Primary Concerns

Several primary elections to nominate candidates for public office are being held in several states tomorrow, but the two biggest primaries gaining attention are the Democratic primaries for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania and Arkansas.

In Pennsylvania, Senator Arlen Specter is in a dead heat with Delaware County congressman Joe Sestak for the right to run for Senate against Republican Pat Toomey in November. Specter, who became a Democrat last year, is one of the last two Republican senators elected on Ronald Reagan's coattails in 1980 (Iowa's Charles Grassley is the other) that gave the GOP its first Senate majority since 1954. Now Specter is running with the support of President Obama and Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell to preserve the Democratic majority.

Sestak is claiming that Specter changed parties for political expediency and doesn't share the core values of Pennsylvania Democrats, though Specter has union support and also provide a necessary vote for health care reform. But Specter did vote for Clarence Thomas's confirmation to the Supreme Court in 1991 - about as popular with rank-and-file Democrats as hot cocoa in Ecuador. Though Specter was the most liberal member of the Senate Republican caucus until he switched parties, he was still a Republican, and he supported other judicial nominees from Presidents named Bush. Though Obama has thrown his support to Specter, he has wisely eschewed the opportunity to campaign for him. Which makes sense, considering what a huge asset he was for Martha Coakley in Massachusetts.

Specter is slipping a bit but he can't be counted out, especially when the polls show a huge groups of undecided voters making the election to close to call. Although progressives are excited by and eager to support Sestak, polls show that Specter would have a better chance of defeating Toomey, a Tea Party darling. I'm not endorsing either candidate. If I were a Pennsylvania resident today, and if I were voting in the primary, I'd toss a coin in the voting booth.

In Arkansas, the case is more clear-cut. Incumbent senator Blanche Lambert Lincoln, a conservative Democrat who has taken campaign money from big business and helped kill the government insurance option in the health care bill, has angered Bill Halter, the state's lieutenant governor, Bill Halter, to run against her in the primary and claim (with considerable justification) that she doesn't speak for and vote in favor of ordinary Arkansans. So I endorse Halter. Halter is running behind, and Lincoln has the support of Obama and former President (and former Arkansan) Bill Clinton, both of whom clearly prefer to stick with the devil they know rather than the devil they don't know. But the undecided share of likely voters could also swing tomorrow's result either way, and it promises to make for as spirited a primary there tomorrow as in Pennsylvania.

But how much enthusiasm on the left will translate to victories tomorrow? And would Sestak or Halter, if nominated, be mainstream enough for general election voters in November? That's my worry.

I Have Seen the Specter

You know things are bad for the Republicans when one of its brightest and most mature U.S. Senators leaves the party. Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania switched to the Democratic Party effective immediately. His decision was based on two factors. First, he realized that there was no place for him in the Republican party after voting for President Obama's stimulus bill against overwhelming opposition from fellow Republicans. Second of all, he found that a conservative Republican primary electorate, out of step with Pennsylvania's moderate politics, could possibly deny him renomination for a sixth Senate term next year, and felt the general electorate was more qualified to vote on his re-election bid.

Specter was born in Wichita, and grew up in the Jewish community of Russell, Kansas - i.e., his family. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania and Yale School, he settled in Philadelphia, where he served as district attorney. As a U.S. Senator since 1981, Specter has supported abortion rights and gun rights, and he was one of only four Republicans to vote against Robert Bork's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Reagan in 1987. He has high ratings from both the liberal group Americans for Democratic Action and the AFL-CIO.

So, Specter's a pretty moderate guy. A Democrat once before, he rejoins the party and demonstrates the growing disgust in the American Northeast with the GOP. Once a party of establishment types, it is increasingly becoming the party of right-wing crackpots and bigots, the kind of folks that even James Baker III once called "yahoos." Heck, these are the kind of people even Barry Goldwater thought were kooky.

Because Specter is not a true liberal, except by Republican standards, he won't be any more a reliable vote for the Democrats than he was for the Republicans. Indeed, there's something about him that irks Barbra Streisand; she invited Specter's 1986 Democratic opponent to her private fundraising concert for the Democratic party, and she went right up to Specter at one of President Clinton's inaugural balls in 1993 and snidely asked him how it felt to be on the losing side. (Actually, Specter won his bid for a third term in 1992, despite female opposition in Pennsylvania to his support for confirming Clarence Thomas to a seat on the Supreme Court, which he now regrets.) But he will be clearly be more comfortable in party that is the big tent the Republicans pretend to be. (Pennsylvania's other Democratic senator, Robert Casey, Jr., is pro-life.) And when Al Franken finally gets into the Senate, the Democrats will have a filibuster-proof majority that should intimidate the GOP opposition. Specter is certain to be a formidable candidate for re-election next year.

Streisand may even campaign for him. :-D

This must be the ultimate wet dream for MSNBC host and Philadelphia native Chris Matthews.

(Semi-related useless fact: Arlen Specter's name is an anagram of "learn respect." :-))