Pat Toomey

Mitt Romney made a bold prediction Friday during his first public campaign stop in months in a state where polls show him lagging and that GOP insiders say he has all but given up. "We're going to take Pennsylvania," he promised an animated crowd at Valley Forge Military Academy and College in Wayne. His assessment earlier in the day at a Union League fund-raiser in Philadelphia was sober, yet optimistic. "We really would shock people if early in the evening on Nov. 6, it looked like Pennsylvania was going to come our way," he told donors before adding that he was confident he could do it. Whether those remarks amounted to mere campaign bluster or signaled a late reassessment of the Republican presidential candidate's chances in the Keystone State remained anyone's guess.

Mitt Romney made a bold prediction Friday during his first public campaign stop in months in a state where polls show him lagging and that GOP insiders say he has all but given up. "We're going to take Pennsylvania," he promised an animated crowd at Valley Forge Military Academy and College in Wayne. His assessment earlier in the day at a Union League fund-raiser in Philadelphia was sober, yet optimistic. "We really would shock people if early in the evening on Nov. 6, it looked like Pennsylvania was going to come our way," he told donors before adding that he was confident he could do it. Whether those remarks amounted to mere campaign bluster or signaled a late reassessment of the Republican presidential candidate's chances in the Keystone State remained anyone's guess.

Pat Toomey resigned yesterday as president of the anti-tax Club for Growth, clearing the decks for his expected primary challenge to Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.). The advocacy group said in a statement that Toomey was leaving to "pursue other opportunities. " Former Rep. Chris Chocola (R., Ind.) will be the group's new president. A former congressman from the Lehigh Valley, Toomey has been acting like a Senate candidate for weeks, traveling the state and criticizing Specter's recent votes in favor of federal economic-stimulus and bailout spending.

HEAVEN HELP the United States of America if Pat Toomey ever does represent the "mainstream of the Republican party," as he claims to do now. It could happen if hard-right Republicans manage to make an example of Sen. Arlen Specter. Dislodging a four-term senator because he has not always toed the ultra-conservative line would mean even fewer moderates in the party than the tiny remnant that remains. That would be a disaster for everyone, including Republicans. Toomey, a congressman from Allentown, is more of a loony conservative than even Sen. Rick Santorum.

THERE'S little about Pat Toomey and his politics that excites us. A conservative idealogue, Toomey's pro-gun, anti-choice, the government-is-the-devil values is in sharp contrast to ours. Yet we can't help but be excited that he's in the race to unseat U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter in the May primary. This is no knock on Specter. While we've disagreed with him often, Specter has served Pennsylvania ably for four terms. What we found troubling is the number of heavy-weight Republicans who instantly jumped on Toomey, a little- known Republican congressmen from the Lehigh Valley.

Toomey's true GOP calling: Dislodging Specter Republicans across Pennsylvania need to start paying attention to our U.S. Senate primary race. Our choice is between U.S. Rep. Pat Toomey, a consistent conservative leader, and incumbent Arlen Specter, a liberal masquerading as a moderate. This is a historic point for the Republican Party. Other than a few years in the 1950s, this is the only time in the last 70 years that we have had a Republican House of Representatives, a Republican president, and a Republican majority in the U.S. Senate.

WASHINGTON - Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey was an unlikely figure to change the course of the nation's debate over gun laws. But there he was Wednesday, a Republican best known for his fiscal views, standing with a Democrat before a phalanx of cameras to present a bipartisan plan for expanding federal background checks to cover firearms purchases at gun shows and online. "Candidly, I don't consider criminal background checks to be gun control. I think it's common sense," said Toomey, a gun owner who previously received an "A" rating from the National Rifle Association.

WASHINGTON - Here is how Philadelphia-area members of Congress voted on major issues last week: House Air travel, sequestration. Voting 361-41, the House on Friday passed a bill (HR 1765) to end furloughs of air traffic controllers made necessary by the blind, across-the-board cuts known as sequestration that are now in force. The bill reallocates $253 million in the Federal Aviation Administration budget in order to return controllers to full work schedules and end flight delays clogging U.S. air travel.

WASHINGTON - To officials in the northeastern United States, the $60.4 billion bill to help homeowners and businesses hammered by Hurricane Sandy is an essential piece of emergency federal aid. Republicans in Washington have a different impression. Several in the Senate are casting the plan this week as a vehicle for excessive spending that runs counter to the ongoing talks on how to reduce the federal deficit. "The proposal coming out of the Democrats is ridiculous," Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.)

Wealth-related references to the 1 percent and the 47 percent and talk of personal money being stashed in the Cayman Islands or other places offshore have driven the political discourse of late as Americans prepare to elect a president and Congress in four weeks. The always-thorough Center for Responsive Politics database offers self-disclosed investments and the portfolios of congressional officeholders, so we thought we'd look at three of the men representing Pennsylvania, as another Election Day nears.