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The continuing relevance of Arlen Specter

Arlen Specter has been very busy lately, working hard to prove his worth as a legislator. On the health care front, these efforts have been quite commendable. Last Friday, he introduced an amendment to the health care bill, co-sponsored by Republican Senator Susan Collins and Independent Joe Lieberman, which was “intended to further three goals: reduce costs, increase transparency, and improve quality.”

The amendment was lauded in The New York Times for working to find a real way to cut health care costs.

Of further interest was Specter’s polite castigation of those same colleagues at a press conference introducing the amendment, where he told Collins and Lieberman that they need to “reread the fine print on the public option.” With this set of events, Specter presents himself as quite an adept political animal, cleverly earning the accord of two moderate, on-the-fence Senators on a bipartisan amendment, and then using the trust he’s earned in that process to press them on the part of the reform proposal most dear to liberal hearts.

While this went largely unnoticed in the mainstream media, it helps prove Specter’s continuing value as a senator in his new party. If Specter is quietly able to work behind the scene to assure that colleagues like Collins and Lieberman go along with health care legislation, he may be able to later position himself as the savior of the health care package—provided, of course, that the bill actually passes the Senate.

One thing’s for sure: Specter’s hard work for President Obama on this signature domestic agenda item will not go unnoticed by voters, and its success or failure will cast a long shadow over his chances at reelection.

Health care isn’t the only issue on which Specter has been making waves lately. Just do a Google News search for Arlen Specter, and you’ll be bombarded with a host of issues on which the Senator has been active lately: speaking out for abortion rights on the floor of the Senate (“We cannot allow this amendment to set back women’s health and distract from real healthcare reform”), fighting to save five Veteran’s Outreach Centers in Pennsylvania, and just today publishing an op-ed in The Daily News on why he opposes the surge in Afghanistan.

Specter is smart to maintain a vigorous schedule and to keep projecting his power in the public arena because by doing so, he shows Pennsylvanians his value as their elected official.

Joe Sestak may have won Barney Frank’s endorsement, but in my estimation, by putting himself at the fulcrum of the major public policy debates of the moment, Specter is winning the week.

December 9, 2009 at 5:05 pm

--Adam Schwartzbaum

Tags: Arlen Specter, Joe Sestak

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