Specter the survivor had no choice

by Tom Ferrick

Arlen Specter’s decision to switch to the Democratic Party caught official Washington by surprise today. To me, the timing was a surprise, but not the decision.

Specter really had no option— not if he wanted to continue serving in the U.S. Senate. He approval rating among Republican voters was at an all-time low. In former Congressman Pat Toomey, he faced a formidable conservative opponent. If he ran in 2010 as a Republican, the odds were overwhelming that he would never get past the GOP primary.

Remember, this was a guy who beat Toomey in 2004 by only 17,146 votes. Since then, as Specter himself has noted, two things have happened that have altered the political landscape in Pennsylvania. One was not of his making, the second was.

The first is the defection of so many moderate Republicans to the Democratic Party, particularly in the five-county Philadelphia area, which is Specter’s home base. There are 124,000 fewer Republicans in the Philadelphia area today than there were in 2004. Most of them were Specter supporters when he ran last time.

The second was Specter’s support of President Obama’s stimulus plan—one of only three Republican Senators to cast “Yes” votes. It made him anathema to Republican conservative voters, who are likely to dominate next year’s primary.

As Specter put it in his statement announcing his defection to the Democrats: “It has become clear to me that the stimulus vote caused a schism which makes our differences irreconcilable. On this state of the record, I am unwilling to have my twenty-nine year Senate record judged by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate…”

For the record, in the latest Quinnipiac poll, released March 25, Specter’s approval rating among Republicans was 36 percent. Among Democrats it was 71 percent. In the same poll, Toomey had a 14-point lead over the incumbent.

I know that Gov. Ed Rendell has been trying to convince Specter to switch parties for some time. Ditto Joe Biden, his friend and Amtrak seatmate for so many years in their commutes home from Washington.

But my bet: It was Specter’s internal polling that settled the issue. A few weeks ago, he paid for a flight of anti-Toomey ads that ran in selected TV markets in the state. That was probably a test to see if he could move the numbers against Toomey. My guess is they did not.

In a previous piece, I wondered out loud if Specter was suffering from Rick Santorum Syndrome, which I defined a “malady that inflicts an incumbent whose negatives are so deep and fixed among voters that he cannot convince them to support him—no matter how much time, money and effort he puts into changing their minds.”

It was obvious, among the core Republican vote, that Specter had a fatal case of RSS. Today’s move is the equivalent of a radical treatment that provides the cure.

The next question is: Can Specter win re-election as a Democrat in Pennsylvania?

My answer is: Are you kidding?

With the support of Rendell, President Obama, with his access to millions in campaign funds and with his strong base in southeast Pennsylvania, Specter is poised to roll over Toomey in a 2010 general election.

One footnote: It’s not well known, but Specter was a Democrat at the beginning of his career. Only after he was elected Philadelphia District Attorney as the Republican Party candidate in the early 1960’s did he officially switch parties. Now, he’s back.

The writer is a former political reporter and metro columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer who covered Arlen Specter’s first race for the U.S. Senate in 1976.