Tea Party U.S. Senator Pat Toomey (R. PA) must’ve been seeing the most recent polls to write this op-ed in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
Every trade agreement must be studied on its own merits. Some are good, some are bad. I have carefully analyzed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed trade agreement between America and numerous Asian and Pacific countries.
TPP is supposed to give our country the chance to write the rules for global trade, instead of letting China do it. That is a laudable goal, and some of its provisions would open new markets for some of our state’s farmers and other industries.
However, having the right goal is not good enough. It also has to be a good deal, and good deals require good negotiations. In the TPP, the Obama administration has not gotten a good enough deal for Pennsylvania workers.
The TPP falls short in several areas. Take just two examples, both of which I have stressed to the Obama administration.
About 46,000 Pennsylvanians have jobs in the life science and pharmaceutical sector, making it one of our state’s largest industries. TPP will make it too easy for other countries to steal innovations that we create in Pennsylvania and take the jobs tied to those innovations.
Pennsylvania’s largest agricultural product is dairy, with about 7,000 dairy farms in the commonwealth. This sector depends heavily on exports, which means it’s critically important that trade agreements open foreign markets to our goods. Unfortunately, TPP has failed to do this meaningfully, particularly with respect to the protectionist Canadian market.
I have brought these and other problems to the attention of the Obama trade negotiators, but regrettably, they have failed to address them. As it now stands, TPP is not a good deal for Pennsylvania. I cannot support it.
Of course Katie McGinty (D. PA) called out Toomey’s BS:
Toomey's remarks arrive as public polls show him falling behind Democratic challenger Katie McGinty in one of the country's most crucial Senate races. They also come after months of rage against international trade fueled support for Trump and Bernie Sanders, and forced Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to reverse course on the pending deal. McGinty has opposed the TPP and blasted Toomey over his stand on it.
"Pat Toomey has spent his entire career pushing bad trade deals and policies that ship Americans jobs overseas, so nobody is buying this ridiculous flip flop," McGinty said in a statement.
The TPP, signed by 12 nations earlier this year but awaiting ratification by Congress and officials in other countries, seeks to open up trade and covers issues such as tariffs, intellectual property and workers' rights. It involves nations that account for roughly 40 percent of the global economy, including Japan, Mexico and Australia.
Toomey last year sang the praises of the potential deal, saying it would expand markets for Pennsylvania goods, create jobs and give the U.S. more influence over the economy in a region where China is flexing its muscles. In May 2015 he voted in favor of so-called "fast-track authority" for President Obama, a measure seen as crucial to helping the administration seal the pact.
Sounds like someone is trying to do the Donald Trump dance:
The two men's fates are intertwined: Trump sees Pennsylvania as a must-win state, and the outcome of Toomey's race could determine whether Republicans maintain control of the Senate.
But they are charting divergent courses here. Trump has been stumping in hardcore Republican rural areas and in declining manufacturing towns to galvanize aggrieved, blue-collar white voters. He has also suggested that the only way he can lose the state is if Democrats cheat.
Toomey, meanwhile, is courting more moderate voters who regularly swing state elections in the Lehigh Valley and in the cities and suburbs of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Polls show they are inclined to back Democrat Hillary Clinton for president, but Toomey needs some of them to cross over and vote for him, too.
For Toomey, this is a new strategy born of necessity. Once celebrated by his party's grass-roots activists as a conservative purist, Toomey has labored throughout his first term to soften his image, most prominently by co-authoring gun-control legislation backed by Democrats.
"Pat Toomey had positioned himself extremely well to win reelection," said Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pennsylvania. "He has done everything right that is within his control. The challenge for Pat Toomey is things outside his control - that would be the top of the ticket."
Toomey's careful posturing may amount to nothing in the season of Trump. The presidential nominee's tanking poll numbers in Pennsylvania could torpedo Toomey's reelection chances.
Clinton - who campaigned in Philadelphia on Tuesday - leads Trump 49 percent to 38 percent in the state, while Toomey trails Democrat Katie McGinty by one percentage point, within the margin of error, according to an Aug. 4 Franklin & Marshall College poll. In the Philadelphia suburbs, Clinton's lead is a whopping 40 percentage points.
Despite Pennsylvania's history of ticket-splitting, analysts here say it will be exceedingly difficult for Toomey to win if Clinton beats Trump by double digits.
"Can he get enough ticket-splitters to vote?" asked G. Terry Madonna, director of the Franklin & Marshall poll. "If he doesn't win the 'burbs and he doesn't cut the vote down in the cities, I don't know where he gets the votes."
Of course groups like Planned Parenthood, which has made Toomey a top target, aren’t going to let him dupe voters by reminding them he’s an extremist:
Lets keep up the moment. Click here to donate and get involved with McGinty’s campaign.