“A lot of you,” the Rev. Dwight Addington said in his opening prayer, “are looking for truth.”

Friday night, they got the gospel straight from Dr. James Dobson.

And that’s how Congressman Pat Toomey figures he can win the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate on Tuesday.

Toomey, surging in the polls and already predicting victory over incumbent Arlen Specter, needs huge pluralities among conservative Republicans to upset Specter.

But Specter’s campaign kept Toomey off-balance throughout the spring with a barrage of commercials raising questions about Toomey’s conservative credentials.

Enter Dr. Dobson.

At the Lancaster Host Resort’s Expo Center, Dobson led a Friday rally for Toomey that supporters hope will convince wavering conservatives that Toomey deserves their votes.

Lancaster County is ground zero for Toomey.

It’s why Dobson came. And it’s why Specter teams arrived too, playing political chess with Toomey in an effort to keep conservatives wondering whether Toomey is a true believer.

And Toomey’s backers were arguing to reporters that while Specter says Toomey can’t win in the fall, the threatened presence of a prominent third-party conservative actually means Specter can’t win on Nov. 2.

At the end of the evening, Toomey’s forces were feeling confident that they had motivated their voters enough to get them to the polls – and to convince friends to vote for Toomey too.

Toomey tried to clinch the deal.

“I won’t let you down,” he said.

The crowd rose for a standing ovation.

Taking ACTION

Friday’s rally was undoubtedly the biggest platform yet for Lancaster County ACTION.

It was evident from the crowd at the expo center – organizers claimed 1,000, based on 2,000 chairs set up in the half-full room – and it was evident in the cameras projecting ACTION President Bob Kettering onto a giant video screen.

ACTION sponsored Dobson’s rally for Toomey, a coup because Dobson doesn’t normally endorse candidates.

If Dobson, head of the Focus on the Family ministry and a highly influential – and credible – source for fundamentalist and evangelical Christians, believes Toomey is a true conservative, that’s likely to be good enough for a lot of Republican voters.

The problem all along for Toomey, in addition to his lack of name recognition, was doubt.

Although Specter is reviled among conservative Republicans for his moderate (they say liberal) positions, with President George W. Bush and U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum endorsing Specter, some conservatives were undecided.

The choice got even more confusing when some prominent local conservatives, among them former county commissioner Jim Huber, restaurateur Ed Martino and former county Republican chairman Bob Bensing, threw their support to Specter.

Indeed, the odd combinations on the local Specter team – another former commissioner, Paul Thibault, and his one-time foe Huber, for instance – have been dizzying.

Republicans have been talking privately about how divisive this campaign has been, with moderates mostly hanging with Specter and conservatives split between the two candidates.

Party chairman Dave Dumeyer devoted his speech at Monday’s county banquet to urging both sides toward unity after the primary.

Toomey’s local supporters have felt marginalized; some have quietly criticized, for instance, the campaign speech for Specter delivered by banquet keynoter Mitch McConnell, the Republican senator from Kentucky.

Despite a barrage of negative commercials on both sides, the race has come down to turnout.

High turnout statewide benefits Specter.

Lower turnout benefits Toomey – but only if conservatives like the ones in Lancaster County vote.

Kettering had that in mind when he told the audience, “Many, many people are undecided at this point. They are waiting for someone they trust to tell them what to do.

“You are that person.”

Cat and mouse

Specter’s campaign needs to maximize turnout in southeast Pennsylvania while holding down the conservative vote here. All winter and spring, the two sides have been countering each other’s moves.

Over the weekend, the chess game intensified.

ACTION members were setting up for Friday’s rally when they heard that Jess Yescalis, notorious among conservatives as the strategist for GOP moderates, was at the Host, planning a press conference to counter the 5 p.m. one with Dobson and Toomey.

Host management refused to allow the Specter event inside the hotel. The press conference, with Lancaster Mayor Charlie Smithgall and a former head of the state Christian Coalition, Rick Schenker, wound up on a grassy strip just off Route 30, with traffic nearly drowning out the speakers and a storm blowing in.

Reporters hiked from the Dobson press conference inside the Host to hear Smithgall and Schenker, later joined by Martino, laud Specter’s seniority and his ability to help Bush win Pennsylvania in the fall.

Meanwhile, rally organizers were worrying that the Specter team might crash the rally, advertised as open to the public, and make a scene – although that didn’t happen.

Reporters, whom the Toomey campaign had decided to bar from the rally, were admitted only after intercession by ACTION leaders and, reportedly, Dobson.

The two-hour rally was punctuated with cheers, applause and standing ovations from a crowd that included a sizeable contingent of homeschoolers – another key Toomey constituency.

“It is with pleasure that I tell you the race is tight,” Dobson said, “... a statistical dead heat.”

Recent polls have shown Toomey closing to within 5 or 6 points of Specter.

If Toomey wins, Dobson said, “it will send shivers down the backs of the liberal establishment in this country.”

He said he broke his customary policy of not endorsing candidates because he fears the influence of Specter in the Senate should he be re-elected.

Specter is in line to be chairman of the Judiciary Committee next year. As chairman, Dobson said, Specter could block conservative judge nominees and could stall a federal marriage amendment, intended in the wake of court decisions on gay rights to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

“This battle for marriage is the battle for the heart and soul of this country,” Dobson said, “and we are on the verge of losing it.”

Those warnings fired up the audience, but Dobson wasn’t done: The other job was to convince them of Toomey’s qualifications.

Dobson countered the Specter allegations that Toomey has flip-flopped on such hot-button issues as abortion and gambling during his congressional career.

And Dobson said Bush is backing Specter because that’s just the way it’s done in politics; a president has to support an incumbent senator. At the end of the program, Dobson led a question-and-answer session with Toomey focusing specifically on the areas that have worried conservatives, like abortion, school choice and whether he can win in November.

Toomey said Specter has twisted his record, although Toomey said he did experience a change of heart early in his career on whether he should vote pro-life on legislation aimed at the very early stages of pregnancy.

It’s why he voted in his first term to allow the use of RU-486, the abortion pill, Toomey said.

While Specter has “outspent us 4 to 1,” Toomey said, “the fact is, he’s been dropping in the polls. We are gaining in the polls. This race is a tie today, and we’re going to win it on Tuesday!”

The Clymer factor

Lancaster attorney Jim Clymer was in the audience. The Constitution Party national chairman has pledged to run for Senate if Specter beats Toomey.

One of the Republicans in attendance, committeeman Dale Murray of Mount Joy, raised the Clymer factor to rebut Specter’s argument that Toomey can’t win statewide in the fall.

“How many passionate Toomey supporters are going to hold their noses in the fall and vote for Specter?” Murray asked.

His answer: Not many.

“They’ll stay home, or they’ll vote for Jim,” Murray concluded.

Dobson, if he’d known the dynamics of the fall race, might have agreed.

“This could be a cliffhanger,” he said of the primary. “It could be one of the most exciting nights I’ve lived through.

“And I pray it will be.”