Squash is Sen. Arlen Specter's usual game, but he demonstrated yesterday that he's intent on turning his re-election fight into a Texas cage match.

A day after Pat Toomey officially announced his second bid to capture the Republican nomination for Mr. Specter's seat, the incumbent sharply attacked his challenger, continuing the assault he began weeks before the former congressman entered the race.

During a meeting with Post-Gazette editors, the five-term veteran characterized his challenger as a guaranteed general election loser who was responsible for ills ranging from the loss of Republican control of the Senate to the current economic crisis.

"I've been listening to him for five years," Mr. Specter said of the candidate who fell just short of ousting him in the 2004 primary. "He's sore as hell. ... I'm firing back."

Mr. Specter acknowledged that his bid for a record sixth term would be a severe test, and he said his chief tactical priority would be to define Mr. Toomey to Pennsylvania's voters. To that end, he said that Mr. Toomey was virtually unelectable, noting that his voting record, according to the scorecard of the American Conservative Union, was to the right of former Sen. Rick Santorum, who lost in a landslide in 2006.

In that same election cycle, The Club for Growth, headed then by Mr. Toomey, backed a conservative challenger to another moderate Northeastern Republican, former Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island. Mr. Chafee survived the primary, but, in Mr. Specter's analysis, its scars led to his defeat in the ensuing general election as one of six Republican seats captured by Democrats. Had the GOP held just one of them, they would have continued to control the Senate.

Instead, the new Democratic majority took over, and one of the fruits of its control was the ability to block judicial nominees. Mr. Specter contended that 34 of the Bush administration's judicial nominees were therefore deprived of confirmation as a result of the actions of Mr. Toomey and the organization he headed until just before his new Senate candidacy.

"They're cannibals," he said of The Club for Growth. "I think he's going to catch hell from the social conservatives when they understand what he did to the Bush judges."

Mr. Toomey called that analysis "patently ridiculous."

"Chafee was destined to lose that election from day one," he said. "He was not going to survive ... under any scenario."

Repeating the charge he had made in unusually early television commercials, Mr. Specter also invoked Mr. Toomey's one-time career as an investment banker, and his general skepticism toward government regulation while in Congress, charging that Mr. Toomey helped create the environment for the world financial crisis.

"Toomey was a leader on deregulation along with [Sen. Chris] Dodd and [Rep.] Barney Frank," he said. "He's a big part of the problem. He's like the AIG guys."

In a previous interview, Mr. Toomey insisted that it was "ludicrous" to suggest that "voters are not going to vote for me because I helped corporate borrowers lower their borrowing costs. I really don't believe the voters can be fooled that easily."

In a whirlwind visit to Pittsburgh yesterday and today, Mr. Specter also met with local Republicans and solicited contributions at a fundraising reception hosted by Elsie Hillman, the former Republican national committeewoman. Mr. Specter is raising money not only for his own campaign committee, but also for a new political fund aimed at persuading independents and Democrats to register as Republicans in order to vote for him in the 2010 primary. By forming a separate committee for that effort, Mr. Specter would be able to attract new contributions from donors who have already given the legal maximum to his own campaign.

Today, the five-term incumbent was to showcase the seniority that he cites as another re-election argument as he appears at a PPG facility in the North Hills to present a grant for solar energy development.

A one-time supporter, former Rep. John Peterson, turned the seniority argument against the 79-year-old senator. He told the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call that it was time for Mr. Specter to step aside and "go enjoy your grandchildren."

Mr. Specter dismissed the suggestion.

"I'm at the top of my game; I feel good and I have a lot of seniority ... close to being chairman of appropriations," he said. "I really believe Satchel Paige was right when he said, "If you didn't know your age, how old would you think you were?' And I chose 38."