A new twist for Pennsylvania's Senate race?

Why leaders chose Casey
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., the head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, recruited Casey to run against Santorum.

“Gov. Rendell suggested to us that Bob Casey would be the strongest candidate,” Schumer said last year. “This is not a positioning on choice (abortion rights) one way or the other. It’s about winning.”

Michelman said she warned Schumer about Casey’s anti-Roe views. “When I and others raised concerns (to Democratic Party leaders), we were told ‘The most important thing is the Supreme Court and Bob Casey will stand with Democrats against any nominee who threatens women’s right to choose,’” Michelman said. “Sen. Schumer told me that explicitly. I wanted to believe Sen. Schumer; he’s a friend.”

But she told Schumer last year that Casey might not turn out to be an ally of pro-Roe Democrats. “I told him then, ‘Don’t count on it,’” she recalled. The Alito endorsement supplied her proof.

“We don’t need any more Ben Nelsons,” she said, referring to the Nebraskan who is the Senate’s most conservative Democrat on social issues.

Nelson opposes Roe v. Wade and voted for Alito, Chief Justice John Roberts, and almost all of Bush’s other conservative judicial nominees.

Changed political terrain
Sandals said the political terrain has changed since Democratic Party leaders picked Casey. “Ten or eleven months ago, they were still reeling from the 2004 defeat,” Sandals said. “They believed Republicans were invincible. But ever since (hurricane) Katrina, Republicans have been vulnerable.”

Sandals said Democrats are disaffected with Casey because “a lot of people are concerned that Casey is not all that different from Santorum, on choice (abortion), gun control, and stem cell research. Progressive voters would rather not vote at all than vote for Casey due to his anti-choice position.”

Casey supports the current Bush administration policy which limits federal funding of embryonic stem cell research to those stem cell lines which existed as of August 2001 and bars federal funding for research using newly-derived embryonic stem cells.

On gun control, Casey's campaign spokesman Larry Smar said, "As a general rule he'll focus on enforcing existing laws."

In a statement on his campaign web site, Pennacchio said Michelman’s potential entry into the race “highlights the need for Democrats to unite behind a pro-choice candidate who can defeat Rick Santorum.”

Dismissing Casey as “an ultra-right Democrat” Pennacchio calls his selection by party leaders “the politics of surrender” to conservatives.

But Casey’s robust fund raising indicates he has broad support from donors. Despite his conservatism on social issues, Sen. Hillary Clinton’s political action committee gave the Casey campaign the maximum contribution, $10,000.

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