We’re going to have a cover-it-live chat with Tim Burns at 11:30 here at RedState. Tim is running for Jack Murtha’s old seat in Pennsylvania. He is the Republican choice for the special election and is running in the GOP primary for the regular election.

Tim will take your questions and weigh in on his race.

See you at 11:30.

Credit where it is due: the Senate GOP has come up with a great strategy to combat talk of compromise on reconciliation. The Senate GOP will block any effort to strip abortion funding in reconciliation.

This may get a few pro-life groups upset and I want to be very clear here — you will be able to tell the real pro-life groups from the posers by their stand on this strategy. The real pro-life groups will support this and the posers will oppose it.

Here’s why.

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When Joe Scarborough and I talk each week on the radio, we frequently mention that former Congressman Pat Toomey is the model candidate for the Republican Party.

Though Pat Toomey is pro-life, his campaign focuses on jobs, business, regulation, and the free market. Back at the RedState Gathering in August (the next one will be announced very shortly), Pat Toomey gave me a copy of his book, The Road to Prosperity.

I read it then and, frankly, got sidetracked. But in thinking about a way forward for the GOP, I think Pat Toomey really presents a credible platform in his book. It is actually a very readable book.

I want to restart our Book Notes series. I was going to suggest we restart with Bastiat’s “The Law,” but let’s do that one next. Pat Toomey’s book is prescient and relevant to what’s going on right now.

I don’t want us to revive Book Notes and get into a habit of reading campaign books. God knows everyone running for office writes one. But this is actually a good book and a quick read.

So here is your Book Notes assignment: get a copy of the book. For Monday read the first two chapters. We’ll meet back here and discuss.

If you don’t want to participate, at least consider sending a donation to Pat Toomey.

As always, if you just want to follow the discussion, you can follow the Book Notes tag at RedState.

The next major fight in the battle against the Obama agenda is the May 18th special election for the seat held for decades by John Murtha. Murtha has been challenged in the previous two elections by Republicans (Diana Irey in 2006 and Bill Russell 2008) who ran campaigns that primarily consisted of attacks against John Murtha’s anti-war comments and the repeated allegations of corruption against him. In 2008, John McCain won this district by 6 percentage points; Russell’s anti-Murtha campaign stuttered badly and he ultimately lost by 18 points.

Russell is yet again running in the special election, and he faces one GOP challenger, businessman Tim Burns. RedState has decided to endorse Mr. Burns, for a variety of reasons. The first is that Russell so drastically underperformed in the 2008 election. The second is that Bill Russell appears to have had no campaign plan whatsoever other than to run against Murtha. As an example of this, prior to Murtha’s death, the Russell campaign site consisted mostly of attacks on Murtha; then, after Murtha died, the entire website was ripped down and replaced with literally nothing but a donate button, and remained that way through at least Sunday night. (A more complete campaign site has since been erected here.) The third is that several of us met Tim Burns in person over the weekend, who made himself available for as long as anyone wanted to talk and displayed a commanding grasp of the issues and a positive vision for the future of the district.

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In a letter to Democratic Congressman Joe Sestak, U.S. Senate candidate Pat Toomey agreed to participate in round two of what is shaping up to be a right-left tag team against the Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-Democrat Arlen Specter, who trails former Congressman and Club for Growth President Pat Toomey, according to a recent Rasmussen Poll. Both Toomey and Sestak hope to replace Specter in the Senate in November.

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MOST CANDIDATES for local office in Montgomery County covet the endorsement of the county teachers union more than any other, and all of them know the drill: Appear at union events, fill out the union questionnaire, submit to the union interview. The union, representing 11,000 teachers, helpfully provides a road map to candidates seeking its blessing, including 11 criteria spelled out in painstaking detail online. Just one thing is missing from this handy guide: Candidates who receive the union’s stamp of approval are also then expected to pay.

As far as we know, this arrangement is unique; in elections elsewhere, unions and other special interests contribute to candidates, not vice versa. But such is the overweening power of the teachers union in Montgomery that the usual rules are turned upside down. And it’s no coincidence that the union’s toxic influence in local elections is matched by its success in squeezing unaffordable concessions from the county in contract negotiations — at taxpayers’ expense.

In the latest elections for the Montgomery County Council, in 2006, most candidates on the union-approved (and trademarked) “Apple Ballot” coughed up the maximum contribution allowed by state law, $6,000, to a PAC run by the Montgomery County Education Association, as the teachers union is known. Union-backed candidates for the Board of Education also paid handsomely. Supposedly, these funds covered the cost of the union’s mailings to constituents and other activities on behalf of its anointed candidates — although there is no real accounting on a campaign-by-campaign basis. In theory, these contributions are voluntary. In fact, several sources told us that the MCEA’s chief political strategist, Jon Gerson, made it clear that he expected candidates, once endorsed, to pay what they “owed” for the union’s campaign on their behalf. One candidate, asked to explain the decision to pay, answered concisely: “Fear.”  [Emphasis added.]

But what happens if one of the union-backed BoE members bucks the union?

A case in point is Nancy Floreen, the current County Council president, who suggested, during a budget crunch in 2003, that the union make some concessions on compensation. That probably cost her the MCEA endorsement in the 2006 primaries, in which she barely managed to retain her council seat. This year, facing reelection and even more dire budgetary circumstances, Ms. Floreen has been quiet as a mouse on the subject of union concessions, even though negotiations on a new contract for teachers are underway.

[snip]

Some MCEA-backed candidates, and the union, portray this as a win-win arrangement whereby teachers and the candidates who support them help one another out.

[snip]

Most elected officials, too fearful of the union to object, rubber-stamp the teachers’ contract and the county budget, thereby repaying the union for its backing. Other big public employees unions in the county, jealous at the terms extracted by the MCEA, use the teachers’ contract as a benchmark for their own negotiations, creating a self-perpetuating spiral of unaffordable concessions by the county. Little wonder that the county is facing staggering deficits — $600 million on a budget of $4.3 billion in the fiscal year starting this summer. [Emphasis added.]

With politicians buying union support, it certainly is a “win-win” arrangement for the politicians and the union, but an arrangement where taxpayers are big losers.
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“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

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Get yourself a glass of something nice before you start in on the article: it’ll heighten the enjoyment.

Even as he accepted the resounding backing of the Pennsylvania Democratic state committee here Saturday, party-switching Sen. Arlen Specter’s vulnerability was on vivid display as he botched the name of a key Democratic officeholder in his acceptance speech.

“I’ll be fighting hard for the entire Democratic ticket. Senator Andy. . . Andy . . .” Specter said, before pausing briefly, squinting his eyes.

“From Chester County,” he continued, losing his train of thought after clinching an emphatic 229-72 U.S. Senate endorsement vote from party regulars just minutes earlier.

“Dinniman,” the crowd responded almost in unison, referring to the state senator who represents West Chester. One committeeman seated in the audience dropped his head and shook it.

This should be an entertaining primary: Joe Sestak has 5.1 million dollars to play with, and is inclined to spend it - both because he wants the nomination, and because by now there must be at least a little desire for Blue-on-Blue revenge on Sestak’s part. Personally, I don’t see why either candidate is so eager to win the position of Being The Guy Who Loses To Pat Toomey, but they are, which is… nice of them, I suppose.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Senator Arlen Specter and his brash temperament are back in the news.

The incorrigible Republican-turned-Democrat attended a Pennsylvania Progressive forum Saturday, opposite his primary opponent Representative Joe Sestak, where he stormed the stage prematurely during Sestak’s closing remarks.

Explaining why he is best suited both professional and politically for the post, Sestak was unexpectedly greeted by Specter, prompting a moderator to bluntly ask the senator to “get off the stage.”

The forum’s rules were rather strict, holding that each speaker would answer a series of questions while the other was sequestered, according to the blog Pennsylvania Progressive. While the event’s protocol was established at Specter’s request, for whatever reason, he “shredded his own rules,” the blogger wrote.

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Republican Senate hopeful Pat Toomey, three-term Pennsylvania Congressman, surged ahead of incumbent Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-Democrat Senator Arlen Specter in the latest Daily News/Franklin & Marshall Poll.

According to the article:

… Toomey jumped out to a 14-point lead when the poll targeted “likely voters,” people who said they are certain to vote and are paying close attention to the race.

Among that group, Toomey led Specter 45-31 percent, with 20 percent undecided.

Pennsylvania voters remember that Arlen Specter only narrowly defeated Toomey in the Republican primay in 2004, by less than two percentage points or about 26,000 votes. As Pennsylvania voters react in the wake of a Scott Brown victory in Massachusetts, one can only expect Toomey’s poll numbers to increase over his Democratic opponent’s through the general election. Note: Specter himself is being challenged by Congressman Joe Sestak; however, the incumbent Senator holds a commanding lead over his challenger.

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