State Treasurer Robert P. Casey Jr. said he plans to seek the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate as Gov.
Ed Rendell on Friday shooed away one competitor and another stepped aside.
National party leaders recruited the son of late governor Robert P. Casey to take on incumbent Rick Santorum,
the Senate's No. 3 leader and a rising Republican star. Polls indicate Casey is the Democrats' best hope for unseating Santorum,
who is expected to seek a third six-year term next year.
"As senator, I will fight every day to put middle-class families first," Casey said.
Rendell, who beat Casey in the 2002 gubernatorial primary, endorsed his former foe after helping to clear
the field of major opposition from within the Democratic Party.
"It was always his goal to try to have a united front," said Penny Lee, Rendell's communication director.
"We're not expecting anyone to file against Bobby" in the Senate primary, which is still 15 months away.
Barbara Hafer, Casey's predecessor as treasurer, had said Wednesday that she planned to run _ raising the
specter of a primary fight that state party leaders feared would wreck any chance of unseating Santorum. Hafer said Friday
she changed her mind at Rendell's request.
"The governor asked me to get out and step aside," she said. "He really didn't really tell me why he was
supporting Bobby."
Former U.S. Rep. Joe Hoeffel, who unsuccessfully challenged Republican Sen. Arlen Specter last year and
had said he was contemplating a bid against Santorum, said he agreed not to run after talking with Casey on Friday.
"I really want to see Rick Santorum defeated," Hoeffel said, "and it seems to me that Bob Casey has the
best chance to do that."
Casey, 44, was sworn into a four-year term as state treasurer two months ago. He revealed his decision in
a written statement that also announced the creation of a campaign Web site.
In a telephone interview Friday afternoon, Casey said he looks forward to debating issues with Santorum,
but declined to discuss other subjects, such as how much money he will need to be competitive and whether he still harbors
thoughts of running for governor.
"It's going to be a long campaign," he said of running for Senate.
In a statement issued by his Senate office, Santorum said he looks forward to "a spirited debate" on issues
in the campaign.
"I plan to continue serving the people of Pennsylvania to the best of my abilities as I have done over the
past 10 years as a U.S. Sen., visiting all 67 counties every year to best represent the needs and concerns of these regions,"
he said.
Hafer, a longtime Republican office-holder who switched to the Democratic Party in December 2003, was encouraged
to run by Emily's List, an abortion-rights group in Washington that in recent days provided Hafer with two staffers to organize
her campaign.
Casey, like Santorum, opposes abortions. Casey's father, who died in 2000, was nationally prominent for
his anti-abortion views and clashed over the issue with national party leaders, who prevented him from speaking on the subject
at the party's national conventions in 1992 and 1996.
Casey brings to the race something Hoeffel didn't have when he took on Specter _ statewide recognition.
Casey has run four statewide campaigns since 1996. He served two four-year terms as auditor general and
lost to Rendell in 2002. He received the most votes of any candidate in state history in his landslide victory in the treasurer's
race in November.
An independent poll in mid-February showed Casey as the only prospective Democratic candidate with an apparent
lead over Santorum, 46 percent to 41 percent.
He had not seriously considered running for Senate until national party leaders urged him to make the race
several weeks ago.
