RealClearPolitics - HorseRaceBlog - Shifting Sands of PA Politics Endangered Specter

RealClearPolitics - HorseRaceBlog - Shifting Sands of PA Politics Endangered Specter

"...the political dynamic in the Keystone State has shifted, not so much against the GOP (at least on the presidential level), but against Arlen Specter, who has - during his twenty eight years in the Senate - failed to develop a durable political connection to Western Pennsylvania....

"The interpretation from the wise political sages in Washington, D.C. is inevitably going to be about how the hardened, conservative rump Republican Party is so intolerant of a moderate like Arlen Specter that he had no choice but to bolt. However, this is quite an oversimplification. There is a big geographical component to this story: the west [of Pennsylvania] has become more important in party politics, and Specter has long been weak in the west."