One tidbit I left out of yesterday’s story about Arlen Specter was that Peg Luksik, a long-time pro-life activist and frequent candidate, was also considering running in the Republican primary. She just reiterated her intention to run.

Luksik says [Pat] Toomey told her in February that he wasn’t running for the Senate. She says it’s up to Toomey to decide whether he want to risk dividing the GOP’s conservative wing and allowing Specter to win a sixth term.

I didn’t pay much attention to Luksik because my sources considered her, to use a term they repeated, “a has-been.” Luksik ran for governor three times in the 1990s, once as a Republican and twice as the nominee of the Constitution Party. She lost all three times, winning 44 percent in the 1990 Republican primary (against a pro-choice Republican), 13 percent in her 1994 third-party run, and 10 percent in her 1998 run. In her final race she raised $691,000, a fraction of what Toomey raised (at least $2.2 million). Last year she re-entered Republican politics to manage the campaign of Bill Russell, a challenger to Rep. John Murtha (R-Pa.) who actually raised as much money as the incumbent, about $3.5 million. Despite that, despite Murtha’s 11th hour gaffes about “rednecks” and his “racist” constituents, despite Sen. John McCain narrowly carrying the district, Murtha smashed Russell 59-41.

Conservatives are not at all happy about a Luksik run — it creates some hope for Specter, where a one-on-one race with Toomey meant his certain defeat. But Toomey, who won the endorsement of Dr. James Dobson in 2004, can outflank an activist who has never won an election and who left the Republican Party before Miley Cirus was born. The Luksik run could create space for Specter, or it could allow Toomey to portray himself as the pragmatic conservative in between a moderate and a fringe activist.