Specter will face Rep. Joe Hoeffel in the general election. If the Democrats had been smart, they would have looked for a candidate in the mold of former Pennsylvania governor Bob Casey, a social conservative who would have appealed to GOPers disillusioned by Specter. Yet Hoeffel is a standard-issue liberal. From what I can tell, he isn’t even to the right of Specter on abortion–a huge missed opportunity for the Dems. Some conservatives will suggest that Hoeffel deserves support simply to prevent Specter from becoming chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. That’s not an unreasonable view, but it doesn’t appear to me as though Hoeffel is the best vehicle for this approach. Specter probably will win. Then again, my recent predictions haven’t been worth much.