Campaign Diaries

Who knew Specter had this much fighting left in him?

If anyone thought that Arlen Specter no longer had enough fire to beat back Pat Toomey, this past week should be enough to dispell your doubts. Three days ago, the Pennsylvania Senator launched the first attack ad of the 2010 cycle; accusing Toomey of being one of those responsible for today’s financial mess. That unexpectedly aggressive approach sent a clear signal: Specter will not go down without a fight.

On Friday, Specter provided another sign that he will not wait for the campaign to pick-up (or even for voters to start paying attention) to pound on his nemesis. He sent a letter to the President of Club for Growth:

Dear Mr. Toomey,

I understand from numerous press reports that you are soon to leave the Presidency of the Club for Growth to run for the U.S. Senate.

In recent weeks as you have shifted your attention from a long-planned run for Governor to another Senate campaign, you have criticized the TARP bill I voted for last fall. Given the Wall Street background of your members, it seems clear that many of them would have received TARP monies.

Please gather a list of the contributors to the Club for Growth by contributor name, date, amount and whether they received TARP money and if so, how much and when.

Sincerely,

Arlen Specter

With this amusing letter, Specter is hoping to discredit Toomey’s attacks on his own support for the bailout and the stimulus bills by pointing out that Toomey’s attacks are funded by those funds! More generally, he is pursuing the same objective as in his ad: Connect his opponent to the economic crisis by saying that Toomey’s policies are those that got us in the financial mess and that Toomey’s constituencies are wealthy businessmen whose shady dealings are responsible for today’s situation.

The latter argument should be more effective than the former. As I pointed out three days ago, conservative voters are unlikely to agree with Specter that Toomey’s deregulative, laissez-faire economic proposals are responsible for the economic crisis. On the other hand, populism can take a conserative form just as it can accompany a leftist discourse. The conservative base certainly shares the anger over executive pay or  businessmen benefiting from bailout funds. Specter can benefit if he links Toomey to those people - but can he do so without tarnishing himself, since that he voted for the bailout and the stimulus bills?

Thune displays no vulnerability

Few people expect Tom Daschle and Stephanie Herseth Sandlin to challenge Senator John Thune in 2010, but some Democrats have voiced hoped that the DSCC can pull off such recruitment coups for South Dakota’s Senate race to get on the map of competitive races.

A new Research 2000 poll suggests that Thune would be the clear favorite even if top-tier Democratic opposition were to materialize:

• Against former Senator Tom Daschle, Thune leads 53% to 40%. Against Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, he is ahead 51 to 39%. Neither Democrat breaks into the double-digits among Republican respondents, and both decisively trail among independents.

• All three have good favorability ratings. While Thune’s is the strongest, 57% to 32%, Sandlin is not far behind, 53% to 31%. A high 43% have an unfavorable opinion of Daschle, however (versus 50%).

• The poll’s last finding is that Obama’s favorability rating is barely in the positives, 47% to 45%. South Dakota is a red state, however, so this is not unexpected.

Sure, Thune’s leads are not overwhelming. But his two opponents are as strong as Democrats can dream of fielding, so for him to break 50% and post double-digit leads tells us all we need to know about his vulnerability. In particular, Thune shows no sign of weakness when we consider the poll’s internals. Daschle and Herseth Sandlin are important enough to at least be able to count on their own party’s loyalty, and they get to to 39-40% on the strength of the state’s Democratic vote; Thune dominates the rest of the electorate.

Even if Daschle and Herseth Sandlin are actually considering jumping in the Senate race, such numbers are sure to keep them away. After all, Daschle has already suffered two near-fatal blows to his political career - his 2004 Senate loss and the scandals that forced him to withdraw his nomination to Obama’s Cabinet this spring; another failure would surely leave him out of the political game for sure. As for Herseth Sandlin, she undoubtedly has higher ambitions. But she is far more likely to jump in the open gubernatorial race if she decides to leave her safe House seat.