Politics PA

By Alex Roarty
PoliticsPA Staff Writer
roarty@politicspa.com

Republican Senate candidate Pat Toomey said Wednesday that the country’s financial-regulation system has “significant inadequacies” but declined, for now, to take a position on any of the reform plans proposed in congress or by the president.

“That whole process is very much evolving … I’ll be following it as it develops,” Toomey told PoliticsPA in an interview.

The former head of Club for Growth, a free-market advocacy group, said it would be a mistake to keep a financial system that made taxpayers bail out banks deemed too big to fail. He indicated that he would like to see the bankruptcy code adjusted to allow for a “rapid, smooth resolution.”

“We clearly lack a resolution mechanism for the failure of very large institutions,” Toomey said. “We need to fix that.”

Democrats see Toomey’s ties to Wall Street as a potential weakness in his candidacy, a point his opponent in the Republican primary, Peg Luksik, has also mentioned.

Other excerpts from PoliticsPA’s interview with the former congressman:

On Mass. Senator-elect Scott Brown’s victory:

“I think that the election is the most recent and in some ways the most dramatic example of the American people pushing back at a government out of control,” Toomey said.

Brown has taken criticism from some conservatives for his record on abortion-rights, and the newly elected Republican has said he won’t vote with his party on every issue. Asked if he thought Brown was a moderate Republican, Toomey said it wasn’t his business to know his potential colleague’s voting record.

“I don’t know. I haven’t studied his record, and I don’t intend to,” Toomey said.

On his perceived move to the middle:

He disagreed he has become more moderate since emerging as the putative GOP nominee, saying he has always held mainstream conservative values. Toomey pointed out he won election and then re-election twice in the left-leaning Lehigh Valley district by espousing principles of limited government and strong national defense.

“That hasn’t changed, that’s not going to change,” he said. “I’m going to continue to focus on issues that I think are going to restore economic growth.”

On the battle between Arlen Specter and Joe Sestak:

Toomey said Sestak has a “very viable shot” at defeating Specter, the incumbent, in the Democratic primary, but he declined to say which one would be a tougher opponent.

“I just don’t think you can tell,” he said. “Honestly, both of these candidates have their political strengths, and both have very significant vulnerabilities.”

“I’m very confident that I’ll win against either one.”

Toomey will likely head into the general election as the favorite, an advantage most thought impossible a year ago. Although some Republican leaders publicly expressed doubts that Toomey could win in left-leaning Pennsylvania, the former congressman said he thought it was a “only a narrow segment in the media” who ever held that view.

“I have seen a change in some of the pundits and the press see the race,” he said.

Related Posts

1. Toomey defends Wall Street past; Dems say he ‘just doesn’t get it’
2. PoliticsPA: Specter camp reacts to Brown’s victory
3. PoliticsPA: For Kanjorski, it’s all about Wall Street reform
4. PoliticsPA: State Dems link Toomey to Wall St. in new Web ad
5. As Pat Toomey Visits Harrisburg Today, Will He Explain His Record of Fighting for Wall Street over Pennsylvania Families?

Tags: Pat Toomey, Pat Toomey for Congress, Pat Toomey Wall Street

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 3:50 am and is filed under PA Reports, PoliticsPA Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.