Registered: Jul 2000
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This may not seem like a big deal to people outside of the state, but tomorrow is the Republican primary in Pennsylvania for the Senate. Arlen Specter, a moderate Republican who is pretty darn liberal when it comes to things like abortion and privacy, but is also the worst pork-barrel spender in Congress (by a lot), is running for re-election after a successful 4 terms in office. He's one of the elder statesmen of the Republican party in the Senate, he is a principle ally to GW Bush and a massively important ally to his re-election effort in the key state of PA, should he be re-elected he will helm the judiciary commitee (as well as a good shot at chairing the full Appropriations Committee), and he is all in all a keystone figure for the Republicans in the Senate. And, like I said, he's a pretty reasonable one, all told. A fairly moderating force in the party. But, a major cheerleader of this administration.

Anyway, the Republican candidate's (assumed to be Specter) opponent will be Joe Hoeffel, a very intelligent and competent Democrat who, though not able to run up nearly the publicity or fundage of his opponent and with not nearly the name recognition as Specter, has always been expected to put up a good fight.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the general election. A house representative from a very right-wing discrict of the state, by the name of Pat Toomey, decided to challenge Specter in the Republican primary. Nobody gave him a shot. Specter was the 4-time incumbent of the seat and enjoyed every institutional advantage in the book. But, Toomey was backed by a right-wing conservative tax watchdog group Club For Growth to the tune of 2 million dollars (who have had something of a contract out for Specter's head), and began launching a massive campaign against Specter, focusing on the grassroots, bolstered by a state-wide spending spree by abortion groups as well as Club for Growth, and with the message that Specter was a RINO - Republican In Name Only. The message was that Specter is old, had been in Washington too long, was as liberal as Ted Kennedy, and had compromised Republican ideals time and time again due to DC cronyism and a Kerry-ish wishy-washiness (the Ted Kennedy and John Kerry comparisons are constants in the Toomey arsenal).

Surprisingly, Toomey started picking up steam, and, in the last few weeks, has all but closed the distance in terms of polling. He forced a debate with Specter, in which Specter came off not so well, he's attracted the attention of the statewide media. He started a massive grassroots and internet drive for votes and money ala Howard Dean. He garnered nationwide attention. He also happens to be a raving idealouge, but that's neither here nor there. Toomey is smart, well-spoken, visionary (in his way), young, and energetic. Specter seems to be his polar opposite.

Anyway, latest polling shows a dead even split for this primary, with the momentum ALL going to Toomey (he keeps picking up points week after week, and that process has only accelerated as the election has drawn closer). Survey USA today has it at 48-48, a number echoed by a lot of other pollsters. The MOST optimistic poll I've seen for Specter in the last few days was the Quinnipiac Poll, which says Specter Leads Toomey 48%-42%; 10% Remain Undecided (bearing in mind that undecideds this late in the game almost always break against the incumbent in a big way).

The results of tomorrow's primary are going to have pretty significant reprecussions. No matter who wins, this has been an extremely bloody and expensive primary for both candidates, so even if Specter wins, he's going to be limping into the general election DOWN on money against Hoeffel (though I'm sure he'll be able to make it up), battered up and down, and having alienated a large segment of the conservative population (his negatives right now are as high as they've been in many, many years). If Toomey wins, it'll be even wierder, as he's so conservative he doesn't have a hope of winning Philly and he probably won't be able to pick up much in the way of moderates on either side of the party divide, and would probably lose to Hoeffel, thus turning the seat Democratic. BUT, it could have an interesting impact on the presidential election. Specter going down will be bad news for Bush (especially if Specter's cheerleading of Bush ends up having a NEGATIVE impact for him in the state), but at the same time, Toomey will likely bring with him a lot of hardline conservatives and grassroots support, which could tip an already evenly split state towards Bush (Specter, on the other hand, probably won't bring anybody new to the polls one way or the other). And, since the other Senator from PA, Rick Santorum, is a very right-wing wingnut closer to Toomey than Specter, it may have interesting ramifications for the future of the Republican party in this state, at least locally.

Anyway, this is by far the most important election that'll take place before Nov 2nd, I expect. Thought I'd fill you in. I plan on voting for Specter tomorrow. We'll see how it turns out, and I'll post my thoughts on it after the election. But anyone interested in the Republican party or even just the presidential election this fall would do well to watch this one.

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I should add that that is by no means a complete list of the dynamics or possiblities here, just the ones that come to mind. Another possibility is that, if Toomey is to win, that the Republican streak of this state is a lot stronger and hardlined than anybody could have guessed (a Toomey-Santorum Senate delegation would be among the most conservative in the country). Or, if that isn't the case, than either candidate is going to have a hard time coming out of this and beating Hoeffel, because they will have effectively ceded the moderates, as this entire 14 month primary has been basically a contest to out-conservative each other. Conventional wisdom suggests that if Toomey wins, Hoeffel will beat him for the seat, unseating a Republican lion and edging the Democrats closer to a Senate majority, but if Specter wins, he'll get re-elected in a second close race, but that Bush may have some problems picking up the state for his own releection.

This is a pretty fascinating race to watch for any number of reasons.

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Registered: Sep 2000
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Astonishing news.

National Review has been pimping Toomey for months...and not in passing, but in great big feature articles and cover stories. I had sort of assumed it was one of their glorious lost causes. Apparently not.

Still think the Conservative base won't be energized for the election? This could be a big wake-up call.

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D'oh. I forgot the best part.

If Specter wins, the National chairman of the Constitution party has announced that he will run against Specter in the general election.

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Yep, this political year is going to be an interesting one for the history books, Paint.

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Well, I just got back from voting for Specter.

Here's an article on the matter that I think is pretty good, specifically addressing what you said, Jr. That whole article is good, but here is an excerpt:

quote:

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Today, in the Pennsylvania senatorial primary, the right wing is seeking revenge against Specter, backing Congressman Pat Toomey in a well-funded challenge. The race has emerged as a test of how the Republican Party can best protect its majority in Congress -- by tolerating independent voices like Specter's or purging them in the hopes that a consistent, disciplined message will inspire a deeper faith in voters.

President Bush and his political guru, Karl Rove, have endorsed Specter and done everything possible to discourage Toomey. Bush will, of course, be on the ballot in Pennsylvania this November, with hopes of burying the Democrats with a win there. His support for Specter suggests that he'd rather fly into battle with a long-serving moderate as his wingman than a true-believing abortion foe and tax-cutter like Toomey.

This is consistent with the way Bush has governed. With a budget surplus to spend, he both sated the party's base with a historically large tax cut and indulged the pork-barrel wing of the Republican Party, which argues that a majority party has to buy a little support on the margins by giving in to local projects.

That's the approach that led to four decades of postwar dominance by the Democrats, who governed with majorities featuring every stripe of politician, from far-right Southerners to prairie populists to college-town socialists. The resulting chaos was also, arguably, what caused the Democratic egg to finally break apart 10 years ago, never to come back together again.

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I posted this at www.dailykos.com, a liberal activist site that I've found to be a good resource for information. I thought I'd post it here, though it loses much of its context (a lot of people on that site are really rooting for a Toomey win because they expect that Hoeffel would have an easier time beating him than Specter). So, bear in mind the crowd I was posting this too, I deliberatly slanted it for the audience.

quote:

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It occurred to me that I might be a rarity at this site. We're all talking about the Republican primary between Arlen Specter and Pat Toomey, but I may well be the only person active here who actually VOTED in it. Because of that singularly weird perspective (a registered Republican who is in fact an active Libertarian doing work this year to help get Democrats elected), I thought it might be worth diarizing about.

I voted for Arlen Specter today (along with a half dozen other moderate Republicans vying for much smaller seats), and I was happy to do so. I've joined with the rest of you in theorizing and strategizing about this race and the upcoming general election, but the reason I voted for Specter has nothing to do with theories and little to do with strategies. My vote was cast for a simple reason: he is the best man for the job (that job being the Republican nominee, not the Senator).

I`m not a huge fan of Arlen Specter. He has without a doubt the worst record in the entire chamber on pork barrel spending, something my fiscally responsible nose can't help but turn up at. He has a bad record on any number of things, dating back decades. And, he is a chief ally and cheerleader for what is in my estimation the most dangerous administration in my lifetime (by a lot). There are a lot of reasons I don't like Specter, and despite my vote today, I don't plan on my support following through to the general election (where I plan to vote for Hoeffel).
But, Specter also represents a lot of good things about the Republican party. For all that is wrong with him, he is, by all rights, a sane choice for moderate Republicans, in the vein of Snowe, Chaffee, McCain, and before them, in the mold of elite legislators like Bob Dole, or on the other side of the aisle, Russ Fiengold, John Kerry, etc (where sometimes ideology and partisanship takes a back seat to working together to get things done). Specter has, for a Republican, a very strong record on reproductive rights, for instance. Despite his porkbarelling and advocacy of the Bush administration, he has also been a moderating influence in things like budget priorities, homeland security, civil liberties, right to privacy, and other things that, for me anyway, are often make or break issues in an election year. As an influential member of the judiciary committee, he has been conservative, to be sure (Anita Hill anyone), but he has also been, at times, very fair (remember he was against the Clinton impeachment from the get-go and provided a beacon of leadership for Senate Republicans opposing that effort). Basically, he's the sort of Republican that I want more of. That I wouldn't vote for Specter in a general election is besides the point; it comes down to the fact that he is a much more positive influence in the Republican party than the neo-cons, the ideologues, the xenophobes, the bible-thumpers, the moral majority, the Christian coalition, and all those other minority elements that are slowly turning the GOP into a party of dangerous wingnuts.

That last paragraph is all open to debate, and I'm sure it will be. I'm not trying to convince anybody to like Arlen Specter. But I am asking that his role in the GOP be examined objectively and fairly, and compared to the likely role of people like Pat Toomey, Rick Santorum, etc. For all of Specter's faults, the fact that he is the lesser of a myriad of potential evils at least needs to be recognized.

That's part of where I'm coming from. But to fully illustrate the counterpoint to that, let me give you a brief example of something I saw today.

I was coming back from lunch, crossing busy streets (jaywalking something awful) when I turned a corner and ended up behind a big white van parked at the curb as I waited for some cars to clear so I could safely cross the street. There were a half dozen people congregated at the back of that van, opening the rear doors, and I glanced over to see what they were doing.

What they were doing was unloading signs. Big ones, those six by four signs that you can see for blocks. The van was PACKED with them, from front to rear; there must have been two hundred in there. And, being big ass signs, it was pretty easy to see what they were about. Pictures of mutilated fetuses, six feet tall. Those really disgusting pictures that you see sometimes outside of clinics and hospitals. The people were unloading the signs and each person that got one was directed to a specific corner, where they stood, facing their signs in whatever direction garnered the most attention. There were about 8 people at this particular place, and six of them got signs while two of them, big guys with camcorders, hung out. After unloading, the van closed up and got underway, presumably to hand out signs to followers at some other location.

I live in Pittsburgh, Squirrel Hill, a heavily Jewish and liberal neighborhood, pretty affluent, where "Anybody But Bush" bumper stickers are not uncommon. It was fairly surprising then for me to see that sort of demonstration. I went to high school in Topeka, Kansas, and I lived a few blocks from the Westboro Baptist church, so I am fairly used to obscene signs and irate protestors on every streetcorner (if you don't know who Fred Phelps is, find out). People with signs like "God Hates Fags" and "HOMOSEXUALITY IS THE DISEASE, AIDS IS THE CURE!", sometimes signs being held by six year old girls. I learned to ignore them, largely, and haven't really seen protests on every streetcorner quite like that since I left Topeka. But, their presence today reminded me of something I had forgotten:

I don't like those people.

People like that really bother me. People that want to shock and scare you into their point of view. People that are sure they know what is best for everybody else. People that are so assured in their own beliefs that rational discourse has largely become meaningless. People that confuse moral imperatives from God himself with the business of running a country. That sort of person just really pisses me off.

And, it occurred to me why I was going, in a few hours, to vote for Arlen Specter.

I want to give those sorts of people as little legitimacy in American political discourse as possible.

I don't want those people to have a powerful voice. I am glad that they are protesting and support them fully in their right to do it, but I want it to be coming from a far-out branch of politics, one that can basically be written off as ineffectual wingnuts. I want to take any action I can to disempower that segment of the American population, at least as far as the political process is concerned. Every single vote they get, EVERY one, is just a little bit more political currency for them, no matter how you look at it.

I don't know that I could ever hold my nose long and hard enough to vote for a candidate that openly and happily represented those people. You can say all you want about strategy, but I still have the perhaps old-fashioned belief that voting is a duty, an almost sacred duty, and when I go to the polls I don't think in terms of "which way can I vote that will be most useful to such and such long term strategic goals", I think "of these choices, which is the one I think is most suited for the position they're running for? Who am I willing to give my support to in terms of tacitly endorsing them to represent me? Of the choices in front of me, who is the best candidate for the job?"

Arlen Specter deserves to lose his seat. But he deserves to lose it to a better candidate, not a immeasurably worse one. People here often wish that the Republican party was MORE dangerous, MORE close-minded, MORE restrictive, because, in their mind, that would make them easier to beat. That perspective has always seemed counter-intuitive to me, because presumably, it's based on the predicate that if those guys lose, the Democrats will get in office. But, Democrats getting into office isn't an end in itself, is it? We want more Democrats in office because it better serves our country, us. We want more Democrats in office because it shifts the national debate left instead of right. We want more Democrats in office because basically, we want more people in office to do the right thing. We don't want Democrats in office just for the sake of it. At least, I don't.

Keeping in mind the end, not the means, I don't see how political discourse is better served in any way by a Republican party that is swinging more and more to the right. I don't see how our political system is better served when half of the public voices in this country are intolerant and close-minded. Unless your desire is to dominate so severely that the Republican voice is all but silenced, I don't understand how the party shifting more towards the demagogues helps anything (and, I don`t share that desire, for the record, I favor a balanced system of two different but basically sane perspectives). Wouldn't this country be better off if the 2000 election was McCain/Gore with third parties like Browne, Buchanan, and Nader (I also voted for McCain in the Republican primary of 2000)? Wouldn't a PA delegation of Specter/Hoeffel be vastly superior to Santorum/Toomey? Wouldn't we all be better off if the Republican party ran competent, intelligent moderates, instead of close-minded wingnuts? We're a country already divided too much for my taste, I don't see how anything is better served by the two poles moving further and further away from each other and ceding the middle ground. I don't WANT the Republican party in my state to feel like they can't win with a moderate, that they have to start running more and more screwballs. "We need to run less Specters and more Toomeys" is a message I do NOT want them to receive today.

There are other considerations, for sure, and I recognize them and think they have their place. But as a person that has to live here for the foreseeable future, I just can't stomach the thought of somebody like Specter losing to somebody like Toomey, regardless of how that plays out strategically. It reminds me of the line from the Usual Suspects: "How can you shoot the devil in the back? What if you miss?" In this case, what if Toomey beats Hoeffel (Hoeffel`s victory over Toomey is by no means assured, even if it is slightly more likely than a victory over Specter, and it`s a mistake to assume because Toomey wins today that Hoeffel has it in the bag)? What if his rabid base comes out in droves in November and turns the election to Bush? What if the Republican party of this state starts moving further and further away from moderate legislators like Specter? I'm not willing to take that gamble. The stakes are too high. If Hoeffel ends up losing to Specter, I can handle that. If Hoeffel ends up losing to Toomey, I don`t know that I can.

We'll find out in a few hours, one way or the other. But, I'm happy with my vote. Specter doesn't deserve to win reelection in the general, but I certainly hope that it's his voice that finds resonance with the Republican voters instead of Pat Toomey's. Hopefully, the Constitutional Party will mount a run against him in the general election, as they promise to do, in which case we really get the best of both worlds.

But, I'm convinced that, in the race of Toomey vs Specter, I voted for the better man, and that's all I ask of myself when I step behind the curtain.

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I should also note that this primary marked a field test of the Bush GOTV effort (Get Out the Vote). The turnout was abysmal, which is expected to benefit Toomey (again, my theory that moderate on the fence Republicans are going to stay home because they're unsatisfied with Republican leadership these days).

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Starting to get called for Specter, with about a 52-47 margin.

edit: Or, that X next to his name could mean he's the incumbent. Duh.

Not sure who that's good news for, but I'm pleased. Sounds like the better man is going to win, which is always a plus in my book.

Last edited by Paint CHiPs on 04-28-2004 at 03:16 AM

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76% in, 51-49 Specter, closing up, with Philly (Specter territory) already counted.

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AP just called it for Specter, with 97% precints reporting, 51-49, within 17,000 votes. Assuming the right wing hardliners get pissed off because Bush's endorsement made the difference, here's hoping they hold a grudge.

But, all around, I couldn't have wished for a better outcome. The better man won, but just barely, and will come out the other end badly bruised and beaten.

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Robert Byrd has the worst voting record on pork-barrell spending.

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