Ten years ago this spring, I was a young conservative journalist writing for Human Events. I was living the nerd-dream of following then-Rep. Pat Toomey around Pennsylvania during his insurgent Senate primary against the RINO of all RINOs, incumbent Republican Sen. Arlen Specter.

The evening of election day, which I spent at Toomey’s “victory” party outside Allentown, was a difficult one. Driving up from Washington, I had heard Specter’s radio ads accusing Toomey of voting to help pornographers – a charge based on some obscure House vote that did no such thing. I had seen how the national Republican Party and a then-still-popular President George W. Bush had shown up in the Keystone State to save Specter from a likely defeat. It was all quite infuriating.