Primary Fight Looms One Year After Specter Switch
One year ago, just shy of President Obama's 100th day in office, Sen. Arlen Specter jolted the political world by announcing his decision to leave the Republican Party and join the majority caucus.
"I am unwilling to have my 29 year Senate record judged by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate," the five-term senator said in the statement announcing his decision. "I have not represented the Republican Party. I have represented the people of Pennsylvania."
It was a decision based largely on political survival, with the final straw being his decision to break with the GOP and vote for the new president's Recovery Act. Pat Toomey, who nearly defeated him in 2004, looked ready to give him an even tougher challenge in 2010, and Specter lacked the institutional support that put him over the edge in their last dogfight.
The switch gave Democrats a 59th vote in the Senate, with a 60th expected to come soon after when Al Franken's victory was certified. At the time, it was seen as another sign of the GOP's extended demise. "How much more can the Republicans take?" the Washington Post's Dan Balz asked, while declaring the party "demoralized, shrinking and seemingly lacking an agenda beyond the word 'no.'"
Fast forward a year and the Democrats are back at 59 votes, a situation possible only because of an even greater political shocker - the victory of a Republican in the race to succeed Ted Kennedy. Still, for both Democrats and for Specter, the decision appears to have been mutually beneficial in the short term.
In his first year as a Democrat, Specter has proved not only to be a reliable vote for the party's agenda, but he has voted all but once to end Republican filibusters, as the Washington Times recently noted. That fact is one reason why the candidacy of Rep. Joe Sestak (D) languished so long - he had no fresh evidence to bring to potential primary voters to make them question Specter's new partisan persuasion. As for Specter, it's unlikely he would have lead in the GOP primary he abandoned as he does in the Democratic primary.
But what about the long term? What seemed like a smooth path to his new party's nomination has hit some late roadblocks. No poll has shown Specter trailing, but a Rasmussen poll released two weeks ago showed Sestak pulling to within two points. Specter has launched scathing attack ads that his rival says engages in Swift Boat-style questioning of his his military service. Vice President Joe Biden, instrumental in securing his former Senate colleague's party switch, came to the Keystone State just last Friday to lend him some needed support as the final stretch began.
"Pennsylvania's better off, the country's better off, and selfishly, Barack Obama and Joe Biden are better off in having a chance to bring about the kind of change in America we think we need," Biden told a crowd near his boyhood home of Scranton.
Even if he does defeat Sestak, Specter has yet to show he can again defeat Toomey. The former Congressman and Club for Growth President leads Specter by 6.5 percent in the RCP Average. Toomey outraised Specter in the first quarter of 2010 by a margin of two-to-one, though the incumbent does still have a $5 million cash on hand advantage. RCP currently classifies the race as lean Republican.