Marathon Pundit: Report from the bloggers' conference call with Pat Toomey

Former Congressman Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania is running for the US Senate seat currently held by Arlen Specter. Toomey came very close to toppling Specter in the 2004 Republican Primary.

Specter has been a senator for 28 years The onetime Democrat, who switched to the GOP in 1966, and then back to the Dems a few months ago, has been (surprise!) all over the place on numerous issues, such as the so-called Employee Free Choice Act. He long ago mastered the art of Senate pomposity, which has not served him well during the recent town hall meetings he has held in the Keystone State.

Toomey, who until recently was president of the Club for Growth, took time out of his busy schedule to participate in a bloggers' conference call yesterday morning.

He won't be running his 2004 campaign in 2010, Toomey takes pride in his campaign web site, which he says "makes it very easy to access our use of YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook."

About those videos, Toomey remarked, "Arlen Specter gives us a lot of ammunition, I have to say. This is a man who has made it a longstanding practice of being on both sides of every issue." Offering proof, he continued, "And we've got some pretty amazing little videos we've put together that show him adamantly insisting one thing, and in a matter of days or weeks, taking the exact opposite side."

Toomey is offering Pennsylvanians "a little balance in Washington." He told us, "Having one party in complete control of the elected government in Washington has been demonstrated to be an unwise thing. (The Democrats) are advancing extreme measures with respect to spending and bailouts, a health care take over, and denying workers a secret ballot."

Specter faces opposition the Democratic primary, Rep. Joe Sestak. Contrasting his views with Sestak's, Toomey declared, "I understand about how to create jobs, how to get an economy moving." Regarding Sestak's voting record, Toomey said, "It is in lockstep with the most liberal element of the Democratic Party--on the far left--and that's just not consistent with where most Pennsylvanians are."

I asked a question about the national energy tax, better known as cap and trade, which got a quick response from Toomey. "I think that anything vaguely resembling vaguely resembling the bills that have been introduced in Congress would be an unmitigated disaster for Pennsylvanians."

As well as for the rest of America, I'd like to empatically add.

Then he told me something I didn't know: "One of the biggest economic opportunities in Pennsylvania in ages is the tremendous discovery of natural gas in the the Marcellus Shale. This is going to be huge economic boom for rural Pennsylania, which needs the kind of economic opportunity." Toomey added that cap and trade, which Sestak and Specter support, would have a "devastatingly chilling effect" on developing this natural resource.

I will be paying very close attention to this race.

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