Former Congressman Pat Toomey, the man who drove Arlen Specter into the Democratic Party, says he can beat former Gov. Tom Ridge in a Republican primary for Specter's U.S. Senate seat.

From a story by Mike Wereschagin in The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

"I think he is a good and honorable and able man," Toomey, a former three-term congressman from Allentown, said in the Duquesne Club, Downtown. "I will say that I am very confident that I am very well positioned to win this primary and go on to win this general election. I am convinced that I will be the next senator from Pennsylvania."

Toomey, most recently president of The Club for Growth, is the favorite of Pennsylvania conservatives, but GOP party bosses are not sure he can appeal to moderates.

The party establishment is trying to woo Ridge into moving back to Pennsylvania to make a run for the Republican Party nomination in 2010.

Toomey believes the party leadership is the reason for the GOP's decline in Pennsylvania.

From the Tribune-Review:

Toomey attributed Republican losses to politicians' abandonment of party principle.

"After all, it was Republicans who passed bloated appropriation bills, staggering numbers of earmarks and the Republicans who ended up in jail for corruption," Toomey said. "So I understand why voters were disappointed with Republicans. When they see Republican candidates who actually believe in the principles that brought them to the Republican Party in the first place, I think they come back."

Read the full story at the newspaper's Web site.