With a likely attempt for conservative Club For Growth President Pat Toomey to launch a run for Senate in 2010, Arlen Specter is looking more and more vulnerable in his re-election bid for Senate. Despite reports that Democratic Governor Ed Rendell has tried courting Arlen Specter to switch to the Democratic Party, Arlen Specter seems determined to remain a Republican despite being a breaking vote in voting for a lot of President Obama’s ambitious economic recovery agenda.

However,  Senator Specter seems open to running as an Independent if needed, and has vowed to caucus with the Republicans if this would happen to be the case. But Specter would not be able to make that last minute Liebermanesque move of “woops I lost the primary and now need to run as an Independent” due to different Pennsylvania election laws requiring party affiliation to be declared before the primaries.

Pat Toomey is a real threat for two reasons. He barely lost the 2004 primary to Specter. The second reason is a shrinking amount of moderate Republicans in the Philadelphia suburbs with many of these moderates jumping ship to the Democratic party causing a rightward lean in the party that is much more favorable to Toomey. All of this being said, we will watch this race closely.