AP: Toomey May Knock Out Specter

WYOMISSING, Pa. - Fourteen months ago, a conservative congressman set out on a seemingly quixotic quest to retire four-term Sen. Arlen Specter. The challenger had little money, scant name recognition and no support from party leaders.

Now, with less than a week to go before the state's April 27 Senate primary, Rep. Pat Toomey has come within striking distance of defeating Specter in what has become one of the nation's most closely watched GOP contests this year.

"I really believe we're going to win - despite pretty tough odds and pretty tough circumstances," Toomey, 42, said Wednesday at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country.

This week, a poll showed Toomey trailing Specter, 74, by a mere 5 percentage points, compared with 15 points three weeks earlier.

From the start, Toomey has portrayed himself as an energetic, Harvard-educated former banker taking on a weathered senator; a firebrand conservative intent on retiring an old-guard moderate.

After bucking party bosses who urged him to drop his bid, the three-term Toomey has had to scrape up as much support as possible from like-minded conservatives who consider Specter a "RINO" - a Republican In Name Only - whose politics have strayed too far from the party line.

Specter has outspent Toomey more than 3-to-1 in the last 15 weeks, buying $7 million in TV ads. On Monday, he brought in President Bush to help him fend off Toomey in what even the senator admits could be the toughest primary battle of his career.

Specter was first elected to the Senate in 1980, after a career that included a year as assistant counsel on the Warren Commission and eight years as the Philadelphia district attorney.

He has long had a maverick streak that made him a target for Democrats and conservative Republicans alike. Specter's tough questioning of Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings in 1991, for example, put him on the hit list of liberal women's groups.

He has been challenged during every election - and generally cedes 35 percent of the vote, no matter who his opponents are.

The tightening race puts "all my supporters on notice that I've got a fight, which is what I've been saying all the time. The biggest problem I have is that my supporters think I have no problem," said Specter, who spent Wednesday rushing around Pennsylvania to tout his accomplishments - including the hundreds of millions of federal dollars he earmarks annually for state projects as chairman of a Senate Appropriations subcommittee.

Political experts say Specter is battling his own independent ideology as he seeks an unprecedented fifth term.

"Nobody should be surprised, in a state as conservative as Pennsylvania, that somebody such as Arlen Specter would be in a competitive primary race," said Pittsburgh-based GOP consultant John Brabender.

"Year after year, Arlen's strength is not necessarily within the Republican Party, but among independent and middle-of-the-road voters."

Toomey has galvanized conservatives by zeroing in on Specter's support for abortion rights and by describing the senator's spending habits as "pork" that bloats the federal deficit.

Still, Specter's politics have long been in line with Pennsylvania's tradition of electing moderates to statewide office. The late Sen. H. John Heinz III, also a Republican, showed a similar independent streak.

Toomey also faces another hurdle: a consensus that Specter would be a better GOP candidate in the general election.

"Most people agree that if Republicans want to hold this seat, Arlen Specter has the best chance of doing that," Brabender said.

The winner of the GOP primary will face three-term Rep. Joe Hoeffel; Democratic voters narrowly outnumber Republicans statewide.

Even Specter's supporters are unsure whether the senator can pull off a victory in a primary in which conservatives are expected to rally behind Toomey. Conservatives make up perhaps one-third of the state's 3.2 million Republican voters and generally outpoll moderates in GOP primaries.

"I think it's close," said Specter supporter Ben Barton, a 23-year old political science major at the University of Pittsburgh. "I've seen a lot of signs out for Toomey. I think it's a lot closer than Specter wants it to be."

Pennsylvanian here, and my take on the race.

Rove probably figures that Bush has a better chance at winning Pennsylvania if Spector is the nominee. Spector is very popular with the moderate Democrats and I'm assuming Rove was hoping he could campaign with Bush and help swing Pennsylvania's 23 elector votes into the Bush column.

Personally, from what I have seen what is going, Toomey will win on Tuesday. There's no doubt about it. Spector has a good-sized moderate base but they just aren't fired up for a primary where there are low turnouts. His votes that get him through each general election are mainly moderate democrats. Republicans here vote for him "just because" he must be better than the Democratic candidate.

I rarely make predictions, but mark the words. Toomey will win by anything from 5-10% on Tuesday. I think the voters who have been polled that show Spector with the slight edge will not be out in full force Tuesday. What he said is dead on.. His supporters are not all that convinced he's in deep trouble. They are regular joes.

Bush in November? I like his chances even without Spector in the Senate race, as incumbents do extremely well in Pennsylvania.

Toomey in November? I don't see how Dem. challenger Hoeffel beats him. Name recognition wins here and Toomey's face has been everywhere for the past 2 months. Toomey holds a congressional seat in a swing district and he can get moderate Dems to come over.

Toomey will represent the Republican party extremely well in the Senate. He's one that will be on our side the whole way, there's no doubt about it.

Again.. Toomey wins on Tuesday by a very cozy cushion, 5-10%.

I don't claim to know anything about PA, but:

"Or do I vote for Toomey, who seems better, only to see Pennsylvania go to the Democrats in November."

Fortunately, you don't have to make that choice, because Toomey is not only better, he's also a better general-election candidate than Specter.

In order for *any* Republican to win statewide in PA against a Montgomery County Democrat like Joe Hoeffel, he must win votes from blue-collar Democrats (who are disproportionately pro-life Catholics like Toomey) not only in the Pittsburgh area, but in the "T" as well. Arlen Specter is incapable of winning those votes, since he is pro-abortion and anti-gun and thus have nothing to offer those voters (and if they wanted to vote for someone who will raise taxes and toe the union line, they'd surely vote for the Democrat). Pat Toomey, on the other hand, has been elected and reelected in the blue-collar Lehigh Valley, centered in Allentown and Bethlehem, with similar demographics to the Pittsburgh-area districts held by Melissa Hart and Tim Murphy and to the one held by Rick Santorum before moving to the Senate (in fact, Toomey's district is less Republican than Hart's or Murphy's, although less Democrat than Santorum's old districts). Pat Toomey knows how to get blue-collar Democrat votes, and will beat Hoeffel just about everywhere outside of Philly and its close-in suburbs (well, Hoeffel will carry a few inner-city areas, but he is so brazenly anti-gun that he will get blown away in most of the "T"). Pat Toomey will win the general election, and given the fact that he's both more conservative and more electable than Specter, the choice is clear.

Some people point to Specter's easy victory in 1998 as evidence that he is more "electable," but Specter did not face a well-financed Democrat challenge that year, so it is silly to even look at those numbers. So let's look at the 1992 election, the last time Specter faced a strong challenge.

Specter won with 49.10% in the state, to Lynn Yeakel's 46.33%. Specter was below 50% overall even though he received 39.34% of the vote in Philadelphia (source: http://www.seventy.org/stats/1992GeneralResults.htm), which is a ridiculously high percentage for a "Republican" in a city in which Clinton beat George H.W. Bush by 68.16% to 20.90% in 1992 and in which Gore beat George W. Bush by 80.04% to 17.99% in 2000. It is risible to presume that Specter would be able to win such a high percentage in Philly this time around, since (i) Philadelphia has trended even more Democrat than it was in 1992, (ii) there is more political polarization today than back then, so there is less ticket-splitting among Philadelphia Democrats, and (iii) Joe Hoeffel is from Abington Township, just across the Montgomery County border, and represents most of Northeast Philadelphia (which is the least heavily RAT part of the city) in Congress. The same holds true in the close-in Philadelphia suburbs of Montgomery, Delaware and Bucks Counties, in which Specter won 54.40%, 53.17% and 50.72%, respectively, in 1992 (source: http://wilkes1.wilkes.edu/~wesp1/sen/PaSen1992.html), but have trended Democrat through the years and in 2000 these counties gave George W. Bush 43.81%, 42.66% and 46.29%, respectively. Outside of Philly and its 3 adjoining suburbs, Arlen Specter got only 49.97% in 1992, a pitiful percentage for a Pennsylvania Republican and much lower than Santorum's totals in his 2 statewide victories or even than Fischer's and Bush's losing statewide races.

Nowadays, because of demographic and political changes in Philadelphia, Montgomery, Delaware and Bucks Counties, Republicans can't carry Pennsylvania without getting at least 55% of the vote in the Pittsburgh area and in the "T." And for that, Republicans need to not only turn out their conservative base, but get votes from blue-collar Democrats, who are generally liberal on economic issues but pro-life, pro-gun and pro-military. Arlen Specter can't do either of those things, but Pat Toomey can, as he has proven in his blue-collar Democrat district in the Lehigh Valley. And if Bush carries PA in 2004 (as I think he will), it will be because he will increase his percentages among blue-collar Democrats, not because he can somehow convince pro-abortion, anti-gun and anti-military suburban RINOs to vote for him. While Bush and Toomey can get their share of suburban Philly votes because of issues such as national security, our road to victory in PA in 2004 goes through places like Allentown and Scranton and Wilkes-Barre and Erie and the Pittsburgh suburbs, not through Philadelphia and its RINO-infested close-in suburbs.

So the choice is clear. If Pennsylvania Republicans want to win the 2004 elections, they need to support Pat Toomey in his primary challenge to Arlen Specter. GO, PAT, GO!

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