While I remain skeptical that Arlen Specter’s party switch is as wonderful news for Democrats as it is portrayed to be, this is certainly a disastrous development for the GOP. On November 5th, most Republicans probably woke up depressed, but they also had reason to hope that there was no way the party could sink any lower. Yet, the situation has arguably worsened over the past six months.
Barack Obama retains high approval ratings, the Democratic caucus looks more unified than it was in the early months of Bill Clinton’s presidency, Jim Tedisco’s loss in New York’s special election was a blow to the NRCC’s hopes of regaining some footing, the GOP has all but lost the Minnesota seat that Coleman initially looked set to hold on to and the 2010 Senate landscape looks brutal for Republicans because of the retirements of four swing-state Senators.
And now, Arlen Specter’s switch reduces the GOP’s Senate caucus to 40 members. Once Al Franken is seated, Republicans will no longer have the power to force a filibuster; even if they are unified, they will always need a Democratic vote to block legislation or a nomination. (Note: Ted Kennedy’s absence does make the situation a bit more complicated.)
In short, Republicans have been completely forced out of senatorial power in a way no party has been since 1977 - and at the time the Senate still had a number of Dixiecrats that kept the GOP out of the wilderness.
Sure, Republicans can still rely on conservative Democratic Senators, some of whom are closer to centrist Republicans than to progressive Democrats. But that should not obscure the fact that Evan Bayh, Ben Nelson and now Arlen Specter answer to Harry Reid. Mitch McConnell can no longer sit down with the rest of the Republican leadership to plot filibusters - and he can no longer pick-up the phone and call his caucus members to figure out whether they are willing to back him.
The blame game
All of this said, I find arguments over what Specter’s switch says about the GOP’s ideological shrinkage to be overstated. The bottom line is that the Senator became a Democrat because that was his only hope of winning re-election, not because he is suddenly at odds with his party’s political philosophy: He has shown no sign of moving leftward over the past 30 years, and the GOP’s current positioning dates back to at least the 1994 midterms - not to mention that Ronald Reagan (who was first elected in 1980, just like Specter) was no more moderate than conservatives currently are.
So should the GOP blame the Club for Growth, as many including Specter are now doing? I find that illogical, just as it was illogical to blame liberals for pushing Lieberman out of their party in 2006. Sure, Specter was so endangered by Toomey that he had to leave the GOP if he wanted to win re-election, but the reason he was so vulnerable is that he never won his party’s trust over 29 years. If anything, Specter’s decision to leave the GOP vindicates Toomey’s arguments, just as Ned Lamont’s insurgency was vindicated when Lieberman endorsed McCain. It’s not like most Senators would be comfortable with switching parties if threatened in a primary.
On the other hand, if there is a Republican who is weakened by yesterday’s news, it is Michael Steele. It is one thing for Club for Growth to attack Specter, it is another for the RNC Chairman to threaten to withhold support from a 5-term incumbent. Steele came to the RNC promising to grow the party, and we can’t say he has been too successful for now.
Did Pennsylvania Republicans improve their shot at holding the seat?
What is the state of the GOP’s Senate field? Today, Pat Toomey penned an op-ed in The Washington Times blasting Specter and stating that he is still running for Senate. If he wins the Republican nomination, he is likely to lose the general election: While left-leaning voters might not turn out to vote if Specter is their nominee, the Senator should have enough support among Democrats and independents to hold off his former primary opponent.
Will any other Republican jump in the Senate race? One name that is mentioned: former Governor Tom Ridge. (South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham just said that he would contact Ridge.) But how likely is it that Ridge will want to run against his old ally Specter? Even more difficult to imagine is that Republican voters Specter just abandoned will be open to supporting another moderate, pro-choice Republican instead of Toomey. The same goes for the prospect of a candidacy by Jim Gerlach.
Beyond Gerlach and Ridge, there are other politicians the party could turn to, and we should give the GOP field some time to take shape before drawing conclusion: This is the first time since 1994 that the Republican primary will be open, i.e. the first time in 15 years ambitious Pennsylvania Republicans can run for Senate without having to face a GOP incumbent. Specter was showing no sign of considering retirement, so it is a safe bet that Attorney General Tom Corbett, former Governor Mark Schweiker, former Lieutenant Governor William Scranton or Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati had not even thought of the possibility that they might jump in the race. What will they decide now that Specter’s switch opened up the Republican field?
Until yesterday, it was looking likely that Toomey would win the GOP nomination and go on to lose the general election; but Specter’s switch opens the possibility that Republicans might nominate an electable candidate.
While Corbett, Schweiker, Cranton, Scarnati or Ridge would all start as underdogs against Specter, they might have a shot if the liberal base deserts the general election: the Senate race will be the top of the ticket next year, with no presidential election to turn out Democratic voters who do not care about electing Specter. And the bottom line is that these Republicans would have a stronger shot at winning than Toomey - who was until yesterday the party’s probable nominee.
This is certainly not enough of a boost for the loss of a 41st Senate seat to be worth the trouble, but there is a case to be made that Republicans improved their chances of keeping this seat beyond 2010 with Specter’s move!
I am no fan of Reagan but comparing him with today’s Republicans is unfair for him.
I have a hard time imagining Reagan approving torture, talking about secession or using hateful rhetoric against the illegal immigrants.
And that’s only a handful of issues where today’s GOP has strayed far more to the right than Reagan or Goldwater could ever imagine.
As for Specter, he isn’t dumb. He knows how to survive and if his survival means a liberal voting record then he will have no qualms to produce it. He may be talking about how independent he is but he also said to Obama that he supports his agenda and he will be a loyal Democrat.
For the electable Republicans on the other hand nothing has changed. It still makes more sense for them to run for the open Governor’s seat than to take on an incumbent who will have the full backing of the Obama and Pennsylvania Democratic machine.
Panos, Specter has primarily drawn heat for his position on economic issues (the stimulus, past support for card-check legislation) rather than for anything national security-related. And Reaganomics set the course for the GOP’s current philosophy on issues like spending and taxation - which is why I mentioned that Reagan and Specter were elected the year!
Panos, Goldwater in particular was more of a libertaran than a conservative, but that is something I can talk about later. Reagan ideogically was very similar to most Republicans today, but the difference is that he was much more pragmatic. For example, he made himself out as a economic conservative and war hawk, which he did put himself out as, but he did raise taxes at least once (with a Dem dominated House of Rep) and he did talk to Gorbachev near the end of the Soviet Union’s lifetime.
In terms of Republicans possibly getting another candiate, I seriously doubt that anyone would try to challange Toomey unless he dropped out. Ridge may be a former govenor, but he has been out of politics for while, probably wouldn’t be too gung-ho about challanging his old friend Spectar, plus his pro-choice views probably make him unacceptable to the very conservative PA GOP electorate. Same thing for Gerlach, except he would be even weaker because he isn’t a former governor (or state wide offical in general).
On the other GOP candidates now mulling the govenorship will probably not want to jump in the GOP primary and face GOP grassroots favorite Toomey. The only person who I think could defeat Toomey in a GOP primary is the Attorny General, Tom Corbett, because he is a current statewide offical (showing that he has statewide appeal) if he was heavily backed by the GOP establishment he could win a primary based on his electability. I have no idea on his ideology but presumeably he is fairly conservative, not like Rick Santorum, but more than Spectar. The only issue is that he probably prefers (to a great extent) to be governor and is unlikely to jump into a contested race.
In sum, unless Toomey drops out, the GOP will be unlikely to find a more electable candidate who could win a GOP primary and go on to win the general election. While the conventional wisdom is that Toomey is so conservative he can’t win, he will probably stay in the race anyway: the GOP primary for the PA governor’s race seems to be too crowded, and he is probaby hoping that voters see Spectar’s move to the Democrats as one purely based on selfish gains, and that digusted voters would either vote for Toomey or not vote in large enough numbers that he beat Specter.
Perhaps Rick Santorum will consider a run. He would have no chance of winning a general but would be a good bet in the primary. I realize his name has been linked with the Governors race but that was before the Specter move.
The Republican party may not have changed in political ideology since Reagan was President, but the GOP’s tolerance towards moderates in their caucus has deteriorated. As a result, the moderate faction in the GOP senate has dwindled in numbers.
Go back to the 97th Congress (1981-82). There were plenty of moderate Republicans in the Senate, including Lowell Weicker, Charles Percy, Bob Dole, Nancy Landon Kassebaum, Charles Mathias, William Cohen, John Danforth, Warren Rudman, Mark Hatfield, Bob Packwood, John Heinz, Arlen Specter, John Chafee, Howard Baker, John Warner, and Slade Gorton. That was 25% of the the 53 Republican Senators. Look at the GOP party today. You could lump Collins and Snowe, and maybe add Murkowski and Voinovich. That would be 10% of the current 40 members.
My point is that the mainstream GOP may have had a conservative message in the 1980’s, but they had a bigger tent than they have today.
I wouldn’t consider Bob Dole or John Danforth moderate. Perhaps they were more pragmatic, but they certainly were not moderate.
We can debate that list of 1981-82 “moderate” Republicans all day, but the point is they were ‘tolerant’ of dissent, open to compromise. Compare that list to McConnell, Boehner, and Limbaugh/Hannity. And has everyone forgotten RR’s 11th commandment: “Thou shalt not speak evil of a fellow Republican”? That’s how you get a big tent. Ask Lieberman as he chairs his committee.
There are several Republicans who could give Specter a run, but the question is whether any of them would win a primary against Toomey. PA has a closed primary, only 21% of the public now identifies as Republican (it would be interesting to see what that number is in PA), and primaries tend to draw out party loyalists, all of which would seem to favor Toomey. So as much as a moderate Republican is the party’s only hope of holding the seat, a moderate winning the party primary may be a long shot given the state of the party these days.
But I suspect we’ll have a flurry of polling in the near future to give us a preliminary estimate of where things stand.