Pat Toomey, the Club for Growth hero has been running to become the Senator from Pennsylvania for a while now and has had Arlen Specter in his cross hairs. James Dobson and the religious right squad have been trying to defeat Specter because they aim to control the Supreme Court and overturn Roe v Wade. Since the republican party has turned into teabaggers, Specter has no shot at winning the republican primary in 2010 so he left that party. Toomey is as an extreme right wing fanatic as they come. Check out his beliefs.
Matthews questions him on some of those beliefs, but Chris already knows them quite well. And why does he have to interrupt him so often? It's so annoying.
Matthews: Are you on the political right?
Toomey: I'm in the center right.
Matthews: Center, well let's ask you about a couple of issues. What do you think about outlawing abortion? Arlen Specter is pro choice, where are you on that one?
Toomey: I'm pro life.
Matthews: Would you like to outlaw abortion?
Toomey: Yea, I'm pro life. I think ahhh...
Matthews: Would you outlaw abortion, would you put people in jail for performing...?
Toomey: I think that Roe v Wade was wrongly defined, wrongly decided and I think states should be free to restrict abortion and I would support legislation in Pennsylvania that would ban abortion and I would suggest that we have penalties for doctors who perform them if we were able to pass that law.
Matthews: Would you put people in jail for perfoming abortions?
Toomey: At some point doctor's performing abortions, I think would be subject to that sort of penalty.
Pat Toomey is trying to make believe that he's a different kind of conservative--pro-birther by saying he endorses Sonia Sotomayor. A leopard still has spots, I think. Here's his op-ed from Philly.com:
If I were a U.S. senator, I would vote for her confirmation, because objective qualifications should matter more than ideology in the judicial confirmation process.
In determining whether a nominee is within the judicial mainstream, we should ask how he or she views the Constitution and whether he or she will administer justice impartially. Too many American judges are making up their own versions of the law rather than faithfully interpreting legal texts. Lawmaking must be reserved for the elected, politically accountable legislative and executive branches. In general, though, Sotomayor's record does not show judicial activism...read on.
That's very kind of him. But he also just loves the deregulation of the financial system so there's that. I'm sure some on the right will not like this column, but will forgive him anyway because he's their big hope in Pennsylvania. However, his views are such that he's unelectable.
