Arlen Specter is a near-perfect representation of every single thing that is wrong with American government today. He was never what he claimed to be; when he was finally exposed to enough voters (more specifically, exposed for what he actually is) that he would have been defeated, he jumped ship to the opposition just to have another shot at the seat--and what's worse, he had the gall to actually admit that this was his motivation (probably the only time he's told the truth in his miserable life); then, knowing that he'd get his clock cleaned in a debate with a REAL Democrat (one who could reasonably defend his Leftist views with some credibility) he ducks the challenge because it "is a good political decision".

Do we hire these people for good POLITICAL decisions, or to vote on our behalf--to represent US? How can we know that he best represents us when he won't even put himself out there against others who are asking for the same responsibility? In taking the coward's way out, Specter proves beyond doubt that he's only in it for himself--forget the idea of debate...the voters be damned.

Arlen Specter has no honor, and this is the fundamental problem with American politics, and indeed with American governance, today. It makes one wonder if honor is dead in this country entirely.

It sickens me, and makes me ashamed.

When the party begins to once again represent THE PEOPLE OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA--and this begins by LISTENING to the people of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania--then perhaps the vitriol will be directed at targets other than the state GOP establishment. Until that time, however, every single negative comment is well deserved and is directed PRECISELY where it should be.

Only a fool believes the Democrats alone are responsible for the messes in this state and nation...and at this stage in our history, only a fool blindly toes the line dictated by the party people who've done the most to get us into this mess in the first place.

And that opinion, my friends, comes from a lifelong REPUBLICAN who has voted in every single election he was eligible for for more than 25 years. I'm not a big "third party" kinda guy, but I'll be damned if I'm going to keep being railroaded by those in power who have no interest whatsoever in doing what's right, or doing the bidding of the people they are supposed to represent.

I have little doubt that Tom Corbett will win the Governorship, and that's actually somewhat disappointing because it won't teach these idiots anything...and clearly, they aren't going to learn it on their own. I can say with absolute certainty, though, that if a Republican does NOT win the seat, it will be solely the fault of the state GOP.

Regardless the outcome, these people should feel a great deal of guilt right now. At this point in time they appear to be no better than the Progressives--which makes one wonder if they aren't all just working from the same playbook.

Certainly they're running the same shameful plays. It's disgusting. It has to stop!

I've said before, and it bears repeating, that Tom Corbett may indeed be the best candidate. I don't know yet, because I haven't formed an opinion one way or the other...and the state GOP has NO BUSINESS FORMING AN OPINION FOR ME.

Here's how you stop this kind of election-rigging. First, you commit RIGHT THIS MINUTE to NEVER AGAIN send ONE THIN DIME to the State GOP. Never...not one dime. Starve the beast. When they come to you begging for your financial support, you write a polite message informing them that you are capable of thinking for yourself, thank you very much, and from this day forward you will exercise that ability without their assistance. You might close with "Signed, YOUR BOSS" or something suitable since they've obviously forgotten from whom they get their power.

Next, you make every attempt you are reasonably able to RETAKE THE PARTY OF YOUR CHOICE. It can be the GOP, or the Democrats...whoever, they're both in need of a serious scrub. Go to your county elections bureau and find out what you need to do in order to become a PRECINCT CAPTAIN or COMMITTEEMAN or whatever it is they call it in your particular area. Pay the registration fee (it's minimal), get your petition, find TEN SIGNERS in your precinct (should take all of half an hour) and GET ON THE BALLOT. You'll be elected, I assure you. Once you're elected, YOU'RE NOW ONE OF THE PEOPLE WHO MAKES THESE DECISIONS.

Next...and this is the most important part...ACT WITH HONOR. I'm a pretty smart fellow but I don't have all the answers to the problems we face. Nobody does. All the computers and education in the world can't come up with perfect answers to every situation, and so the only guidepost we can rely upon--and the one most absent from our political system today--is PRINCIPLE. Behave with integrity, believe in the guiding documents we cherish (the Constitution chief among them), and trust in your good character...and you will finish well in the end. You may not make the correct decision every time, but you will do far, far better than the BOZOS we have running the show now, who are so clearly interested only in their own wallet, their own power, their own narcissistic needs. Act with honor, guided by principle, secure in the strength of your character, and you will do right by yourself and all of us.

This is how we retake America. This is how we retake the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This starts NOW, TODAY. Be a part of it, or stop complaining. It's honestly just as simple as that.

You know, the biggest problem with a load of crap like that first paragraph is this...my parents paid into Social Security and Medicare all their lives, WHETHER THEY WANTED TO OR NOT, with the understanding that they would have the right to the benefits of those "investments" once they reached the retirement age. For that matter, I've made the same payments under the same supposed guarantees. What this poster is suggesting is that the United States of America built a ship, marched millions of hard-working American citizens into it WHETHER OR NOT THEY CARED TO TAKE THE CRUISE, and then launched that ship out on to the water. Now, because we are Patriots who recognize that these programs are harmful to the nation and all it's citizens, he wants us to demand that they jump from this ship despite that they paid for it stem to stern?

I DON'T THINK SO.

Good Americans who did as their government demanded, and who now depend on the benefits that their hard work earned them should not be torpedoed simply to correct horrible policy. I'm all for the systematic dismantling of Social Security, Medicare and every other social(ist) welfare program the governments of the United States and it's individual partner states have ever enacted--BUT WE DO IT STARTING FROM HERE, not by pulling the plug on those who spent their lives, for the most part against their will, paying for programs that were to pay them back at retirement.

Any suggestion to the contrary is garbage, and usually is used by a Leftist shill who wishes nothing more than to present a schism with which to destroy opposition from the Right. If you wish to be taken seriously as a Conservative, then make sense. If you wish to be taken seriously as a PATRIOT, make sense AND stop shilling for the machine...whichever machine you work for!

If there is to be any real and lasting change effected by the Tea Party movement, those involved in the movement have to set their minds to one simple truth; BOTH parties must be taken over/supplanted. Today's Democrat party does not represent the ideology of the majority of those who carry a (D) on their registration card--in fact it is so far removed from the principles that the average Democrat voter holds dear that it is actually DEMOCRATS who should be the most upset with the status of things right now even moreso than the Republicans/Conservatives. If we can educate these voters to the differences between what they THINK the party is doing/standing for, and what the party is ACTUALLY doing/standing for, we can save the nation. Otherwise it's a crap shoot at best.

Of course we're going after the Republican party first, but that's simply a matter of common sense--they have always purportedly been Conservative (though lately that's hardly been the case) and as the out-of-power party the opportunity to create change is greater with the (R)s than the (D)s...but for TRUE Tea Party believers, conquering both parties and returning sensible leadership to each has got to be the ultimate goal for which we strive.

The challenge for anyone involved with the Tea Party--and let me say here that I truly believe this movement is the last hope this country has, PERIOD--is making sure we are not co-opted in any way, at least until we've sufficiently wrested control of the parties from those who are currently selling us out and/or elected enough fiscal conservatives to office that we might survive a few more years without bloodshed (or a great depression x an order of magnitude). The difficulty with this challenge is that we're political neophytes, and the enemies of Liberty are absolute grandmasters at this game. We're thoroughly outmatched.

The saving grace is that we're committed, we're honorable and we're numerous. Only time will tell if we can avoid the pitfalls they're setting for us--the primary of which is the attempt to either infiltrate or co-opt the movement. This is why I'm so disgusted any time we (the Tea Party in general) start sounding like "GOP-lite". That is the surest way to our demise, and the death of this movement spells the end of America, in my studied estimation.

If she runs I will hit her with one question every day...will she do what her husband failed to do, which is apologize to the Haditha Marines? Jack Murtha was never in possession of sufficient character as to say he was wrong when he came down against those young men without all the facts. If Joyce Murtha is of insufficient character to offer her OWN apology, in the absence of her husbands, she is no better than Jack and will have no more respect from me than that cowardly son-of-a-beehive did. It's her moral imperative, if she chooses to take the national stage in an attempt to retain "his" seat, that she correct his wrongs. Failing that, she is absent honor and is likely to wind up just as corrupt as Jack was. I'll campaign against her with the same ferocity I would have her deceased husband.

Visit the WalMart in Uniontown on ANY day...but ESPECIALLY government check day. And while I don't often agree with Ryan's tone (or his stubborn insistence that things in this area are simply bound to remain the same forever), I must agree with him here...there is a DISTINCT and DISGUSTING absence of "morality", in the sense it's being used here, that permeates this area. It is not only correct to question the integrity of this area--it is IMPERATIVE.

These places, including Fayette County (a portion of which is Murtha's former district) are the way they are because they have been engineered to be so. When your government "strategy" for prosperity is to see how many subsidized houses you can build to suck money from the federal branch, you're going to attract leeches...and seeing as how the only way a leech can feed is if it's host survives, the logic is sound--build houses for the poor, and keep them dependent upon the government, and you'll have voters for life. This entire area is a wonderful example of precisely this kind of thinking, this kind of planning, and this kind of end result. So on its face, the answers to the questions you've posed are firstly, NO--the wholesale population of areas like ours are not "patriotic" in the sense that they believe in what we regard as basic American values of hard work, personal responsibility and true independence; and NO, the people who occupy this region as a whole are not likely to turn off the spigot of free stuff that people just like John Murtha have provided for them for decades. That would be against their perceived self-interests since they've come to depend on this exceedingly un-lively livelihood and would, without doubt, vote for whatever political whore is willing to promise them more of the free stuff at the expense of REAL working men and women.

That said, there are three unmistakable facts which must be recognized. First, this segment of society, by and large, will choose the easy way every time, be it free government handouts or NOT BOTHERING TO VOTE. This is especially true for off-year elections, and will be even MORE true for a special election. Remember also that there is no great impetus for the other two notoriously low-voting groups--young voters and the African American population, both of whom generally vote (D)--to show up at the polls 'cause Obama ain't running this time. In short, those who are energized will be the ones who determine the outcome this go-round...and the population of which you speak is most certainly not energized.

So who is? This is the second unmistakeable fact; THE PATRIOTS. It is true that there are fewer of us among this populace than any would like, but we're ITCHING to get out there and cast a ballot. We are working harder than we ever have to find good candidates and support them in ways the majority of us have never before considered. Together with the out-of-power party folks, who will also traditionally be more motivated, there is a strong opportunity for the GOP to gain this and other seats if they don't totally screw things up (which I'm unconvinced is not a serious danger).

Lastly, the third unmistakable portion of the equation is that the group that IS often dependable for the Democrats, namely labor, is so disillusioned and downtrodden right now that two realities are now emeging. First, they're not likely to bother, and second, that if they DO bother they could easily vote AGAINST the (D) either in protest or in disgust.

I might also add, as a minor fourth point, that there are those of us doing a DAILY job of changing public opinion on many previously-entrenched ideas in this area...converting many people to our point of view and GETTING THEM TO VOTE, every single day.

In summary, Murtha's district is hardly a hotbed of patriotism on it's face, but those of us who DON'T care for these social welfare programs are much more inclined to work for change, and vote for change...and those who wouldn't otherwise want to see the seemingly unlimited source of free money turned off just aren't near as likely to make the effort. The counterbalance to these two groups, labor, just isn't interested this year--or is so disgusted that they may actually come down on the opposite of their traditional side.

No matter what happens, it will be interesting to watch. Grab some popcorn.

The "nebulous" nature of the Tea Parties is, in many ways, a strength. There is little doubt that Tea Party MEMBERSHIP is extremely hard to pin down. On the leadership council of our (Fayette County) Tea Party organization, we have one athiest, one ordained minister, one homosexual, one Democrat (who holds elected office), one pro-choicer and one former FBI official. This is NOT your usual Sunday gathering, to say the least! And yet we've come together, put aside our MANY differences, and agreed to work toward the four essential goals we all believe we MUST realize for the future of our nation (and Commonwealth, and community). These are goals we share with other Tea Parties across the state and the land, and in that respect there is nothing at all "nebulous" about us. As a collected group, we are working toward an end to politics as we know it through a return to the American values of LIMITED GOVERNMENT (which includes an end to the "establishment" that has created the overreaching government we live under now), CONSTITUTIONAL RESPECT and DEFENSE (which again requires an end to the "establishment" that has so callously, brazenly and consistently ignored the law of the land in crafting the existing power structure--at the expense of the people they are supposed to be serving), FREE-MARKET SOLUTIONS TO OUR ISSUES (rather than, YET AGAIN, the "establishment" principles of "government is the answer to all problems") and first and foremost FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY (which includes eliminating the current way our governments do business--by definition the "established" method of governance which has failed us completely and now threatens to dismantle our states and nation entirely). You can see by these four shared principles that the primary enemy of the Tea Party--because it is the primary enemy of America at this point--is the "established powers". Notice I didn't say it was the Democrats, or the Republicans. Each party has had more than a hand in getting us to this place. Granted, the current Progressive movement has done far more in far shorter a period of time to dismantle our way of life, but that movement is not exclusive to either party, either.

It could be fairly stated that from person to person, the Tea Party is indeed somewhat "nebulous", but we're united behind a core set of principles which, to Mr. Corbett and anyone else with one whit of intellect and a nanosecond of attention span, should be crystal clear. Simply put, we're going to fundamentally alter the way in which we are governed. More specifically, we are going to expose, and then destroy, the methods by which we the people are manipulated by those in government--and by those who put them there.

Nothing "nebulous" about that, Mr. Corbett. Nothing at all.