Philadelphia Inquirer endorses Spector for Senator.
Stick with Specter
In national politics, the middle of the road has become a slippery place, hard for any elected leader to define and hold.
That's particularly so in Congress, where partisan sniping and incumbent-friendly redistricting have led many members to put party loyalty and ideological purity ahead of compromise.
Pennsylvania's senior senator, Arlen Specter, is from the old school. He's still setting up shop in the middle of the road. More often than not, he's made it work - for himself and for Pennsylvania. He deserves the Republican Party's nomination to seek a fifth term. The Inquirer endorses ARLEN SPECTER in the GOP primary.
To admirers, Specter is moderate, pragmatic and effective. He'll seek allies wherever he can find them; one day he'll cast a staunch conservative vote to cut taxes, and the next break with the party to support, say, funding for stem-cell research.
To critics, he's unprincipled and unreliable. The sense among party conservatives that he's strayed from the fold too often has fostered a serious primary challenge from U.S. Rep. Pat Toomey, 42, a former investment banker and restaurateur.
Toomey, who represents Lehigh Valley, is running a hard-hitting, well-funded campaign with strong support from movement conservatives nationwide, including organizations such as the antitax Club for Growth.
He is a likable, articulate proponent of the viewpoint that the federal government and federal tax burden need to be shrunk sharply, even after George W. Bush's first-term tax-cutting. Toomey thinks the Bush tax cuts - which Specter supported - should have been deeper, and he believes strongly that the White House and Congress have been undisciplined in spending. He was the leader of a Republican contingent that defied the White House by refusing to support the Medicare prescription drug bill because of its cost. (Bush, with an eye on winning Pennsylvania himself, has endorsed Specter.)
If you think most government spending is waste, you'll like Toomey. But if you understand, as Specter does, that important public purposes are served by prudently investing tax dollars, you'll prefer the incumbent.
The state benefits from a well-positioned, senior senator who can drive federal dollars back home for vital purposes such as medical and biotech research in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and smart mass transit projects such as the Schuylkill Valley Metro.
If reelected, Specter likely would become the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman. Anyone tired of firefights over federal court nominees and looking for nominees to be judged on credentials rather than partisan agendas, should want to give the savvy Specter a chance to achieve that.
Yes, Specter's personality has some rough edges; his voting record includes flip-flops that are hard to explain. But he is as knowledgeable as senators come.
Toomey would give the party a candidate who is an ideological clone (albeit a more amiable one) of junior Sen. Rick Santorum. Pennsylvanians deserve broader representation.
Specter is in a long, distinguished line of moderate GOP senators from Pennsylvania. The party's voters can honor and continue that tradition by picking Arlen Specter. |
