MILL HALL, Pa.— Kevin Johnson was introducing Pat Toomey to the 30-some people gathered in a wood-paneled restaurant and describing his principles — "lower taxes, personal freedom" — when his voice tailed off.

"Fiscal discipline," Toomey, the hard-charging Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, prompted.

"What's that?" Johnson kidded.

"They don't know in Washington either," Toomey riffed.

Six years after he nearly knocked off Arlen Specter in the 2004 Senate GOP primary, Toomey is reintroducing himself to Pennsylvania and recession-wracked voters at a time when the public is becoming alarmed over ballooning federal debt, long-term joblessness and gargantuan new laws.

Toomey, a former U.S. House member, is a refined messenger who believes the little guy better prospers when taxes are lower and government rules are less burdensome.

"I've been focused on this for a long time. When I was in Congress, six years ago, I was railing about too much spending then," Toomey said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. "Not a lot of people thought it was a big deal. I did. Now it's much worse. I think we've got to focus on two big things: Getting our spending under control ... and growing jobs in the private sector."

Toomey opposes the major elements of President Barack Obama's agenda, including the $800 billion economic stimulus, the sweeping new federal health care law, and an overhaul of financial-sector regulations designed to head off large, institutional failures as well as the bailouts that began under President George W. Bush in 2008. All were supported by his opponent, U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak.

Toomey, 48, is a Harvard-educated former investment banker and restaurant owner who excelled early. As a youngster in Rhode Island, he mowed lawns up and down the block and learned to beat his much-taller brother in basketball.

During a decade in Washington, D.C., he emerged as a leading voice for free-market enterprise and business owners yearning for less government in their lives.

Six of those years he spent in Congress representing the Lehigh Valley, compiling a voting record equivalent to Pennsylvania's most conservative congressman now, Joseph Pitts, and more conservative than former Sen. Rick Santorum, according to American Conservative Union ratings.

He's a polished public speaker, whose even-keeled demeanor belies an ability to deliver one-liners. His younger brother Steve said Pat gives a rib-busting delivery of the time his youth basketball coach told him: "Pat, you know, you're short. But you're slow, too."

Toomey grew up in East Providence, the third of six children born close together. His father, Patrick, a lifelong Democrat, worked on an underground line crew for Narragansett Electric. His mother, Mary Ann, was a parish secretary at St. Martha's Catholic Church.

Steve recalled how their father, a former Marine, had strict rules for TV watching: News and nothing else. The family ate dinner together and then watched the local and national news, exposure that fueled the boys' interest in the world, he said.

Toomey attended the private LaSalle Academy prep school on scholarship before he went to Harvard University.

Toomey crafted his political views in the early 1980s at Harvard, where he was surprised by his fellow students' disdain for President Ronald Reagan.

"He was optimistic, he was a believer that America's best days were ahead," Toomey said. Reagan, he continued, "really understood that free enterprise is the source of jobs and a higher standard of living and wealth creation and military strength."

Reagan's ideas made sense to Toomey intuitively — even more so as he continued his education in college and later in the markets of high finance, he said.

He worked for six years at investment banks in New York City, and then spent a year in Hong Kong, compiling a study on Asia's financial markets. When he returned, he moved to Allentown, where he'd helped his brothers start a restaurant and nightclub venture.

Toomey quickly became interested in local politics as Republicans gained control of Congress. He looked for an opportunity — and found one, when the Democrat representing the area retired.

In 1998, Toomey won the U.S. House seat in Pennsylvania's 15th District, and kept his pledge to leave after three two-year terms.

While in Congress, he supported the Iraq war and President George W. Bush's tax cuts, while advocating for Bush's plan to allow Americans to divert some of their Social Security payroll into privately managed investment accounts. That idea that failed after Democrats opposed it as a step toward privatizing the nation's retirement security.

However, he voted against one of President George W. Bush's signature accomplishments: the Medicare prescription drug benefit, because it added to the size of government.

He eventually swore off "earmarks" — grants for local projects inserted by members of Congress into spending bills that he says are used by party leaders to buy votes on key legislation.

As a congressman, Toomey came across as a no-nonsense person who didn't waste time worrying about what people think of him, said one prominent Pennsylvania Democrat.

"Pat has never been the backslapping, slobbering all-over-you politician," said T.J. Rooney, the former state Democratic Party chairman whose state House district overlapped with Toomey's U.S. House district. "Even his approach to serving ... tended to be different in that it was more businesslike, more transactional than it was emotional."