Senator Arlen Specter is in trouble at home in Pennsylvania. A conservative, former Congressman Pat Toomey, has said he wants to challenge him for the nomination of his party, the GOP. Normally, sitting senators are only challenged by ambitious individuals from the other party. Not so with Specter. He has received a lot of criticism due to his support for President Obama’s ridiculously expensive yet useless economic ’stimulus’ plan. Conservative bloggers and activists singled Specter out, saying they would force him to behave like a conservative rather than a ‘RINO’ (Republican In Name Only).

Sadly for these conservatives, however, National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn disagrees. He wrote a letter yesterday in which he announces his support for Specter arguing that incumbents have a better shot at winning elections than a challenger. Additionally, Cornyn writes, a real conservative has a hard time winning a state-wide election in Pennsylvania. Only a moderate Republican can beat a Democratic challenger, especially if the Democrat is fiscally quite conservative.

Hot Air’s AP understands Cornyn’s reasoning, although he is not charmed by Specter himself. Especially not after word came out that the senator called on  (Republican and Independent) Pennsylvanians who reregistered as Democrats last year in order to vote in the Democratic primary race, to reregister again, this time as Republicans. If necessary, “for a day.”

In other words, Specter realizes he is in serious trouble. Instead of taking Toomey on by convincing Republican voters to throw their weight behind him, he is now “begging Democrats to cross over and vote for him.”If he were confident, he would not do so.

Where do, as a moderate conservative, stand in all of this, you may wonder? Well, I’m torn. On the one hand, I’m in favor of a big tent party. The GOP cannot win elections by alienating moderates. On the other hand, Specter did make a tremendous mistake by siding with Democrats over the budget. He should have supported his own party; the economic plans put forth by Democrats are not merely bad, they are disastrous. Additionally, I believe that Republicans can only start winning elections again if they govern as pragmatic fiscal conservatives. Specter is seemingly no fiscal conservative.

But writing him off completely? No, I don’t think that is useful either. Especially not because Pennsylvania is no Texas. Republicans have to be smart. So here is what conservatives should do: let Toomey take on Specter. Make sure he puts the pressure on the Senator, and makes it extremely difficult for him to win reelection. But let him win it nonetheless – but not by much. Specter will undoubtedly interpret this as a warning – and it is. If he does not change his voting record, if he continues to support fiscally liberal plans, his political career will come to an end – and he will become an outcast, a political pariah.