Sen. Arlen Specter’s defection from the Republican Party drew cheers Tuesday from President Barack Obama and other top Democrats. But some key players in the party base viewed the move with suspicion — demanding that if Specter wants to call himself a Democrat, he had better start acting like one.
As a moderate Republican, for example, Specter maintained friendly relations with Pennsylvania’s powerful labor unions, which were glad to have him on their side on many issues. Now, if Specter hopes to win next year’s Democratic primary and retain his seat, that will not be enough.
“As of now, he has about a 68 percent voting record [in siding with labor], which is good for a Republican but does not meet the mustard when it comes to getting endorsed as a Democrat,” said Bill George, president of the state AFL-CIO.
Neil Oxman, a Democratic strategist who advises Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and Joseph Torsella, who is planning a bid for the Democratic Senate nomination, described Specter as a politician who “transforms himself for every election” and is now “disguising the fact he supported Bush 76 percent of the time and voted for all of these Republican judges.” Oxman’s criticism previewed a likely attack that the newly minted Democrat will face in a party primary.
“The question is, will Democrats buy this or not?” Oxman said.
Such sentiments underscore that top Democratic leaders and Specter face some perils as they try to transform the senator from a Republican with a mixed voting record on labor and environmental issues into the Democratic establishment’s favorite to be their nominee.
Specter could prove very valuable to Democrats if, as expected, Democrat Al Franken beats out Republican Norm Coleman for Minnesota’s Senate seat. That would give Democrats 58 Senate seats; add two independents and the party would have the 60-vote margin necessary to block a filibuster, a powerful tool for stalling legislation.
Obama, in offering Tuesday to campaign and raise money for Specter, risks alienating key elements of his base in a politically important state. And Specter, who on Tuesday vowed that adopting the Democratic label did not mean he would start agreeing with the party on every issue, may soon find himself forced to satisfy a new set of constituencies — particularly if he faces a competitive primary.
Complicating matters from the start were Specter’s statements Tuesday reiterating his opposition to legislation being pushed by the unions that would make it easier for them to recruit new members.
Specter also said Tuesday that he opposes Obama’s pick to head the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, Dawn Johnsen, who has drawn the ire of Republicans because of her work as a lawyer for an abortion-rights group and her outspoken criticism of Bush-era interrogation policies. And the incumbent senator will be forced to reckon with a sour rating from environmentalists; last year he earned a 27 percent rating from the League of Conservation Voters.Those stances threaten to cloud the positions that Specter and leading Democrats say could put him in good stead with their party — including his support for abortion rights, his strong backing of embryonic stem cell research and his recent role as a key GOP backer for Obama’s stimulus bill.
Specter himself acknowledged that his defection decision had far more to do with a calculated assessment of polling data — which showed him being trounced in a Pennsylvania Republican primary — than any major agreement on policy matters. Policy stances on issues did not come up during negotiations with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Specter said, adding that doing so would have led to a “long, perhaps unpleasant, conversation.”
Both Reid and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois described this as the culmination of a five-year effort by Democratic leaders to win him over.
Obama, Reid and Sen. Bob Menendez, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, all embraced Specter on Tuesday as the Democratic favorite, and all offered to campaign for him.
This is a puzzling development to Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.), a retired Navy admiral who has been eyeing a Senate bid. Sestak, who represents portions of the politically important Philadelphia suburbs that have recently moved from swing regions to Democratic strongholds, had been viewed as a strong contender.
The shape of the Democratic Senate primary election “needs to reside not in the hierarchy of my party but with the citizens of Pennsylvania,” Sestak said. The party leadership, he said, is “making a judgment call on what they evidently think is best, because they are caught up in how many votes they have in the Senate. But we promised a new era.”
Sestak said Specter would have to answer a series of questions in coming weeks, such as why Democratic voters should view him as a leader in their party when he failed to prevent the GOP from moving to the hard right.
“What are you running for, Arlen?” Sestak asked. “How are you going to use your leadership to shape the Democratic Party? Is it to the way we believe Pennsylvania should be helped? And the platform we should follow? Are you a Democrat, an independent, or a Republican?”
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What he said then
“If somebody wants to change parties, they can do that. But that kind of instability is not good for governance of the country and the Senate.”
— Arlen Specter in 2001, when Sen. Jim Jeffords left the Republican Party, giving control of the Senate to the Democrats
On Tuesday, Specter sought to draw a distinction between his party change and that of Jeffords: chicagotribune.com/jeffords
* Specter’s statement explaining the move to his constituents is at chicagotribune.com/specter
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pwallsten@tribune.com
