From the WSJ Opinion Archives
CAMPAIGN 2004
Goliath Specter
A conservative David takes on Goliath Specter.
ALTOONA, Pa.--Republicans will be focused on Pennsylvania come November because capturing its 21 electoral votes almost certainly would mean a second term for President Bush. Conservatives, however, have reason to tune in to the state a lot sooner.
On April 27, GOP Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania's notoriously liberal pain in the trunk, will face conservative challenger Pat Toomey in a primary contest. A Toomey upset, say many on the right, would be a shot across the bow and send an important message to other "moderate" darlings of the Washington press corps: Continue to undermine your caucus--and for the past three years, your president--and you, too, might pay a political price in the form of a primary challenge.
Mr. Specter, first elected to the Senate in 1980 and seeking a fifth term, epitomizes the conservatives' dilemma. As Mr. Toomey put it during their debate here last weekend, "Whether we're talking about economic, social, legal, cultural or business issues, Senator Specter has a long history of voting with liberals."
Mr. Specter was one of President Reagan's most consistent Republican foes and one of President Clinton's most reliable allies. He's voted for five of the largest tax hikes in history and has opposed eight attempts to cut taxes in the past nine years. The senator is all for choice when it comes to abortion--even the partial-birth variety--but he draws the line at giving the underprivileged parental choice in schooling.
As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Specter has blocked conservative judges such as Robert Bork and Jeff Sessions. And while he strongly supported Clarence Thomas's nomination to the Supreme Court, he has since expressed "disappointment" with Justice Thomas's performance.
In Mr. Toomey, the incumbent senator faces a challenger with principled conservative views and the voting record to back them up. Mr. Toomey, who has represented the Allentown area of eastern Pennsylvania since 1998, has used his time in the House to push for everything that Mr. Specter resists: lower taxes, less spending, limited government and a social agenda in tune with his party's mainstream. The congressman has stood by the president on the war on terror. The senator's reaction to the capture of Saddam was to announce that he should be tried in the International Criminal Court and that the death penalty should be off the table.
Fearing that GOP primary voters might not abide his liberalism, Mr. Specter has spent the past year doing what he typically does in the fifth year of his term when facing a conservative primary challenger, as he was in 1986, 1992 and 1998. The senator has shifted rightward in behavior for the balance of the campaign to neutralize his opponent. Thanks to Mr. Toomey, for example, Mr. Specter has taken a hiatus from holding up court picks in committee. And after doing all he could to help Democrats shrink the 2001 tax cuts, he was an outspoken proponent of last year's tax package.
It remains to be seen whether Mr. Specter's strategy will work again. But recent polls have given conservatives reason for hope. The senator's commanding 23-point lead in January has shrunk to about 10 percentage points, according to two independent surveys. And among likely GOP voters Mr. Specter is below 50%, which is bad news for any incumbent because undecided voters tend to break for the challenger in the end.
That said, Mr. Specter very much remains the Goliath in this battle. He has much more money and name recognition, and it's the rarest of occurrences in politics for a sitting senator to lose a primary. To the frustration of many conservatives, Mr. Specter also has the support of the White House and the Republican leadership and has used their endorsement as a shield against Mr. Toomey's otherwise valid charges.
According to conventional Republican wisdom on the matter, Pat Toomey isn't a viable candidate statewide because Democrats, which you need to win statewide in Pennsylvania, won't vote for someone so conservative. Arlen Specter's ability to draw split-ticket voters is said to give Republicans the best chance of hanging on to a Senate seat even if John Kerry wins the state.
That analysis is problematic, says Mr. Toomey in an interview. "First, if you look at my congressional district, it's one of the toughest seats for any Republican in Pennsylvania to hold. I've won it three times and I've never lost it." Next, Mr. Toomey turns his attention to Rick Santorum, one of the Senate's most conservative members and a person against whom these very arguments were used when Mr. Santorum ran for the Senate in 1994. "They make the case that there are no Toomey-Kerry voters," he says. "OK. So how do you explain the significant number of Gore-Santorum voters? In 2000 Gore beat Bush statewide, 51% to 46%, and Santorum beat [Democrat Ron] Klink, 52% to 46%. There were obviously a lot of Gore-Santorum voters."
There's also the matter of the Democratic nominee, presumed to be Joe Hoeffel, a congressman from Northeast Philadelphia who's running unopposed. While Mr. Toomey has consistently run ahead of the top of the ticket--in a district carried by Mr. Gore in 2000, Mr. Toomey won by 14 percentage points against an opponent with money--Mr. Hoeffel has regularly underperformed and has never won more than 53% of the vote. Which is to say that the Keystone state still has enough Reagan Democrats to make a Toomey-Hoeffel race competitive.
For conservatives, though, what's most troubling about the conventional wisdom aren't the possible holes in the argument. It's the mindset behind them and what a decision to back Mr. Specter might say about the direction of the party. Do Republicans want to keep electing feed-the-beast types like Mr. Specter? Or is the party interested in promoting candidates who want to do more than spend their way to re-election? That the party has a chance to enact some discipline on its Rockefeller wing and extract a thorn that's been lodged in its side for the past 24 years in the process is exciting. That it might end up taking a pass is unfortunate.
Mr. Riley is a senior editorial writer at The Wall Street Journal.
