Campaign Diaries

The prospect that Arlen Specter might run as an independent appeared very real just a few weeks ago, and the Pennsylvania Senator explicitly opened the door to such a scenario as recently as March 18th. Yet, there is now little doubt that Specter has ruled out running as an independent given how aggressive a campaign Arlen Specter is already mounting against his probable primary opponent Pat Toomey.

In case any one still harbors doubts, Specter offered a definite push-back in an interview with Newsweek. “I’m a Republican and I’m going to run in the Republican primary and on the Republican ticket,” he said.

Remember that this means that Specter cannot change his mind later and pull a Lieberman. Because of the state’s sore loser law, a candidate cannot run as an independent after losing a primary. This means that there are two scenarios left for Specter: Either he loses the Republican primary and his career is finished or he beats Toomey and… he moves on to the general election.

Yes, it’s easy to forget that Specter’s showdown with Toomey will not get him out of the woods - far from it. Having spent months moving to the right, Specter will have to immediately turn around and win over Democratic-leaning voters. Sure, that can be a problem for all candidates who emerge from bruising primaries, but it is a particularly large one for the Pennsylvania Senator.

He is so distrusted by the conservatives who hold the key to next year’s primary (much more than they did in 2004) that he will have to undergo a much starker ideological transformation than most candidates have to through to. “He accuses me of being a liberal, as though that’s some form of a dirty word,” said Specter of Toomey in their 2004 match-up. Given that there is now a battle for the soul of the Republican Party and given that many moderates have left the party over the past six years, it is doubtful that Specter could utter such a sentence today and survive. To win the primary, then, Specter will be forced to undermine the very attributes that have made him so successful at winning the support of Democratic-leaning voters.

Specter is already being beat up by groups that did not mobilize against him during his past re-election races. He could feel NARAL’s anger if he opposes Obama’s nominees to the Justice Department. And SEIU is sending out a mailer to its Pennsylvania members contrasting Specter’s willingness to support bonuses for Wall Street with his recent opposition to EFCA: “Senator Specter is threatening to withhold support for the Employee Free Choice Act, commonsense legislation that will level the playing field for American workers,” says the mailer. “We need Senator Specter to stand with us, not corporate CEOs.”

The mailer is intended to pressure Specter into supporting EFCA; it is not an electoral flier urging workers to defeat him at the polls. But given that it is rather unlikely that Specter would flip on the bill again, take this as the template of the anti-Specter efforts labor will undertake in the 2010 campaign:

Specter’s main hope for general election victory would be for Democrats not to nominate a top-tier candidate - and for now, there is no evidence that they will. Former National Constitution Center CEO Joe Torsella, who is already in the race, is a credible contender but he lacks the stature to guarantee a competitive fall race. Rep. Joe Sestak ruled out running for Senate a few months ago, and while he was said to be reconsidering, there is very little evidence that he is; Rep. Schwarz and Rep. Murphy have also done more to silence speculation than to encourage it. And Morning Call is now reporting that Auditor General Jack Wagner is telling friends that he will not run for Senate - another blow to the DSCC’s recruitment hopes.

If Specter comes to feel confident that he will not face top-tier competition in the general election, it would free him to move much further to the right in the primary without fearing consequences. The quality of Democratic recruitment will help decide Specter’s general election fate, but it could also decide whether Specter survives the primary.