Bet You Didn't Expect This

Bob Casey local endorsements:

The Post-Gazette:

Bob Casey has a record of working with both parties in his first term as senator. He's a centrist Democrat with conservative views on abortion, guns and stem cell research.

Tom Smith, the millionaire Republican who wants to replace him, would ramp up political polarization on Capitol Hill with his Tea Party agenda.

It would be a grave mistake to turn up the heat in Washington when what the country needs is light. For that reason, the Post-Gazette endorses Bob Casey for a second term.

The Tribune-Review:

We don’t agree with some of the policies advocated by the first-term Democrat. But we have come to appreciate him on a personal level and to admire the congenial manner in which he interacts with not only his constituents but also Pat Toomey, his junior Republican colleague in the Senate. It’s that kind of personal comity that serves Pennsylvania and the nation best.

Mr. Casey is being challenged by Republican Tom Smith. He was a Democrat committeeman as recently as 2010. Despite our policy differences with Casey, we prefer the Democrat we know to the Republican of convenience.

Re-elect Bob Casey Jr.

Both Pittsburgh papers (one a center/left leaner and the other a right wing rag) endorse Bob Casey for re-election.

Tea Party Tom can't be happy about that.

GOP Senate Candidate Tom Smith: Girls Love Shoes!

When we last left GOP Senate Candidate Tom Smith who's running against Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA), he was opining that there is no real difference between a pregnancy that occurs outside of marriage and one that is a result of rape. Now this expert on women offers some further insight: Girls love shoes!

Via Think Progress:  

SMITH: What are we talking about here, two girls together talking?  

WOMAN: We’re talking about the power of petite women.  

SMITH: My guess would’ve been you were talking about shoes.

Additionally, he recently offered this nugget of wisdom:

"Perhaps where we're making our mistake is that we are asking President Obama and Senator Bob Casey to do something they have no knowledge of. They've never been in business, they've never ran [sic] businesses, they don't have that knowledge," Smith said. "It would be like, your wife wrecks your car. You're gonna take it to the beauty salon to get fixed? No."

Meet Tom Smith: GOP Senate Candidate & Father of the Year!

Via Think Progress:

MARK SCOLFORO, ASSOCIATED PRESS: How would you tell a daughter or a granddaughter who, God forbid, would be the victim of a rape, to keep the child against her own will? Do you have a way to explain that?

SMITH: I lived something similar to that with my own family. She chose life, and I commend her for that. She knew my views. But, fortunately for me, I didn’t have to.. she chose they way I thought. No don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t rape.

SCOLFORO: Similar how?

SMITH: Uh, having a baby out of wedlock.

SCOLFORO: That’s similar to rape?

SMITH: No, no, no, but… put yourself in a father’s situation, yes. It is similar. But, back to the original, I’m pro-life, period.

 

Where to start?

Having your daughter have a child "out of wedlock" is only similar to having your daughter have a child from being raped if you are a father who believes that your daughter is a mere extension of yourself. A father who would compare the two is a father whose only concern is the fact that his unwed daughter is visibly not a virgin and that that somehow reflects poorly on him. It springs from the same attitude as those who believe in honor killings. It springs from the same Christian Bible as the one that commands that a rapist must marry his victim...and pay the father fifty pieces of silver. It springs from a total lack of concern and any empathy for a woman's own experience, feelings and well being. It spews from an inability to see a woman as a person in her own right.

Smith is not the only PA pol to go into detail about a daughter's own private business to make a point on abortion. PA State Rep. Harry A. Readshaw (D, PA-36) was only too happy to let a constituent know that abortion wasn't fair because his own daughter couldn't give him a grandbaby. If these men had a uterus, they could stop using their daughters in their arguments and speak from their own experience. But they have no experience of their own -- just the power to use their own prejudices and religion to make laws that all women will have to follow.

It makes me sick.

By the way, this being Pennsylvania, his Democratic opponent, Sen. Bob Casey, is also anti abortion (he was one of only three Democratic US Senators to vote against killing the Blunt Amendment). But Bobby, at least believes that abortion should be allowed if a woman is raped or dying. That's a progressive Catholic in these parts.

All hail the American Taliban!

Ah, Yes...The Hitler Comparison (UPDATED)

There's an election coming up, did you know that?  Senator Casey (who beat Rick Santorum by 18 points 6 years ago) is being challenged by a guy named Tom Smith.

He's also a tea party guy.  Did you know that?

Well, Tom the tea party guy spoke at a recent tea party rally and said the usual things:

Smith said regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation, coupled with other state and federal regulations, made it impossible for him to carry his company in the future and he sold them, but that having lived the American Dream influenced him to run for office.

“I see that dream being diminished by this government and I will not stand by and just go into retirement without trying to make a difference and that’s why I am here today.”

But that's not all he said.

Huffingtonpost reports:

Tom Smith during remarks at the Blair County Tea Party FreedomFest 2012 in Hollidaysburg said the speaker before him had spoken "eloquently." The preceding speaker, Phil Waite, had just compared Obama's policies with those employed by Hitler in the 1920s and 1930s, and warned that Obama could try to do the same thing to the United States.

Ahh...Reductio ad Hitlerum from the Tea Party.  And praised as "eloquent" by the GOP/Tea Party's Senatorial Candidate, Tom Smith.

Why is this not a surprise?
=====
There's an update from Huffingtonpost:

The Republican Party's U.S. Senate nominee in Pennsylvania has retracted his praise for a Tea Party member who compared President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler, saying he didn't pay attention to the speaker's remarks before praising him.

Tom Smith, a retired coal mine owner who is challenging Sen. Bob Casey (D), told HuffPost in a statement that he had not been listening closely to the speech in which Tea Party member Phil Waite compared Obama's policies to those of Hitler and the Nazi Party and warned that Obama might follow in Hitler's fascist footsteps. Smith had started his own remarks at the Blair County Tea Party FreedomFest 2012 by saying that Waite had spoken "eloquently."

"On Sunday July 1st, I was a speaker at the Blair County ‘Freedom Festival.’ In the opening of my remarks, as a courtesy, I acknowledged the previous speaker," Smith said in his statement. "I regret that I did not pay as close attention to the individual’s remarks as I should have. Having since had these remarks brought to my attention, I regret and withdraw my acknowledgement. The rhetoric was both divisive and beyond the bounds of acceptable discourse."

Good for him.  But I'd think that if he wants to join the Senate, he'd do his homework before opening his mouth.