Rick Santorum, Nader Raider

Rick Santorum's donors are a generous sort. When the senator's campaign asked a few of them to send checks to a pro-gay marriage, anti-war, pro-tax, pro-abortion rights candidate, the money flowed over. The candidate was Carl Romanelli, a "Green Party fireball" (his words) whose campaign was in the doldrums until Santorum donors funnelled $66,000 his way in the hopes he could get enough signatures to make the ballot. It probably worked.

Unfortunately for Santorum, Romanelli's a nonentity who'll score at most 1% of the vote; Democrat Bob Casey is leading the race by low double digits. Santorum missed out on his biggest spoiler opportunity a few months back, when former NARAL head Kate Michelman mulled an independent pro-choice candidacy (Casey is famously pro-life). Alas; we missed out on the spectacle of Rick Santorum working arm in arm with NARAL for re-election.

And there's bad news on the PA ballot access front; Libertarian Russ Diamond, who led one of the most successful voter revolts in decades against state legislators who voted themselves a pay raise, won't have enough signatures to make the ballot for governor. If only he had a little less principle. Can anyone think of a Libertarian candidate who was as willing to be used as a prop by a major party candidate like the Greens?