Posted on 05/12/2010 1:53:33 PM PDT by MissesBush
PITTSBURGH – The first time Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) slipped up here Tuesday night at the Allegheny County Democratic Committee’s Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, most in the audience pretended not to notice.
But at the end of his remarks when Specter again thanked the “the Allegheny County Republicans” for their endorsement, many couldn’t help but laugh nervously and shoot did-he-really-just-say-that looks at each other.
As amusing as it seemed to some of the Democrats in attendance, mistakes like that could end up costing him his job next Tuesday. It’s not that Specter is so precariously placed that he can’t weather the occasional gaffe, it’s that every little reminder of the 80-year-old’s Republican past chips away at his porcelain base in his new party.
“I think it’s not unusual for anybody to misspeak from time to time,” Specter shrugged to reporters after the dinner. “I’m not a television commentator. I’m not as smooth as you guys.”
No one actually expects that from Specter, a grizzled survivor of bare-knuckled Philadelphia politics, two bouts with cancer and five terms in the Senate.
But one year after he switched his affiliation from Republican to Democrat in part to claim a sixth term, he is still viewed with suspicion by many in the party and faces the gravest threat of his 30-year Senate career because a significant portion of Democratic voters simply cannot get accustomed to the idea that Specter is one of them.
Rep. Joe Sestak, a second-term congressman and retired admiral, is surging in the polls and seems to have momentum headed into Tuesday’s primary as a result of the recent refresher course he’s offered of Specter’s greatest GOP hits.
In an interview, the suburban Philadelphia congressman seized upon what he described as fresh evidence testifying to the senator’s questionable loyalties and penchant for political expedience.
With a chuckle, Sestak predicted that Specter would support Barack Obama’s nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court even though as a Republican he opposed her appointment as Solicitor General.
The challenger said the Kagan case was part of a trend where Specter has let politics play a role in his position on the Judiciary Committee.
Sestak brought up Specter’s purported agreement with former GOP Sen. Rick Santorum to support President George W. Bush’s Supreme Court nominees in exchange for the conservative Keystoner’s endorsement in Specter’s 2004 re-election bid.
“Arlen Specter has harmed the integrity of the process by giving away his vote for an endorsement,” Sestak said. Specter has denied any deal was made.
Sestak also brought up Specter’s aggressive questioning of Anita Hill in the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings – a moment that some liberals still haven’t forgotten roughly two decades later.
“He was very unfair in his almost inquisition of Anita Hill,” Sestak said.
Sestak’s role in the race is mostly just as that of an acceptable alternative. The Pennsylvania Democratic Senate primary is a referendum on Specter.
The incumbent’s argument is a familiar one, used by veteran politicians for generations to explain why they should be returned to office.
“Why would you want to trade 30 years of experience and seniority…for somebody who’s a back-bencher?” is how Specter himself put it in his remarks to the Pittsburgh-area Democrats after he rattled off all the funding he’s directed to the region thanks to his perch on the Appropriations Committee.
But in an election year where two other longtime congressional appropriators who touted their ability to bring home the bacon have already been felled, this traditional message isn’t packing the usual punch.
More threatening for Specter, however, is that the appeal reminds voters just how long he’s been in Washington and the deals he’s cut to be effective there.
The most notable – his critics would say notorious – was his decision to bolt the GOP last year to become Democrats’ 60th Senate vote.
In exchange, Specter secured re-election endorsements from the Democratic Party establishment in Washington and Pennsylvania.
“My change in party will allow me to be re-elected,” he explained with naked sincerity at the time.
That same line is now being aired as part of a tough ad Sestak is running that portrays the incumbent as an unapologetic opportunist – and may represent the death blow to Specter’s hopes.
“It’s the party-switching,” said a senior Democrat close to the White House who has tried to help Specter but now sees his prospects dimming. “He just didn’t finesse it and wound up looking pretty ham-handedly like he was trying to save his own ass.”
President Obama has raised money for Specter and is featured praising him in a new ad the senator’s campaign began airing Tuesday.
But a well-placed Democrat said unambiguously that Obama would not be returning to Pennsylvania to campaign for Specter before the May 18 primary.
In an interview, the congressman sought to make clear that he had no hard feelings toward Obama – even saying he’d be the president’s “strongest ally” in the Senate.
But Sestak was less charitable toward Vice-President Joe Biden, who has been close to Specter for decades and helped convince him to switch parties during their many train trips together.
“There were those who had been down there quite longer, Joe Biden and others, that I think felt this is the way business might be dealt with,” Sestak said by way of suggesting the vice-president was responsible for the Specter party-switch deal.
Without an 11th-hour visit from the president, it could be hard for Specter to drive turnout in Philadelphia, his hometown, where many of the Democratic primary votes come from and where the senator must perform well to win.
That’s where Sestak was Tuesday morning, speaking to about 40 senior citizens at a Jewish Community Center.
Even as Specter’s path narrows and Sestak attempts to cut into his Philadelphia base, the senator’s allies say he can win in the low-turnout primary thanks to his support from organized labor and the party’s state and city apparatus.
Pennsylvania Democratic Chairman T.J. Rooney chalked up Specter’s swoon to the sour electorate and Sestak’s late ad buy.
“We all know what’s going on in America,” Rooney said. “There is discontent among voters of every stripe. You couple that with [Sestak’s] $5 million and that’s a potent concoction.”
Specter, Rooney added, is “a great public servant but a man who’s only been a Democrat for a year and a couple weeks. So I’m glad we have infrastructure in place for next seven days.”
The senator himself said the public’s view of the federal government was as bad as he’d seen it.
“There is more public resentment to what is going on in Washington because of the partisan bickering than anytime in my tenure,” Specter said, noting that he’s tried to end the gridlock by working across the aisle.
But to some voters, the willingness with which Specter has lined on different sides of issues illustrates why he’s the poster boy for status quo politics this year.
“He’s only interested in Arlen Specter,” said Phil Kaymen, a retiree who got up from his lunch table at the Jewish center to encourage Sestak. “He flip-flops like I change my socks, so it’s time for him to retire.”
And thus it ends, Specter's usefulness to Obama and the Dem's has run its course. The White House sees the polls and realize the race against Toomey is much closer with Sestak as their candidate, so Arlen gets thrown under the bus. Too funny. I really hope Specter can win the Dem primary. Toomey will thump him by double digits if he's the Dem's candidate. Sestak will force a difficult race here, one I'm not sure Toomey will win.
Anyone want to take any bets that Specter runs as an independent if he loses the primary? Lord please make it so.
Arlen should have been put out to pasture years ago.
with all due respect to Specter’s well documented health issues, the suspicion in Pennsylvania is that he has slipped a few gears and no longer has a fully functioning brain. (nobody will say that too loud, but the voters are definitely thinking it)
Specter is one of the bums who didn’t think there was difference between Republicans and Democrats, and it took far too long for him to find out different. At this point, he is too old and senile to know what he is or isn’t.
As Crist will find out, LIARS don’t make good bets ...
His comments to Orin Hatch that have come out today simply show a man who just thinks he simply jumped from one “team” to the other “team”. It was obvious from his comments that many of these lifers see “us” as the ememy and “them” as the good guys. He needs to be put out to pasture.
There is no fool like an old fool.
He’s a RUDE person to Laura Ingraham...RUDE....OBNOXIOUS....and he IS losing it.....he’s OLD!!
There’s no fool like an old fool and there’s no shortage of old fools.
I have never forgiven Laura for letting him get all uppity and call her “YOUNG LADY” and she just rolled over like a puppy dog and never fought back. I lost a lot of respect for Laura that day.
He got uppity with her again, and she fought back....as much as a host can with their guests.
When did this happen?
not long after the first time.
She is waaay too nice to the old dub. He needs to be upbraided for his condescension if nothing else.
By far the most important issue is the extraordinary danger the political rise of Sestak is. He needs to be stopped, somehow.
You have a:
1) Good Looking Guy
2) Ex-Military
3) Seems Reasonable, but who
4) Is insane; stories about him abusing his staff in the Navy are legendary. When Mullen became CNO his first act was to FIRE Sestak.
Sestak if he continues to advance is going to be a very attractive Democratic Presidential candidate someday.
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