would be a lot closer in the end.

As an outsider looking in, PA looks very blue to me and getting bluer, so if as you say the voters there are really all that concerned about the Dems having too much power in Congress with one party rule, they sure have a funny way of showing it since they keep sending idiots like Murtha back year after year…even in the face of continual scandal. It is maddening and makes no logical sense, but then again, having the voters of Mass. continue sending Kennedy and Kerry back every 6 years is equally non-sensical. This is the frustration I believe we all feel with blue state Dem (and most blue state independent) voters.

I know most of us got pretty excited last year when it looked like McCain/Palin were closing in PA polls during the last week of the presidential election, but they still lost pretty big when all the votes were counted. I will hold out hope that something monumental could happen to tip the scales our way, but I think that for Toomey to get elected, it will take the same type of “perfect storm” that swept Obama into office. Perhaps you are right that a weakened Obama could helps matters. Anything can happen, and I hope you are also right that PA voters are open to taking a closer look at things before they reflexively pull the lever for Specter or another Dem.

Sorry Brian to be so dour, and I mean no disrespect, but the cards really are stacked against us in PA.

Specter owns Phili. It all comes down to how enthusiastic Pittsburgh is for Ridge. Toomey played an important role, but he is not going to be a Senator.