Specter is Democrats’ problem now
Many people rejoiced at Arlen Specter’s defection from the GOP, his 100th-day present to President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats in helping them reach the magic number of 60 – that is, if Al Franken is ever seated.
Specter’s move seemed to energize even the moribund Republican Party. “I’m sure his mama didn’t raise him this way,” excoriated party Chairman Michael Steele, who I sincerely hope never quits his job.
Pennsylvanians, though, might ask whether this is beneficial for the commonwealth, and the future of both its parties.
In leaving the Republican Party a year before the primary, Specter ceded the nomination – for now – to Pat Toomey, a country-club conservative who appears to be motivated largely by his stock portfolio.
Toomey’s lead achievement in the House was helping repeal portions of the Glass-Steagall Act, a financial bundling board that since the Depression kept commercial and investment banking separate. That change is one of the many things credited with igniting the current financial debacle.
Toomey is the former leader of the Club for Growth, which sounds like a high school investing group, campaigning on such moldy issues as lower taxes and government deregulation, a hard sell to middle- and working-class voters worried about losing their jobs and savings.
Indeed, his platform is no way to win. A Quinnipiac University poll released Monday shows Specter beating Toomey by 53 percent to 33 percent in a Pennsylvania general election. (It was polls, not principles, that moved Specter to switch last week, though he says otherwise.)
No wonder state and national Republicans are frantically urging former Gov. Tom Ridge to get into the game. The same poll shows that this contest would be close, Specter leading Ridge 46 percent to 43 percent, with more independents in play.
Specter’s conversion should not be cause for elation among state Democrats, either. He voted frequently with George W. Bush and championed many Republican judicial nominations, most famously that of Clarence Thomas, now the Supreme Court’s most conservative member.
Imagine being Joe Sestak, Patrick Murphy and Josh Shapiro, all rising Democrats, or former Gov. Ed Rendell aide Joe Torsella, the only declared Senate candidate, and learning that the Pennsylvania party’s newest star is a 79-year-old recovering Republican with the active campaign support of a popular president and governor. Specter’s switch potentially puts them in holding patterns waiting for higher office.
Meanwhile, Specter speaks of his vaunted seniority even though he chairs precisely zero of the ruling party’s committees.
If Ridge runs against Specter, what does the state get? A contest between two veteran, moderate, Washington insider Republicans. So much for progress.
The GOP brands Specter liberal – and now, much worse. Liberals brand Specter conservative. Mostly, though, Specter is unpredictable. When he’s good, he’s very good. When he’s bad, he’s just Arlen.
“My change in party affiliation,” he said, “does not mean that I will be a party-line voter any more for the Democrats than I have been for the Republicans.” Translation: It’s the Democrats’ turn to worry about which way Specter will blow. Remember: He voted against Obama’s budget two days after announcing his conversion.
But Senate Democrats claim to be thrilled, as is Joe Biden, who phoned his Amtrak buddy 14 times since the stimulus vote, especially as it gives him something to talk about other than swine flu.
Arlen? He’s over the moon. Almost three decades in D.C., and everyone’s talking about the Senate’s new Democratic darling.