My piece in today's YDN on why Chuck Pennacchio's progressive approach on choice, not Bob Casey's conservatism, is the right way to take on Santorum is on-line here:

Menitove is right to observe that the Democrats are losing the votes of Americans who express agreement with their economic policy but disagreements over so-called "social issues." The brilliance of the Republican strategy, as Thomas Frank has argued, is in reframing issues like abortion or marriage rights as aesthetic class struggles between the values of "liberal elites" and regular Americans. Beating that strategy back requires talking candidly about America's deepening class divide and offering progressive economic alternatives that too many Democrats -- cowed by charges of "class warfare" or fear of sacrificing corporate donations -- have refused to suggest. It also requires making a better case for equal rights and personal choice and against the extremism of a party whose platform would have us constitutionalize bans on abortion and gay adoption. No Democrat, not even Gov. Bob Casey's son, can outflank the party of Santorum and Bush on dedication to stripping women of their right to choose. What anti-choice Democrats can do is alienate scores of Democratic-leaning voters, particularly in Pennsylvania's suburban swing counties, just as Ron Klink did in his failed race against Santorum five years ago. And they can further set back the work of progressive Democrats in winning the support of the majority of Americans who are personally anxious about abortion but opposed to its restriction. Pennsylvanians know that the single best way to return women's wombs to the control of the state is to elect a Senate that will put up no resistance to Bush's extremist nominees -- judges equally committed to eroding the Democratic values Casey supports, like rights at work, and the ones he doesn't, like the right to choose. And they know -- and will be reminded for the next year and a half -- that no one would work harder to get those judges onto the bench than Rick Santorum. What Pennsylvanians need is a Democratic candidate who will make the case for why those appointments would be a disaster.

Read more about Pennacchio in the Inquirer piece here.