What is the point of Arlen Specter? Conservatives are asking that question as they try to replace the Republican moderate with one of their own. The Pennsylvania primary is today.
Independents and moderate Democrats who have supported the four-term senator should be pondering the same question. Republicans now hold the Senate by a hair. And University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato sees the Senate’s future as "up in the air." With the White House and the House of Representatives controlled by conservatives, wouldn’t moderates want to see at least one power lever in Democratic hands? Divided government is swell.
For movement conservatives, the answer to "What’s the point of Arlen Specter?" is that there is no point. Specter’s opponent in the primary is Rep. Pat Toomey, of Allentown. Toomey slams Specter as a "Ted Kennedy liberal" who likes taxes, loves "activist judges" and doesn’t hate the United Nations nearly enough.
The anti-tax Club for Growth has been bashing Specter with $1 million worth of ads. "If we beat Specter," club President Stephen Moore tells the press, "we won’t have any trouble with wayward Republicans anymore." Specter’s defeat, he adds, would serve notice to Ohio’s George Voinovich, Maine’s Olympia Snowe and Rhode Island’s Lincoln Chafee that "they will be next." Voinovich is also up for re-election this year. Chafee and Snowe face voters again in 2006.
President Bush sees a point to Arlen Specter. The point is to keep a senatorial seat in a swing state warm for Republicans. Bush understands that swing states like Pennsylvania tend to elect Republicans like Specter. Conservatives may get a brief rush ripping this thorn from their side, but their model candidate would probably go down in flames in the general election. Then, he’d face Democrat Joe Hoeffel, a congressman from the Philadelphia suburbs.
And that’s why Bush is campaigning so enthusiastically for one of his least-favorite senators. (Once Specter gets re-elected, party leaders can go back to stubbing out their cigarettes on his head.)
Moderate Democrats and independents must eventually ask, "What’s in it for us?" What’s the point of electing Republicans who serve no higher purpose than to occupy seats that would otherwise go to Democrats?
Republican moderates insist they serve a function: They slow down the more radical elements in their party. But such assertions clang hollow in practice.
Remember Voinovich’s noble campaign last year to restrain the president’s $700 billion tax-cut plan? His vow to limit the tax cut to $350 billion drew warm applause from deficit hawks. And he had enough moderates with him to ensure success. The Republican leaders said OK and then rolled him. They inserted sunset provisions and so many other accounting tricks in the tax deal that the pundits soon spoke of the "tire marks" on Voinovich’s face.
Olympia Snowe supported Voinovich, prompting the Club for Growth to run ads in Maine linking her with French President Jacques Chirac, America’s all-purpose villain. The French flag fluttered beside her. (Everyone who knew Maine got a good laugh at the club’s expense: A quarter of Maine’s population claims French ancestry.)
Another hallmark of the moderate Republican is devotion to the environment. Here, guys like Chafee amass admirable records. The League of Conservation Voters gives the Rhode Islander a high 79 percent score.
But the kindest thing Chafee could do for the environment is lose his seat to a Democrat — anyone who might put Democrats in charge of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. That committee’s current chair is Republican James Inhofe of Oklahoma. No friend of Mother Nature, Inhofe gets a dismal 5 percent rating from the conservation league and has famously likened the Environmental Protection Agency to the Gestapo.
Of course, Northern Republicans can change parties — as have frustrated Southern Democrats. Vermont’s James Jeffords, the patron saint of abused GOP moderates, has shown them the way.
When fellow Republicans began threatening his dairy farmers in 2001, Jeffords ran for the exits. His defection gave the Democrats a Senate majority until the 2002 election. It’s amazing, really, that New England still sends five Republicans to the U.S. Senate.
If conservative hotheads manage to ditch Specter today, they’ll be doing Pennsylvania’s electorate a favor. For moderates, a race without the specter of Specter would blow off the haze and clarify what the vote on Nov. 2 is really about.
Froma Harrop is a Providence Journal columnist. Contact her by writing to
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