HARRISBURG -- A year ago, the Republican State Committee gathered for its winter endorsement meeting in a very different mood.

"The climate was depressing," recalled Robert Gleason, the party chairman. "I was concerned. Barack Obama had just taken office; we were stunned by the lashing we took."

The night before that Saturday session, Sen. Arlen Specter had announced that he would support the stimulus package of an administration whose president enjoyed stratospheric favorability ratings. The prospects for the slate of seven appellate court judges that the GOP hierarchy endorsed that day looked uncertain at best.

They were running in a state whose Democratic registration and turnout soared as President Obama won the state's electoral votes in a landslide. By the spring, Mr. Specter would abandon the Republican Party, giving the Democrats a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate and spurring widespread gloomy assessments on the future of the Republicans in the Northeast.

But in November, after months more of the nation's economic slog, six of those seven judges would win. The same day, Republicans won governors' race in New Jersey and Virginia. The New Year would bring another, still more stinging defeat with the loss of the late Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in Massachusetts.

Now?

"The mood is euphoric," Mr. Gleason said.

He spoke as his party's officialdom was about to endorse Pat Toomey as its U.S. Senate candidate, Attorney General Tom Corbett for governor, and, after two ballots, Bucks County Commissioner Jim Cawley for lieutenant governor.

Mr. Toomey defeated Johnstown activist Peg Luksik. By a similarly overwhelming margin, Mr. Corbett won over state Rep. Sam Rohrer. Before the day was over, however, Mr. Rohrer would pick up his own endorsement from one of the surprise political stars of 2008 -- "Joe the Plumber."

Mr. Gleason acknowledged that he had no inkling when 2009 opened that the political winds would shift so dramatically, but he said he was confident that his party would take advantage of them.

"We're targeting eight congressional districts. That's the most in the nation," he said. "We're getting so many good candidates that I'm having trouble finding staff."

At this point last year, Mr. Toomey was still considering a run for governor. But Mr. Specter's stimulus vote led him to renew his challenge to Mr. Specter that had fallen short six years ago.

Mr. Toomey said he too was surprised by the rapid shift in the political pendulum nationally and in a Pennsylvania Senate race in which he holds significant leads over both of the Democratic candidates, Mr. Specter and Rep. Joe Sestak.

"But a lot of things have surprised me," he said. "I was surprised at the ambition and the drastic leftward lurch of the Democrat-led Congress. I was surprised at the breadth and depth of the reaction across the country ??? it's been an unusual year in American politics."

"?? think this time we're going all the way," he told one supporter at a reception on Friday, moments after he had boasted to the crowd that he was the national leader among Senate challengers in campaign contributions.

"How can anyone trust government when Harrisburg has become less interested in William Penn's holy experiment and more interested in self-preservation," said Mr. Corbett, whose profile has been lifted by investigations of charges of corruption in the Legislature.

He called for "leadership in Harrisburg that does the right thing for the right reason, during the most challenging of times."

The mood of optimism that pervaded the weekend meeting was also reflected in speakers' predictions that the GOP would retake the state House and add to its already substantial majority in the Senate.

Their confidence in the Senate projection was strengthened by the face that, so far, three sitting Democrats have announced retirement plans while no Republican senators have said they would relinquish their seats.

The GOP officials at the Harrisburg Hilton hotel seemed unanimous in the expectation that those majorities would smooth the governing prospects of Mr. Corbett.

Mr. Gleason pointed out that a Rasmussen poll released this week found the Allegheny County Republican with leads of more than 20 points over each of his most prominent potential Democratic opponents, Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato, Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Hoeffel and Auditor General Jack Wagner.

But a suggestion that the gales of political change could shake the Republican establishment as well as the Democrats' came elsewhere in the Hilton Saturday.

Mr. Rohrer organized a parallel "Mobilize for Liberty 2010" event, featuring speakers identified with the Tea Party and 9

12 groups that have raised a populist outcry across the country over the past year. Speakers included, by telephone, Rep. Michelle Bachmann, the heroine of the Tea Party movement, who had a controversial televised confrontation with Mr. Specter earlier this month.

Her piped-in voice praised the GOP longshot as a mentor and an inspiration. She described Mr. Rohrer as "an old friend," who got her into politics.

Later, defying the expiration date on Andy Warhol's 15-minutes-of-fame adage, was Joe Wurzelbacher -- "Joe the Plumber" -- who spoke in person.

Both Senate candidates, Mr. Toomey and Mrs. Luksik, were originally on the list of speakers, although the former congressman did not appear as scheduled. If he had, he would have heard his opponent, Mrs. Luksik, declare that "The Republican establishment, today, got it wrong twice."

Mr. Wurzelbacher told the crowd of about 400 that the Tea Party movement was not part of either party.

"That's why I'm backing Sam Rohrer. It's about the individual, not the party," he said.

He made his estrangement from the Republican establishment still more clear as he criticized former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin over her support for the man who made him famous during the 2008 presidential campaign -- Sen. John McCain. He characterized Mr. McCain as a creature of the Republican establishment.

He was followed by Mr. Rohrer, who strode to the stage to the unexpected anthem of "I'm a Soul Man."

In his earlier acceptance speech, Mr. Toomey had made a point of reaching out for the support of the Tea Party enthusiasts, stressing the need for a broad and diverse party. But Mr. Corbett was conspicuously absent from the program. His challenger, Mr. Rohrer, is far behind the frontrunner in the polls and in campaign cash, but he hopes to harness the political energy of the Tea Party movement to wrest the nomination from the Republican Party's candidate.

But Mr. Corbett was prepared, at least rhetorically, to deal with the concerns of the conservative populists. In his remarks this weekend and throughout his campaign, however, he has left little breathing room between his fiscal positions and those of Mr. Rohrer, who has a reputation as a budget hawk in the Legislature.

Mr. Corbett called for less spending, smaller government, and in a debate Friday, criticized the state for having accepted federal stimulus aid.

The Democratic political position has clearly eroded over the last year, but does the very speed of that change suggest at least the possibility that the climate could quickly shift again, back toward the Democrats?

"I don't see it changing back," Mr. Gleason said. "You look at the economy. Even the Democrats don't expect unemployment to come down for a while and that's killing them."

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