While Pat Toomey, the Club for Growth president and former member of Congress, hasn't yet formally announced his candidacy, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) is apparently taking no chances. His miniscule margin of victory over Toomey in the 2004 Senate primary and his poor polling so far have caused the five-term senator to go on the air with a negative ad more than a year before the Republican primary.

"Pat Toomey. As a Wall Street trader he sold risky derivatives called credit default swaps. The same swaps that have now plunged us into this financial mess," the ad's narrator says. "Now Toomey wants a bonus: a seat in the United States Senate. Should we let him have it?"

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