Arlen Specter

Just got off the phone with my 85 year old Yellow Dog Democrat Aunt who lives in Pennsylvaina; she had the most priceless quote ever on Arlen Specter:

I've been voting against Arlen Specter for 30 years.  I see no reason to stop now.  I'm too old to start voting for Arlen Specter.

Go Sestak!!!

With the recent defection of Arlen Specter and the entry of Charlie Crist into the Florida Senate race, much has been recently made of an alleged split between moderate and conservative Republicans.  While I think there's some truth to this argument, I also think it misses the point.  The problem is that "Republican Moderate" is such a broad category that it doesn't mean anything.

With that in mind, I want to differentiate between two types of Republican Moderates.  For the sake of clarity, I'm going to define them as the "Rudy Giuliani Moderates" and the "Arlen Specter Moderates."

Who are they?!?

Rudy Giuliani -- These are the Republicans who are Conservative on most issues and have a few issues where they legtimately disagree with the Republican base.  In Rudy's case, he's GREAT on National Security, the Economy, Health Care, Education, Crime, and a whole host of other issues.  At the same time, there are a few issues where Rudy differs from the GOP mainstream: Life, Gun Control, and Cross Dressing.

Moderates like Rudy are our friends.  When people talk about a big tent, that's fine.  We need to be inclusive of people who are with us on most of the issues even when they differ on a few.  Reagan said it best when he said: "My 80% friend is not my 20% enemy."

Recruiting candidates who fall into the Rudy Giuliani mold who are well suited to a particular district or state is a essential.  We can't be excessively doctriaire in who we recruit.

(Author's Note: John McCain, Lindsay Grahmnesty, Mark Kirk, and Sheriff Dave Reichart all fit into this category.)

That said, there's another type of "moderate" candidate we need to avoid like the plague.

Arlen Specter -- These are "Republicans" who find it politically expedient to run for office with an R after their name and are nothing more than gloified prostitutes seeking power and personal aggandizement.  While Specter was a respectable Judiciary commitee chairman and backed most of Reagan's defense buildup in the 1980's that's the only useful thing he's ever done in the United States Senate.  Otherwise, he's been a thorn in the side of Conservative reform for the past three decades.  Beyond his vote for Porkulus, Specter led the Smear Campaign against Judge Robert Bork, and he sold his soul to the trial lawyer lobby over the asbestos bailout.  Unlike the Giuliani style moderates, who actually care about Public Affairs, people like Arlen Specter are in Politics to increase their personal power and will do or say whatever it takes to make that happen.

Arlen Specter style prostitutes shred our credibility and dilute our message.

(Author's Note: George Pataki, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Colin Powell all fit into this category.)

As I said several months ago: Apostates are O.K.; Grandstanding RINO's are not.

Thoughts/Suggestions?!?

Cahnman out.

Based on the Mortgage Cramdown vote, these Democrats are our best hope for beating ObamaCare.

1) Max Baucus (MT) - (406) 761-1574 - Senate Finance Committee Chair

2) Michael Bennet (CO) - (719) 328-1100

3) Robert Byrd (W. Va) - (304) 264-4626

4) Thomas Carper (DE) - (302) 856-7690

5) Byron Dorgan (ND) - (701) 852-0703

6) Tim Johnson (SD) - (605) 332-8896

7) Mary Landrieu (LA) - (337) 436-6650

8) Blanche Lincoln (AR) - (870)382-1023

9) Ben Nelson (NE) - (308) 631-7614

10) Mark Pryor (AR) - (501) 324-6336

11) Arlen Specter (PA) - 570-346-2006 - I Know; just think about how much fun it'll be when he stabs the Dems in the Back!!!

12) John Tester (MT) - (406) 365-2391

Honorable Mention - Evan Bayh (IN), Mark Begich (AK), Kent Conrad (ND), Bill Nelson (FL)

We can Beat this Thing!!!

I hope this helps.

Cahnman out.

It seems the choice for him turned out to be frying pan v. fire

It appears his understanding about retaining seniority apres switch was not shared by his new fellow caucus.

and after reviewing recent polls  (although I'm not that familiar with this one)  Michael Barone isn;t quite so sure than Specter is the general election lock he may have appeared to be on first blush. Looking at the general election, Barone concluded.

 it’s possible that a competent opponent who starts out little known but raises sufficient money to change that could sweep up the lion’s share of the undecided vote and make this a close race. Conceivably even a winning race, if the balance of partisan opinion changes over the next 18 months. 

There's some reason to believe this. Specter is obviously buoyed post shift by Obamamania, which is still regnant in PA---Q showed him @66% favorable. If this sinks, ebbing tides lower all boats,

Specter also is presently the "Philly candidate".  This poses two problems. He's probably close to his ceiling there already, but metro Philly only casts about 30% of the state's votes.  There's still enough votes elsewhere in the Commonwealth  for a Republican to fashion a victory.

Second, Specter's 2004 results against a Democrat from the Philly suburbs (Joe Hoeffle) lead me to wonder if a similarly situated Democrat (Sestak) could mess things up huge for Arlen in a Democrat primary. 

Specter lost the city of Philadelphia by 270,000 votes and won the suburbs by 145,000....barely winning Montgomery and Delaware. Specter's big wins that year were in smaller urban areas like Erie, Reading and Scranton who are not so predisposed to him of late. Specter may be feeling the effect of another demographic change---the city of Philadelphia is about 500,000 smaller than when Arlen started his  political career and the loss has been disproportionaly of blue collar whites enamored of moderate candidates as opposed to hard line partisan Democrats.

Will the Philly machine turn out black voters for Specter in a primary? It may depend on how fervent the President is in his support.

One thing from looking at the results from 2006 is it is hard to fathom even the relatively unknown Toomey starting off worse than Santorum ended up. It looks like we may have defined 41% as the hard GOP base in PA.

And I credit Specter's pollster , Glen Bolger, for confirming what I wrote. Specter dug his own hole with Republicans with the stimulus vote., crushing his job approval with Republicans by 30 points. 

"The most important number was the approval rating - it dropped from the 60s to 31" percent just in the last few months, Specter said.

But the stimulus vote was a "watershed," Specter said. "It all turned on that. The pollsters had never seen that kind of precipitous drop. It was stark"

 Pat Toomey just showed up after the hole was dug.

I suppose my question now is we might finally have a Republican party serious about fiscal conservatism. What are we going to do with it?  

===POSTSCRIPT===

I would be remiss in not linking to Dan McLaughlin's excellent RedState post that points out that while the GOP can certainly abide the "socially liberal but fiscally conservative" candidate, especially in Blue States. it's is sort of a condition precedent to be fiscally conservative in order to claim this status. The PA GOP could nominate Specter until his stimulus vote took the legs out of the equation, and by my math, even if the 200,000 "lost moderates" returned to the fold it would not have saved Specter from a primary defeat.

Sometimes, election years get focused on certain races to tell the story of the cycle. It is too early to tell what the stories of the next cycle will be, but here are two possibilities.

In Pennsylvania, recently re-minted Democrat Arlen Specter has said that he is not shifting his position on card-check, aka the Employee Forced (nee Free) Choice Act. SEIU and AFL-CIO are already pressuring Specter to cave by, among other things, encouraging Rep. Joe Sestak to run against him, in a race in which card-check would be a central debate.

Ironically, the 200,000 people that became Democrats, making Specter's GOP primary impossible, are likely Specter voters in a Democratic primary. As the Democrats have become more affluent, moderate tolerant, and less labor-dependent, the power of organized labor may not be so large.

What if the Democratic primary became a referendum on card-check for Democrats?  How important -- really -- is card check to Democrats? With Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Rahm Emanuel, etc., all weighing in on the anti-card-check side. Wouldn't that be funny. Wouldn't a Specter/card-check victory be a decisive defeat for the unions? This race could become nationalized in much the way that the Lieberman race was in 2006.

Similarly, I can see a fight in New Hampshire over gay marriage in the general. The legislature has passed easily reconcilable bills that legalize gay marriage legislatively. It is likely that the governor will neither sign nor veto them, bringing the law into effect.

But New Hampshire is different than Massachussets and Iowa, where gay marriage has been created by judicial fiat and seems unlikely to be reconsidered due to the ballot initiative processes. It is also different than neighboring Vermont, which just legalized gay marriage by legislative action. This is a dead issue in Vermont.

But you could imagine a battle in the general election in New Hampshire over gay marriage. Democrats had not controlled the state legislature since 1874, and some of these seats could swing back. After all, in 2006, we lost, as Time put it,  "91 state legislature seats, six of [our] 16 state senate seats and both [our] congressional seats". And gay marriage would undoubtedly play a role in a number of swing seats around the state and be a nationalized campaign. Money would flood in from around the country for both sides.

My gut is that gay marriage will not be a compelling issue in New Hampshire, but this will be the only serious opportunity for pro-traditional marriage forces to defend their position at the ballot box. They probably cannot afford to pass it up.

Aside from all the questions about the ability of the GOP to comeback and the future of the redistricting process, 2010 could be quite fascinating.

After Arlen Specter announced his plans to run as a Democrat in 2010, Gov. Ed Rendell stated: 

“Well, I think that Arlen will probably wind up running unopposed, or without a serious challenger… Everyone knows Arlen and I are personal friends, go back to when he hired me as an assistant district attorney without asking me what party I belonged to. I think every major Democrat is gonna be for Arlen.”  

I wondered at the time, could Rendell really deliver a free-ride to Arlen Specter.  Granted, Rendell is the most powerful Democrat in the State at this moment - so powerful that many Democrats were seriously hoping he would jump into the Democratic Primary to face Specter in the General. But with that no longer an option and Rendell being term-limited, how much influence could a lame-duck Governor have in a state where legislators carve out 30-year power bases. Case in point:

PA State Representative Mark Cohen (D-Philadelphia) is the Majority Caucus Chair, the third ranking leadership position in the Dem controlled State House;  he has been in office since 1974 and is an elected member of the PA Dem State Committee.  Cohen also understands new media - he has  posted to his own blog for several years, is a frequent contributor to DailyKos and Cohen’s facebook page boasts 2000+ followers.  His status updates are measured statements, so last night when he posted Arlen Specter had “jumped from the frying pan to very hot water”  and Democrats “continue to examine their options” I read it as a statement that Democratic leaders are not at all excited about a Specter candidacy - solid liberals distrust him as much as the conservative base in PA.

I e-mailed Cohen and asked him which candidates were still exploring options and he replied:

Democrats exploring Senate candidacies include Congressman Joe Sestack, Pittsburgh City Controller William Lamb, Allegheny County State Representative Bill Kortz, and former Constitution Center President Joe Torsella. Sestack, with at least $3.7 million on hand, and Torsella, with almost $600, 000 on hand, are likely the leading candidates of the bunch.

By contrast, Pat Toomey, whose recent candidacy forced Specter to defect, did not report 1st quarter numbers and likely hasn’t yet raised as much as the Democratic candidates named above.  Specter has $6.7 million on hand.

So Senator Specter finds himself in a familiar situation - looming on the horizon could be a formidable, well-funded candidate with strong support from the base of his (new) party - the question his, how commited is he to put his 29 year career in the hands of Pennsylvania Democrats? 

crossposted at Election Journal

Well this ought to liven things up in the U.S. Senate, dontcha think?

NPR has learned that Supreme Court Justice David Souter is planning to retire at the end of the court's current term.

Wonder if transnationalist Harold Koh is going to be repurposed for this new opening?...or will we get someone just as repugnant, but more stealthy?

Souter was a GOP "stealth" nominee whom John Sununu sr. was convinced was a byed in the wool conservative New England Yankee.  To quote Maxwell Smart,....missed by THAT much. 

Liberals tend to find more reliable stealth nominees.

It will be interesting now that Arlen Specter will be on the majority side of Senate Judiciary how he is going to deal with an Obama SCOTUS nominee.  It appears likely that Orrin Hatch will be the new ranking minority leader. I think he's past his pitch count, myself. 

I have no delusions that we will get a Federalist style nominee, but if Obama were serious about appointing a serious nonideological jurists he ought to pick Jose Cabranes

Here's Wikipedia's "short list".  Of the lot, probably Sonia Sotomayor is the least problematic--at least she has siginifcant judicial experience and little time served advancing  radical judicial agendas 

We're going to learn a lot more about President Obama from his pick. We'll also learn a lot more about the Senate Republicans and if they have any fight left in them.  

...until Barack Obama throws Arlen Specter under the Bus?!?

Over/Under 1 year?

My personal guess is that it's about a year.

"This is not the Arlen Specter I used to know..."

"...Arlen Specter is just a guy who lives in my neighborhood."

That is all.

Cahnman out.

Here's a story for you.  It's a story with a happy ending, and one that all Republican officials holding office anywhere should recall before they cast any vote.

On October 3, 2008, Arlen Specter, Republican Senator from Pennsylvania, was one of thirty-four Republican Senators who voted for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) that gave $700 billion to the Wall Street investors who helped wreck our economy.  On February 10, 2009, Specter was one of three Republican Senators who voted for the American Recovery and Investment Act of 2009 (Obama's "stimulus package"), which will dump $787 billion of borrowed and printed dollars into a hodgepodge of Democratic Party dream programs, including vast increases in federal dollars for health programs, environmental programs, social welfare programs, and public education.  On April 15, 2009, Pat Toomey, a former congressman who nearly defeated Specter in the 2004 Republican Primary for Specter's Senate seat, announced that he would challenge Specter in the 2010 Republican Primary.  On April 28, 2009, Specter announced that he was switching to the Democratic Party and would seek that party's nomination for Senate in 2010.

Specter candidly admits that he is switching parties because he expected Toomey to defeat him in Pennsylvania' s Republican Primary.  The Republican Liberty Caucus (RLC)  rated Toomey as a "Libertarian" over his six years in congress from 1999-2005, meaning that he had a strong performance as a legislator who generally favored individual liberty in both personal and economic matters.  Specter is a "centrist," which means he generally favors the ever-growing and more intrusive government we have today.  "I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans, " Specter lamented, and indeed polls showed him trailing Toomey by 10 points in Pennsylvania. 

Specter voted for TARP because "the failure of Congress to take some decisive, substantial, action would run the risk of dire consequences to U.S. and world markets."  (Specter Press Release, Oct. 1, 2008).  Explaining his vote for Obama's "stimulus package," he stated "I am supporting the economic stimulus package for one simple reason: The country cannot afford not to take action." (Specter Press Release, April 3, 2009).  (Specter also procured an additional $10 billion in the "stimulus package" for the National Institutes of Health, a pet program of his, which has absolutely nothing to do with economic "stimulus.")

What if the 'decisive action' taken by our federal government is a really bad idea?  The United States Government caused this recession through credit expansion via the Federal Reserve System and government intervention in investment markets.  The Federal Reserve set the stage for the current economic crisis by several years of artificially low interest rates.  This cheap credit, combined with efforts by the federal government to expand mortgage lending, steadily blew up a financial bubble that was due to burst.  Government through its regulatory powers encouraged lending to subprime borrowers through the Community Reinvestment Act as amended during the Clinton administration.  Government-chartered corporations Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae encouraged mortgage lending through expanding the secondary mortgage market.  The secondary mortgage market developed truly exotic investment schemes to take advantage of the cheap credit available until reality set in and borrowers large and small were unable to repay their debts.  Banks lurched toward insolvency, businesses operating on credit were unable to continue, and millions of people have lost their jobs and homes.  This chain of events was brought to us courtesy of the Democrats and Republicans whose "political philosophy" Specter supports.

Government caused the current economic crisis by artificially expanding credit and thereby encouraging investment that real savings and demand could not support.  This is where recessions always come from, and our Beltway leaders just don't get it.  Now, the federal government proposes to fix the problem it caused by borrowing and printing $1.5 trillion, which it has "loaned" to banks and will spend on a variety of social programs that are guaranteed to have no immediate economic benefit whatever.  Billions of dollars are being taken from capital markets by our government to be spent in non-productive social programs.  Money that is not borrowed by the federal government will simply be printed.  By increasing the quantity of money in circulation, the government will reduce the value of the dollar, setting the stage for inflation.  Is this really the 'decisive action' we need?  No.

The only 'decisive action' taken by Specter today was to stick his finger in the wind and realize that he would be defeated by a pro-freedom Republican unless he escaped to the Democratic Party, where he undoubtedly belongs.  Republicans, take note:  we the people want Republican leaders who believe in us rather than in government.  We want Republican leaders who believe in individual freedom and the principles of limited government on which our nation was founded.  We do not want Republican leaders like Specter who find their "political philosophy more in line with Democrats," and we will be happy to show them the way to the door.

The DC insiders are in a mood from bemused angst to irrational frustration over Arlen Specter's decision to switch teams in the middle of the game. Much of the ill will is based on the theory that Specter's hand was forced by the likes of Pat Toomey and various fi-cons who ran him out.

While this makes for a good story, it is fundamentally flawed.  Specter's apotasy on fiscal conservativism did seal his fate; but a close reading of poll results indicate that it wasn't a cabal of conservative power brokers that doomed Arlen Specter, it was an uncontrollable revolt of the Republican peasantry.

I'm a numbers guy and the March Quinnipiac poll  is pretty conclusive in my book.

Specter was polling at only 27% in the ballot test for a Republican primary, and Toomey was at 41%. But Toomey only had 26% statewide name recognition among Republicans.

So 1/3 of Toomey's vote against Specter were folks who didn;t have an opinion about who he was.!

That isn't a vote ginned up for Toomey, or even a vote for his agenda. It's a pure repudiation of Specter.

Specter's favorable/unfavorable ratio deteriorated badly from November 2008.  That's the stimulus vote. Pure and simple. 53% of Republicans in PA decided Specter didn't deserve another term.

So, how exactly is this Pat Toomey's problem again?

Had Pat Toomey not run, some lesser known Republican candidate would have found this dry kindling and lit the same fire under Specter.    Think about Ned Lamont, or Al D'Amato.

The British SAS has a mantra --"Who Dares, Wins".

Had Jim Gerlach or Pat Meehan or Tom Corbett jumped into this race ahead of Toomey, they might well be the GOP nominee-in-waiting. But they deferred to seniority, unwisely in retrospect.  They --or some other less conservative candidate--might oppose Toomey. The DC GOP would be well advised to quit while it's behind and let Keystone State Republicans sort this out.

The Beltway GOP is irrelevant as per Scott Rasmussen.

To be relevant in politics, you need either formal power or a lot of people willing to follow your lead. The governing Republicans in the nation’s capital have lost both on their continuing path to irrelevance.

"Yeah, it's a traversty the actual voters we represent don't appreciate the great talents of Arlen Specter and want to vote for a fiscal conservative, and let "electability" be dammed"

If the Beltway Republicans screw around here any more, they will only make matters worse and embarass themslves.

 Besides, my read on the Q poll is to the extent Specter has support among non-Republicans, it's awful soft---his re-elect and "hard" ballot tests aren;t great. Think "liked, not well liked". He may not hold up well over the next 18 months.

I saw what happened to Joe Lieberman once a Democratic challenger put him on trial for supporting the Iraq war.  Think this won't happen to the pro-war Specter in a primary?  

96 % of PA Democrats viewed George W. Bush unfavorably before the 2008 election.

Who endorsed Specter in 2004?

What primary is Specter running in again?

I dunno. Why can't Toomey or another competent Republican beat Joe Sestak or that Torrella dude? 

 Here's some advice to our party "leadership". How about backing candidates your members actually want to vote for?