In the Right

There's too much at stake, and it has little to do with a seat in the U.S. Senate.

Their concern is much larger -- the governorship.

With Toomey at the top of the Republican ticket (federal races are higher on the ballot than state races), they fear, down-ballot races will be impacted negatively -- and that includes the governor's race.

The campaign for governor of Pennsylvania next year is going to be one of the marquee matchups in the country.

At stake could be not just the governor's mansion, but control of the 2011 redistricting.

So there's a lot on the line for the Pennsylvania GOP establishment.

Knowing how moderate GOP establishment types think, I'll wager they've already reached out to some major moderates.

But I'm willing to bet there's a bigger play about to unfold -- a call to former two-term Gov. Tom Ridge.

Ridge is a serious man, who left a serious footprint.

An Army veteran of Vietnam who won a Bronze Star as a staff sergeant, Ridge is a graduate of Harvard and Dickinson Law School.

He won election to a seat in the House of Representatives in 1982 -- Ronald Reagan's first mid-term election, when the GOP lost 26 House seats -- by a paltry 729 votes, so he knows a little something about tough races.

Six terms and 12 years later, Ridge ran for governor. With the backing of the party establishment, he won a seriously contested four-way primary with 35 percent of the vote, won the fall election by 45-40 percent, and then went on to be re-elected in 1998 by an overwhelming 57-31 percent vote over his weak Democratic opponent.

But Ridge didn't finish out his second term. Following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush created in the White House the Office of Homeland Security, and on Oct. 5, 2001, Ridge resigned his position as governor to assume duties as head of that office.

When 2002 legislation created the Department of Homeland Security, Ridge became its first secretary.

As a huge vote-getter in a key battleground state, he was seriously discussed as a potential GOP vice presidential nominee in 1996, 2000, and again in 2008.

So if the moderate/liberal Pennsylvania GOP establishment is serious about putting up a roadblock to Toomey's ascension to the Senate nomination, Ridge should be getting a call any moment now.