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Toomey/Specter: Republican Primary 2004

ebook
This e-book provides a chronology of the Toomey-Specter race, starting in December 2002 and ending a day before the primary. The story is told with selected AP news stories, campaign press releases, other documents and AP photos. The e-book is designed to be an overview of a political race that may play an important role in shaping the upcoming presidential race between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry. When Pat Toomey announced plans in February 2003 to try to wrest away the Republican Party’s nomination for one of Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate seats from Arlen Specter, the moderate and well-known incumbent, few pundits gave him a chance. Toomey, a conservative congressman from Allentown, was an unknown across the state and indeed six months into his campaign a 21-county bus tour still attracted only handfuls of supporters. Specter, meanwhile, was enjoying the support of President Bush, who visited Pennsylvania the week before the April 27, 2004 primary, and Pennsylvania’s junior senator, Rick Santorum, who was just as conservative as Toomey. But Toomey’s marathon approach began paying off and as the widely-watched race moved into the final months, Toomey’s efforts to persuade Republican voters that Specter was a RINO, "Republican in Name Only," seemed to be working. He pulled to within a few percentage points in polls a few days before the vote. The intensity of the campaign and its central theme of "conservative challenger battling moderate incumbent" attracted a great deal of attention from political analysts in Washington and elsewhere. The New Yorker magazine even published a long story about the campaign.

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English

This e-book provides a chronology of the Toomey-Specter race, starting in December 2002 and ending a day before the primary. The story is told with selected AP news stories, campaign press releases, other documents and AP photos. The e-book is designed to be an overview of a political race that may play an important role in shaping the upcoming presidential race between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry. When Pat Toomey announced plans in February 2003 to try to wrest away the Republican Party’s nomination for one of Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate seats from Arlen Specter, the moderate and well-known incumbent, few pundits gave him a chance. Toomey, a conservative congressman from Allentown, was an unknown across the state and indeed six months into his campaign a 21-county bus tour still attracted only handfuls of supporters. Specter, meanwhile, was enjoying the support of President Bush, who visited Pennsylvania the week before the April 27, 2004 primary, and Pennsylvania’s junior senator, Rick Santorum, who was just as conservative as Toomey. But Toomey’s marathon approach began paying off and as the widely-watched race moved into the final months, Toomey’s efforts to persuade Republican voters that Specter was a RINO, "Republican in Name Only," seemed to be working. He pulled to within a few percentage points in polls a few days before the vote. The intensity of the campaign and its central theme of "conservative challenger battling moderate incumbent" attracted a great deal of attention from political analysts in Washington and elsewhere. The New Yorker magazine even published a long story about the campaign.

Expand title description text