Day By Day

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Pennsylvania Politics -- Casey's Woman Problems

Just yesterday I declared Rick Santorum a goner based on the fact that he has not been able to close the poll gap on challenger Bob Casey. Today the New York Post has an article pointing up some emerging problems for Casey who so far has not been tested.

Santorum continues to trail Casey in the latest polls by about 12-14 points, but there are some interesting developments that might interrupt Casey’s progress toward the governorship. Last week Kate Michelman hinted that she might challenge Casey in the Democrat primaries in May. She has since withdrawn that threat but has not endorsed Casey and is unlikely to. Other activists have been courting alternative candidates to the frontrunner. The Bucks and Lancaster County Committees have also refused to endorse him.

Read it here.

The key to all this fussing is, of course, abortion. Casey is famously pro-life as was his father. That, I think, is a winning position to take, but the pro-choice folk disagree. They note that Santorum easily beat Ron Klink, another pro-life candidate six years ago. But what they fail to mention was that Klink’s campaign was sabotaged by pro-life activists. The implied threat is that they will do it again this year.

How will this shake out? Does Casey have real problems? Will abortion rights activists decide that flexing their muscle and bringing the Democratic Party to heel is more important than winning the election? We’ll see.

Stay tuned….

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