HARRRISBURG -- The candidates got one last audition Friday night, but there was no doubt about the casting decisions for top billing on the GOP ticket.

It has long appeared a forgone conclusion that the Republican State Committee would vote this morning to endorse Attorney General Tom Corbett for governor and former Rep. Pat Toomey as its Senate candidate. The lack of suspense may have explained the noisy dinner conversations that competed with an informal debate Friday night between Mr. Corbett and state Rep. Sam Rohrer, his sole competitor for the nomination. As his opponent prepared to speak in their first side-by-side appearance, Mr. Corbett forcefully challenged the crowd of Republican partisans to pipe down and listen to their exchange.

Speaking just before mounting the stage of the Harrisburg Hilton ballroom, Mr. Rohrer said he would make his appeal to the committee members with a message of "vision and big ideas."

"The fiscal challenge is our first challenge and it's rooted in our ethical failures -- in Washington and in Harrisburg," he said. "We haven't been telling the truth about where we are."

Mr. Corbett's opening remarks seemed to assume victory not just in today's endorsement vote, but in the May primary and November general election as well.

"In my very first week in office as governor, I will send the Legislature a bold yet necessary reform plan," he said, promising to cut spending in all three branches of government, cut the state's car fleet "and reduce per diems across the board."

Mr. Corbett warned of a "multi-billion dollar pension crisis." And while he said the state's fiscal picture would be worsened by the expiration of federal stimulus funding, he buttressed his appeal to conservatives by contending that Pennsylvania never should have accepted those billions in the first place.

The last time Mr. Toomey asked this group for its backing, he was rebuffed as the Republican officials instead endorsed their longtime champion, Sen. Arlen Specter, in the 2002 primary. On Friday, they were poised to anoint him as their choice to oust Mr. Specter, who was endorsed by his new party organization last weekend. After Mr. Specter's narrow victory for the GOP nomination six years ago, Mr. Toomey dutifully backed his successful general election bid.

"Arlen Specter's been endorsed by the Democrats, by the Republicans and by Pat Toomey," his opponent, Johnstown conservative activist Peg Luksik, said with a smile just before joining Mr. Toomey on stage.

"I'm the only one in this race who has never endorsed Arlen Specter," she said.

Both Mrs. Luksik and Mr. Rohrer acknowledged their likely setbacks in the party vote, but both said they would maintain their challenges to the two front-running Republicans through the May 18 primary.

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