Bucks
Arlen Specter Democrat or Republican
Dear Friends,
Good morning. Do you think that Senator Arlen Specter, a Republican, will seek his sixth term in the U. S. Senate as a Republican, a Democrat, or an Independent next year? In a moment or two, I’ll tell you why I doubt that he’ll run in the Republican primary. You’ll be more interested with what Congressman Patrick Murphy, State Senators Chuck McIlhinney and Rob Wonderling, plus State Representative Paul Clymer told me about it…or didn’t tell me about it.
If I were Specter’s advisor, I’d tell him to abandon the GOP before it abandons him; strike a deal with the Democrats and breathe easier.
Let me set the stage. First, remember that Arlen Specter originally was a Democrat. He became a Republican when he was unable to win the Democratic endorsement for District Attorney in Philadelphia more than 40 years ago. Specter is a survivor.
“He’s like Houdini, a master-escape artist, getting out of near death experiences,” my friend, Terry Madonna, commented in a New York Times interview (April 16). One of Pennsylvania’s best known pollsters, Madonna is a political scientist at Franklin and Marshall College. Specter needs Houdini right now.
There’s little doubt in anyone’s mind that if Specter can survive the 2010 Primary election, he’ll be a shoe in for reelection in the General election. He’s been unbeatable in five General elections.
Specter’s significant problem is running in the Republican Primary against former Congressman Pat Toomey, an archconservative. Although Specter outspent Toomey four to one in the 2004 U.S. Senate Primary, Toomey almost beat Specter. The margin was only two percent.
In Pennsylvania, only registered Republicans can vote in the Republican Primary. If Specter loses the Republican Primary, he cannot run in the fall election as an Independent. State law prohibits Specter duplicating Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman’s feat. When Lieberman lost the Democratic Primary, he reregistered as an Independent and won reelection in the fall.
So, Specter will have to choose in which Primary he’ll run.
Here’s why the Republican Primary looks bad for him. First, in the 2008 Presidential election, 160,000 Republicans left the GOP and became Democrats. Those were the moderate Republicans who became dissatisfied with the GOP’s hard right turn on social issues. They haven’t returned to the Republican camp. What’s left of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania (as well as the rest of America) is very narrow and unlikely to support Specter.
Why?
Against his own party, Specter has voted with the Democrats 43 percent of the time, according to the Congressional Quarterly. He was one of only three who supported President Obama’s stimulus plan. Specter supports abortion rights for women. And, he blocked Judge Robert Bork from a seat on the U. S. Supreme Court. That is why the Chairmen of both the national and Pennsylvania GOP have stated that they are open to backing a challenger…an unusual slight to a five-term U.S. Senator.
Equally
damaging, a recent Quinnipiac poll found that Republican voters preferred
Toomey to Specter, 41 percent to 27 percent with 28 percent undecided, the
Like sharks circling a victim, Democrats smell blood in the water. There are only 41 Republicans left in the Senate. If Specter loses the Primary, I think that the Democrats will defeat Toomey in the fall, which would guarantee 60 Democratic Senators out of 100…exactly the right number to stop a filibuster in the Senate. That means, for example, that the Republicans could not stop an Obama nomination to the Supreme Court.
Why do I believe that Toomey could not defeat a Democrat? You only have to look at what happened to Rick Santorum in the 2006 U.S. Senate election. He was pummeled by 18 percentage points. Worse, the margin between Democrats and Republicans has grown. Three years ago, the Democratic plurality was 550,000 votes; today it’s 1.2 million. Toomey and Santorum are two peas in the same pod.
“Without Senator Specter’s seat, which Mr. Toomey would certainly lose, there would no longer be 41 Republican senators to filibuster and stop the Democrats from passing card check, raising taxes, and implementing President Obama’s massive spending plans,” stated Christopher Nicholas in a Morning Call article (April 16). Nicholas is Specter’s campaign manager.
Will Arlen Specter run in the Democratic Primary next year or become an Independent, I asked Nicholas last week?
“Absolutely not,” Christopher Nicholas replied. He referred me to the April 9 edition of “Newsweek.” “Senator Specter is a Republican and he’ll run as a Republican.”
Congressman Patrick Murphy had similar views. “He’ll [Specter] go down fighting as a Republican,” Murphy began.
Would the Democratic Party embrace Specter if he switched, I asked?
“We embrace all Democrats,” Murphy answered. “We’re a big tent party. I’m a Democrat.”
State Senator Chuck McIlhinney (R-10th District) said that he’d spoken to Specter twice in the last week. “ ‘I can do more good as a Republican,’ Senator Specter told me,” McIlhinney said. “I’ll take him at his word. I agree with Specter 8 out of 10 times.”
“I don’t think Senator Specter will switch,” State Representative Paul Clymer (R-145th District) began. “He’d lose his seniority in the Senate [Specter is the senior Republican on the powerful Appropriations and Judiciary Committees].
“Traditionally, Democratic Senators are soft on defense and Senator Specter is strong on defense,” Clymer continued. “He’d be uncomfortable with cuts in defense as proposed by the Obama Administration.”
State Senator Rob Wonderling (R-24th District) was more cautious and made no prediction. “Senator Wonderling would not want to make a comment on the federal Senate race,” Liz Ferry told me. She is Wonderling’s Director of Communication.
So there you have it.
Nationally, if the Republican Party continues its far right stance, it could go the way of the Whig Party, which was popular between 1833 and 1856. The Whigs formed to oppose [Andrew] Jacksonian democracy. Incidentally, the Whigs were succeeded by the Know Nothing Party…how ironic…and finally the Republican Party. While I continue to be a Republican, the planks in its platform that keep me with the GOP are balanced budgets and smaller government.
Alas, under the Bush administration, the Republican Party abandoned those principles too. I’m thinking about reregistering as a Whig…or a Libertarian.
Sincerely,
Charles Meredith