Republican Specter Challenged From the Right
Toomey Labels Senator a Liberal
By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 17, 2004; Page A05
PHILADELPHIA -- If it were October, the scene would make no sense: Arlen Specter, a 24-year Senate veteran and dean of Pennsylvania politics, pleading for votes to survive a challenge from six-year House member Pat Toomey, virtually unknown outside his Lehigh Valley district until he began airing statewide TV ads a few weeks ago.
But it is primary election season, and Specter's fate will be determined April 27 by a comparative handful of Republican voters, not the broader band of general election voters who have embraced him for a quarter-century.
Toomey's aggressive, well-financed assault on fellow Republican Specter is putting a scare in the GOP establishment, from the White House down. Toomey has blasted Specter as a liberal who is "outside the mainstream" and whose seniority "is more a threat than an asset." The challenger is drawing big donations from some conservative activists hoping to topple the Senate's eighth most senior Republican.
No public poll has shown Toomey, 42, abreast of Specter, 74, or even within the margin of error. But pollsters acknowledge it is hard to predict who will vote in the Republican primary, and Specter and his allies are taking the challenge seriously. Specter concedes "I worry a lot" that his backers will not turn out in force for the primary.
The senator's biggest political weapon, President Bush, is scheduled to campaign with him at a Monday fundraiser in Pittsburgh, and a moderate Republican group -- the Main Street Individual Fund -- announced Tuesday that it will spend $200,000 to help Specter's campaign.
Toomey and his supporters portray the contest as a fight for the Republican Party's soul, a test of whether GOP voters will insist on conservative social and fiscal values or reward an accommodating, middle-of-the-road style that often involves compromises with Democrats. Unlike Specter, Toomey opposes abortion rights, supports all of Bush's tax cuts, favors a constitutional ban on same-sex marriages and repeatedly votes against spending bills that pay for thousands of local projects -- even some for Pennsylvania.
"I represent the Republican wing of the Republican Party," Toomey says, adapting a phrase used by Democrat Howard Dean in his unsuccessful presidential campaign. "Arlen Specter represents the Ted Kennedy wing."
Specter is campaigning for a fifth term as a proud pragmatist and Washington insider who repeatedly delivers highways, university grants and many other federal benefits for the Keystone State.
"He calls me a big spender," Specter said of Toomey (whom he never mentions by name) at a recent speech to Temple University medical students and faculty. "I have brought a lot of money to Pennsylvania. . . . He accuses me of being a liberal, as though that's some form of a dirty word. . . . I'm running against an opponent who has very extreme ideological approaches."
For many Specter supporters, ideology is less vital than cold political calculations. Specter, they say, is best positioned to appeal to independent and moderate voters in November, when Rep. Joseph M. Hoeffel III will be the Democratic nominee. For them, the first priority is to retain Republican seats in the narrowly divided Senate. Among those campaigning for Specter are Bush, Vice President Cheney and Pennsylvania's junior senator, Rick Santorum (R), who is decidedly more conservative than Specter.
Their actions frustrate staunch conservatives who support Toomey, including publisher Steve Forbes, former attorney general Edwin Meese III and the Washington-based anti-tax Club for Growth. The club spent $1 million on independent TV ads attacking Specter and touting Toomey, and it helped collect an additional $800,000 in donations for the challenger.
A Toomey victory, Club for Growth President Stephen Moore said in an interview, "would have a chilling effect on what I call the RINOs," or Republicans in Name Only. "It would change their behavior" by showing there is punishment awaiting those who do not vote to slash federal spending and taxes, he said.
Specter, however, boasts of the many federal dollars he has steered to Pennsylvania. In a recent day of campaigning in Philadelphia -- which included two stops at Temple University, several media interviews and an evening reception -- Specter often cited federal spending as a cure for constituents' worries.
High student debts for medical school graduates? "We're looking at proposals to relieve the debt or forgive it" when a new doctor works in underserved areas, he said. Teen suicide? More school nurses can help, Specter said, noting that he earlier obtained "a small grant" for nurses in one Pennsylvania county.
At a midday meeting with Gov. Edward G. Rendell (D) and other state officials to discuss ways to jump-start a long-stalled commuter rail project, Specter announced his opposition to the Bush administration's recommendation to fund 60 percent of the costs rather than 80 percent. "On the appropriations side," he added, "I have taken the lead in getting $49 million already" for the proposed rail line.
Specter, who chairs a Senate Appropriations subcommittee, told reporters he could do even more for Pennsylvania if he became the full committee chairman, adding: "That's not too far off." In fact, Specter is several years from any likely claim to the chairmanship. Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) has more seniority and plans to take the post in January.
Under the Senate's rotating-chairmanship policy, Specter is in line to replace Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) as Judiciary Committee chairman. That dismays the conservative critics who never forgave Specter for opposing Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork in 1987. They cringe at the thought of Specter chairing the panel that decides which judicial nominations reach the Senate floor.
"I personally think Judge Bork would have been a great Supreme Court justice," Toomey told an audience in Lewisburg during a recent day of campaigning in and around that central Pennsylvania town.
He started the day with a live interview at WKOK-AM, where he said of Specter's arguments: "Seniority is only as valuable as the purpose to which you put it." Republicans have waited 70 years to control the House, Senate and White House, Toomey said, and now they have the chance to shrink the government, cut taxes and curb regulations.
"Arlen Specter has never represented the Republican ideals and the Republican values," he said.
While many conservative stalwarts embrace Toomey, his ability to reach beyond that base is unclear. During his day in Lewisburg, for instance, he spoke mainly to small gatherings of antiabortion activists, home-schooling advocates and members of the Bucknell University Conservatives Club.
In their only debate, on April 3, the two candidates largely repeated the name-calling that dominates their TV ads. Specter is "closer to Hillary Clinton than he is to the average Republican senator," Toomey said. Specter said Toomey is "not far right, he's far out."
Several observers said Specter seemed less than sharp in the televised debate, often fumbling with notes. But the damage may be modest, they said, because the event competed for viewers with the Final Four of the NCAA basketball tournament.
"There couldn't have been five people watching," said G. Terry Madonna, a Pennsylvania political scientist and pollster. Toomey is hoping the state's GOP voters suffer from "Specter fatigue" and want a fresh, younger and more conservative face in the Senate, Madonna said. But Specter's legacy of constituency service is formidable.
"If your community needs something," he said, "you go to Arlen, you know he'll be there."
Staff writer Helen Dewar in Washington contributed to this report.
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