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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (513393)	12/20/2003 1:17:24 AM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

That's politics! By Peter Roff UPI Senior Political Analyst WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 (UPI) -- No one expected the Republican primary in the Pennsylvania Senate race to be a nice, dignified campaign. And no one should be disappointed. In one corner, representing the liberal wing of the Republican Party is four-term incumbent U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter. In the other, representing the party's conservative base is U.S. Rep. Pat Toomey, a three-term House member from a working-class district centered on the city of Allentown. Specter has millions in the bank and the support of a number of prominent Republicans including fellow Keystone U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus, and moderate GOP groups like the Republican Main Street Partnership. Toomey, a former investment banker-turned-restaurateur, has the banking of some of the more influential groups in the center-right coalition including the well-heeled Club for Growth and the American Conservative Union, which recently put radio ads on the air in the Harrisburg, Pa., media market praising Toomey's vote against the recently-enacted Medicare reform package. The ads say Toomey "courageously stood with Pennsylvania's taxpayers" by voting no on the Medicare bill, something for which the pro-Specter partisans have attacked him. As far as the ACU is concerned, at least from the text of the ad, Toomey deserves praise and adulation for his no vote: "That's called leadership. It's what Pennsylvania has come to expect from Pat Toomey ... Thank you, Pat Toomey, for standing firm." What makes this all the more interesting is that the American Conservative Union's chairman, Washington lobbyist David Keene, endorsed Specter for re-election months ago. Whether this represents a shift in the wind or a case of the right hand not knowing what the far right hand was doing is anybody's guess. -- House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., tossed some coal into the GOP's Christmas stockings labeling their decision not to move ahead with a plan to further extend unemployment benefits before adjourning for the year something that "breathed life into the spirit of Ebenezer Scrooge." "The unemployment rate (for November) was actually higher than when the federal program was enacted by Congress in March 2002," Hoyer said in a statement that put the 2002 figure at 5.7 percent against last month's 5.9 percent. Hoyer's attack, which also calls for the House to take up the issue when it comes back after the first of the year, is another part of the "jobs, jobs, jobs" theme the Democrats hope to exploit for political effect going into the November 2004 elections. Whether it will have the impact they want, however, is an open question. First of all, payrolls are, according to federal statistics, expanding -- with more Americans are going back to work than are losing their jobs. A number of leading analysts believe the economy will continue to add jobs through the end of next year. More important, at least from the political aspect, is the history of unemployment benefit extensions -- which do not exactly work in the Democrat's favor. While the November 2003 unemployment rate might be higher than in March 2002, it is still lower than the 6.6 percent level it reached in 1994 -- when the Democrats who controlled both chambers of Congress and the Clinton White House allowed the extenders to expire because they were no longer necessary. -- Since George W. Bush was elected president, the Republican National Committee says, close to 150 state and local elected officials have changed their party registration from Democrat to Republican. The changes reflect an ongoing trend left over from the last administration during which, on average, one elected Democrat switched to the GOP per week during the eight years Bill Clinton was president. Every now and again, however, a Republican also jumps the fence. The latest to contemplate doing so is Pennsylvania State Treasurer Barbara Hafer, who is better known for her pro-abortion right activities than she is for her partisan loyalty -- as evidenced by her endorsement of Democrat Ed Rendell in his successful run for governor in 2002. At a recent meeting Hafer, who has mounted several unsuccessful bids for higher office, indicated that it was "inevitable" that she will reregister as a Democrat -- possibly before the end of 2003. If she does, sources say, it is a pretty good bet that she is getting ready to take on U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, who is her polar opposite on the abortion issue, when he runs for re-election in 2006.