In addition to that Phil, could Hoeffel run up the 60-70% Casey won in Lackwanna and Luzerne Counties? Absolutely not.
Hoeffel would have won Lackawanna with 60% and probably got in the mid 50s in Luzerne. A sacrifice I would be more than willing to make and Hoeffel would have still won. Hoeffel would have likely even bettered Casey's margins in the counties around Philadelphia. Look, the Southeast would have been probably the same lock for Hoeffel even moreso than Casey. The GOP would have NEVER overcome the Southeast especially when Santorum is unpopular in his home area after Cybergate. Hoeffel would have won 8-10 and I stand by that.
Try running that fool against Allyson Schwartz in 2010. I dare you!
Well, first off, Specter is running for the Senate again, I know this because he is fundraising for himself like crazy in order to have enough money for both a probable primary challenge and the general.
Secondly, had it not been Casey, the dynamic of this race would have been completely different, so it is difficult to say for sure what the results would have been.
That being said, I disagree with your assesment that Hoeffle would have done massively better in the East than Casey. For all our talk about how Casey didn't say anything, he said enough about his possitions for people to know that, other than being pro-life, he supported pretty much everyother liberal social possition that one could think of. Not only that, but people knew that he was a "fiscal conservative"... he never ellaborated on this, he simply said it and then pointed out various areas where he thought Santorum was being two-faced on the issue.
Had the Democrats run your boy, then he would have run as a straight liberal, giving people in the Southeast burbs less to grasp on to, other than "he's not Santorum" which I think was pretty much maxed out as it was.
Hoeffle doesn't change the result in the Southeast. Now, let's look at the rest of the state... I know you have trouble imagining that there is a PA outside of Philly and that that area is important, but bear with me.
Casey's landslide doesn't come from Philly, which is something we have established, it comes from the West, where he took counties that Democratic Senate cnadidates haven't taken since the 70's. This was because of two things... #1 He was "Casey"... #2 In the minds of many, he represents the kind of "classic" Catholic Social Reformer/Jimmy Carter and HHH Democrat that people around here still find so appealing, but which the mainstream of the Democratic Party has essentially written off. All you need to do is compare the numbers from Bush 2004 til now. Counties that Bush won by 50-60%, Casey took at about 55-65%. Elk County went Casey with 63%... the biggest town in the county is St Marys, so as you can guess, its a big Catholic area. Exit polls show a massive Catholic vote shift towards Casey in this election... that's where they won it, that's where Hoeffel would stand a big chance of losing it.
To be hoenst, I didn't think Santorum was going to win 2 weeks out, I was just keeping morale up. I was just extremely disappointed that we lost even worse than I expected to an empty suit. That empty suit won the race for you guys, though.
Without going into too much detail, Santorum would have run a different campaign against a different opponent... and he probably should have run a different campaign against Casey. Telling the truth came off as being mean-spirited, and what Santorum has acctually done for the state (and the list is rather impressive) got buried deep early on. Santorum seemed to have resolved to fight a trench war in August, when he should have been gearing up for a mobile, forward moving war. He bogged down when he should have blitzed.
Anyway, moving this race by even 5 points is huge, because it would have forced the Democrats to spend more money here, while the Republicans were already spending like mad, thus taking money out of MT, MO and VA, all races you guys needed for the majority.
Why can't you just be happy that you beat us? I'm warning you right now, as one friend to another, if you start down the road of thinking "we can go more liberal" at every oppotunity, you guys are gonna start down a losing path in no time.
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