It's bad enough for Senate Republicans that they couldn't cajole former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge to challenge Arlen Specter next year. Now they can't even get Ridge to commit to backing the likely GOP nominee, the ultra conservative Pat Toomey.

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge declined to say whether he would vote for Republican Pat Toomey over Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) if the two candidates were pitted against each other in a general election.

"It's called secret ballot," Ridge said on MSNBC's "Hardball," hours after he announced that he would not be running for the Senate himself.

Ridge's unwillingness to say that he would support a Republican nominee against a Democrat underscores the difficulty that Toomey would face in winning over moderate Republicans in a general election.

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The latest polling from Research 2000 finds Toomey trailing all comers on the Democratic side, including the very unknown Joe Torsella, as well as the not well known Congressman Joe Sestak and the obviously better known Arlen Specter. And with the leading moderate Republican in Pennsylvania lukewarm in his support for Toomey, to say the least, this could be a rough battle for the GOP no matter who the Democrats eventually put up.