send to a friend | print | comment

Specter of Doom?

Over at Daily Kos, Arjun Jaikumar makes the argument that with Specter a whopping 20 points behind Toomey in a recent survey of Pennsylvania Republicans, Specter’s only hope is to go rogue and run as an independent. By triangulating between the hard right-Toomey and the (presumably) weak Democratic candidate, Specter can pull a Lieberman and edge this one out.

The dynamics of this race are somewhat different from those that snagged Lieberman a win in 2006. While Lieberman faced a challenge from the left, he was able to pick up a significant amount of Republican support to win the election. The official Republican candidate, Alan Schlesinger, was widely abandoned by Connecticut Republicans, and only picked up nine percent of the state vote. Lieberman picked up a whopping 70 percent of Republican votes, in addition to 33 percent of Democrats and 54 percent of Independents. For Specter to win as an Independent in Pennsylvania, he would have to draw large numbers of Democrats to his side if he can only count on the 30 percent of Republicans who currently support him to vote for him as an Independent. In an independent state like Pennsylvania, its not out of the range of possibility—but it’s no easy task.

What do you think Specter should do?

April 25, 2009 at 9:07 pm

--Adam Schwartzbaum

Tags: Arlen Specter, Pat Toomey

comments

comments [0] | post a comment