PA-Sen: Early Numbers Seem Fine For Sestak

The Philly Inquirer surveys the potential Sestak-Specter primary.

In an interview last night, Sestak said that he needs to consult with his wife, Susan, and their 8-year-old daughter, Alex, before launching what would be an all-consuming statewide campaign.

"Personally, I do intend to get in, but we make the decision as a family. This is a deployment," said Sestak, a retired Navy rear admiral. "We have not made a final decision. . . . I intend to try to do this in a thoughtful, deliberate way."

He added that, in preliminary conversations, his family had been "very supportive" of the idea.

Meanwhile, a preliminary poll shows what I think is good news for Sestak's candidacy. Specter's statewide approval rating is only 46%, and his lead in a hypothetical primary over Sestak is only 50-21. Considering Specter's name ID, the fact that he cannot break 50% is an excellent sign for the lesser-known Sestak. And despite not being known at all, Sestak beats Toomey in a head-to-head general election matchup. If I were the Admiral, I'd take those numbers as a baseline.

Obviously, the big hitters in the Party - Ed Rendell, not to mention the White House - may try to push Specter over the line. But I don't think Democratic primary voters can be that easily fooled, to line up with the guy who admitted he was joining the party only for political reasons and has a lifetime record of opposing many Democratic causes.

Worst. Candidate Recruiters. Ever.

You would think that a former Governor, someone extremely competitive in the general election against an incumbent, would be an easy mark to recruit for the Senate. Unless the person in question is Tom Ridge, and the party in question the Republican Party. Here's his statement:

After careful consideration and many conversations with friends and family and the leadership of my party, I have decided not to seek the Republican nomination for Senate.

I am enormously grateful for the confidence my party expressed in me, the encouragement and kindness of my fellow citizens in Pennsylvania and the valuable counsel I received from so many of my party colleagues. The 2010 race has significant implications for my party, and that required thoughtful reflection. All of the above made my decision a difficult and deeply personal conclusion to reach. However, this process also impressed upon me how fortunate I am to have so many friends who volunteered to support my journey if I chose to take it and continue to offer their support after I conveyed to them this morning how I believe I can best serve my commonwealth, my party and my country.

It's clear from the statement that he didn't want to deal with the whackos of the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate either. Kos had numbers showing him losing to Pat Toomey in the primary.

Two things here: first, this is all the more reason to support a primary of Arlen Specter. With Ridge's departure, the probability that Pat Toomey will win the Republican nomination go up significantly. Sure, the party poohbahs will try to find someone not fated to lose, like Rep. Jim Gerlach from the Philly suburbs. But Toomey has the momentum. And he cannot win a general election. Democrats in Pennsylvania should know that they can put someone who shares their values in the race with every expectation that they can win the seat.

Second, this is an epic FAIL for the GOP recruitment team. Combine this with Mark Kirk's demurral to run for the Senate in Illinois, and you have two high-profile candidates begging off a run. Nobody wants anything to do with the Republican Party. And why would they? Consigned to a minority for the near future, unable to gain traction with the same old ideas, and in the face of a popular President, the Republicans have nothing to offer their candidates, let alone America.

Press Release Pollsters

This is getting weird. The same pollster, from a GOP outfit, releases two polls on the same day, one showing Arlen Specter crushing Joe Sestak in a primary, the other showing Tom Ridge crushing Pat Toomey in a primary, and beating Specter in a head-to-head matchup. And this used to be Specter's pollster, but they parted ways after Specter switched parties. The head-to-head numbers from Ridge/Specter and Toomey/Specter differ dramatically from anything else out there.

This reads like a PR release for Tom Ridge, plain and simple. Anyone who buys these poll results ought to take a look at some beachfront property in Oklahoma I'm selling.

By the way, the primary wouldn't be for a year, people realize, and in that time Ridge will have to deal with hundreds of days of attacks from his own party on his record. Remember that the GOP primary in Pennsylvania is closed. Also, Ridge appears to not live in the state anymore. And he has lobbying problems.

Long story short, I don't buy the numbers and I don't buy the foregone conclusion of Specter-Ridge.

For instance, Arlen pining for Norm Coleman to win the Senate race in Minnesota - AFTER the party switch, strikes me as something that may come up in a primary.

Kabuki Partially Confirmed?

This Joe Sestak interview with TPMDC confirmed some of my suspicions that the same Democrats who brokered a deal with Arlen Specter aren't exactly unhappy with Sestak criticizing it.

I asked him whether he'd been on the receiving end of establishment pressure -- from people like Vice President Joe Biden and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell -- to stay out of the race, and he insisted, "I haven't heard from anyone."

While Democrats from the While House on down might be trying to keep the Democratic primary field clear for Specter, they might not necessarily mind the fact that, for the time being, Sestak is applying pressure on Specter to move left. By keeping the door open to challenging Specter in the Democratic primary, Sestak may serve to nudge Specter further than he might otherwise have gone. Yesterday, Sestak told Greg Sargent that if Specter "doesn't demonstrate that he has shifted his position on a number of issues, I would not hesitate at all to get in" to a primary fight against him.

As I said yesterday, Sestak loses nothing from calling out Specter - even if he decides against running, he gains credibility as a Democrat enunciating Democratic principles, actually more credibility than he probably deserves - later in the TPMDC interview he equivocates on the question of a public option for health care reform. And given that Sestak has only grown louder in his criticisms, he certainly hasn't heard from the White House, as he notes, that he might want to tone it down. I could absolutely envision a scenario where Sestak has no real intention of running but is being used as a cattle prod to corral Specter.

The bigger question about primarying Specter is whether or not Tom Ridge enters the race. While Pat Toomey probably cannot get elected in Pennsylvania, a pro-choice former Governor with some measure of popularity might be able to pull it off. I don't think that's a given - Ridge worked for George Bush in a high-profile position, so he'll have to live that down. And there's a major question whether he can beat Toomey in a primary. Toomey has raised half a million dollars in just a few weeks since entering the race and would have substantial grassroots support in a closed Republican primary that has grown far more conservative in recent years. I personally don't believe that any Democratic candidate has much to fear, either from Specter or from Toomey or from Ridge. But that's another factor.

...Labor leaders meeting with Specter today. The kabuki dance continues.

Democratic Haggis

Wow, didn't see this one coming:

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter will switch his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat and announced today that he will run in 2010 as a Democrat, according to a statement he released this morning.

Specter's decision would give Democrats a 60 seat filibuster proof majority in the Senate assuming Democrat Al Franken is eventually sworn in as the next Senator from Minnesota. (Former Sen. Norm Coleman is appealing Franken's victory in the state Supreme Court.)

"I have decided to run for re-election in 2010 in the Democratic primary," said Specter in a statement. "I am ready, willing and anxious to take on all comers and have my candidacy for re-election determined in a general election."

He added: "Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans."

I'd like to think it was torture that did him in, considering that Ronald Reagan's Department of Justice prosecuted cases of waterboarding, and the conservative movement today now defends it. But this is about raw politics, of course. A recent poll showed Specter down 21 points in a Republican primary against Pat Toomey. There was no way whatsoever for him to win that race, and Pennsylvania law would have made it impossible for him to run as an independent after the primary. Last week, unions tried to bargain with Specter, offering help in his re-election in exchange for a vote for the Employee Free Choice Act. However, this change was not made in Specter's statement on becoming a Democrat.

My change in party affiliation does not mean that I will be a party-line voter any more for the Democrats that I have been for the Republicans. Unlike Senator Jeffords’ switch which changed party control, I will not be an automatic 60th vote for cloture. For example, my position on Employees Free Choice (Card Check) will not change.

Whatever my party affiliation, I will continue to be guided by President Kennedy’s statement that sometimes Party asks too much. When it does, I will continue my independent voting and follow my conscience on what I think is best for Pennsylvania and America.

That said, party shifts in Congress are frequently accompanied by a re-calibration of policy positions. I would expect to see Specter move more in line with Democratic positions at this point, lest he face a challenge to his left in a Democratic primary (though he'd have Ed Rendell's support, and I would think it would be very tough to beat him in a primary).

This does give a tentative 60 votes for Democrats, provided that Al Franken comes aboard sometime in June. Pretty dramatic. But Specter will still need pressure on him to follow Democratic policy in the Senate. As for Republicans, their move to the rump regional party continues unabated. Leader Limbaugh apparently said today, essentially, good riddance.

What will be interesting to see is how the media approaches this. They would seemingly be quick to honor Specter's noble bipartisan Broderism, but at the same time would be conflicted by him throwing in his lot with the dirty hippies on the left.

...Democrats won't run a primary challenger against Specter. He actually has a fairly high approval rating among Democrats, so even a challenger with support and funding would have trouble beating him, to say nothing of a grassroots challenger. We're stuck with Specter and will have little political leverage against him. History shows that converts shift to the middle of their new party ideology, but I don't know that will be the case with Specter. He'll probably just be like President Ben Nelson.

The Rump Party

This DKos poll about secession just about sums up the state of the Republican Party these days.

Do you think Texas would be better off as an independent nation or as part of the United States of America?

US: 61
Independent nation: 35

Democrats: US 82, Ind 15
Republicans: US 48, Ind 48
Independents: US 55, Ind 40

Do you approve or disapprove of Governor Rick Perry's suggestion that Texas may need to leave the United States?

Approve: 37
Disapprove: 58

Democrats: Approve 16, Disapprove 80
Republicans: Approve 51, Disapprove 44
Independents: Approve 43, Disapprove 50

I mean, this is the definition of patriotism. And you have half of Texas Republicans who would rather split from the union than live in a hellscape where the top marginal tax rate is several points below what it was under Ronald Reagan. They are officially the Party of Crazy, and only grow worse with each day. Texan John Cornyn (wonder what side of the divide he lands on) is actively encouraging far-right Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, someone who cannot possibly win a primary. Yglesias writes:

This is all reminiscent of the 2008 Virginia Senate race, which I think never got enough attention. You had a longstanding conservative state that had been trending blue. And you had a very strong Democratic candidate in Mark Warner. And you had one and only one possible Republican nominee who would have stood a chance to beat Warner in moderate Representative Tom Davis. But not only did the Virginia GOP decline to nominate Davis, they actually changed the rules by which the nominee is picked to stack the deck against Davis. The result was a totally noncompetitive senate race. The Republicans just fronted the Democrats a Republican-held Senate seat. And Davis decided to retire, thus leaving his House seat open to be nabbed by a Democrat as well. It was staggeringly self-defeating move. And now they’re set to do it again in Pennsylvania

It seems a bit like overconfidence, but how could a movement that’s clearly on the ropes be feeling overconfident.

Overconfident... or just in a death spiral.

PA-Sen: Toomey's In

Arlen Specter's Senatorial career ends today.

Pat Toomey, who as a little-known congressman nearly defeated Sen. Arlen Specter in the 2004 primary, announced Wednesday that he will mount another challenge when Specter seeks the Republican nomination for a sixth term next year.

Toomey, who stepped down Monday as president of the Washington-based Club for Growth, appealed to his conservative base in a statement released just before 8 a.m., while Toomey made a series of TV appearances in the Philadelphia area.

"Pennsylvanians deserve a voice in the U.S. Senate that will honor our values and fight for limited government, individual freedom and fiscal responsibility. I will be that voice," Toomey said.

The silliness of Toomey's claim to fiscal responsibility (do the names George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, all of whom raised the national debt to record levels, ring a bell?) notwithstanding, I don't see how he loses the primary. He lost 51-49 in 2004 and the Republican Party in Pennsylvania has since gotten much more conservative, as moderates left for the Democratic Party in droves. Specter's going to go relentlessly negative and paint Toomey as a Wall Street tool, but he's toast. Toomey will be the nominee, and hopefully we'll put the best Democrat possible against him, because whoever has the D next to his name will be heavily favored against that extremist.

PA-Sen: The Specter Of Career's End

I think we now know why Arlen Specter was so hot to announce his opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act. He was in danger of becoming irrelevant in the GOP:

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter trails a lesser-known challenger in the 2010 Republican primary, an indication of the political hit he has taken in his party's base for giving crucial support to the Democratic-drafted $787 billion economic stimulus, according to a new poll.
Former Rep. Pat Toomey, a conservative leader from the Lehigh Valley, leads Specter 41 to 27 percent in a hypothetical matchup in a Quinnipiac University survey released today.

Although Toomey came within 17,000 votes of beating Specter in the 2004 GOP primary, the poll found that 73 percent of Republican voters did not know enough about the likely challenger to form an opinion of him. Seventy-eight percent of all voters had not heard of Toomey.

"Pennsylvania Republicans are so unhappy with Sen. Specter's vote for President Barack Obama's stimulus package and so-called pork barrel spending that they are voting for a former congressman they hardly know," said Clay F. Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "Toomey came close last time and has strong conservative backing, but his challenge could be fractured if more Republicans crowd into the primary and split the anti-Specter vote."

I doubt that the anti-Specter vote would get split if Toomey jumps in the race, unless Specter would sock-puppet someone to do so. Toomey is well-respected enough by the state GOP that he'd clear the field. And based on this poll, he'd beat Specter like a drum.

So will the tacking hard to the right work out for Specter? Doesn't look like it.

Conservative groups and politicians, far from won over by Specter’s announcement, continue to hammer away at the embattled Senator, suggesting that his abrupt move on EFCA will do little or nothing to reduce his vulnerability to a primary challenge from the right.

For instance, Specter’s announcement drew only mockery and scorn from former GOP Rep. Ernest Istook, the chair of the anti-EFCA group Save Our Secret Ballot.

“Specter enjoys being the center of attention,” Istook said. “There has probably been more money spent to influence his vote on this issue than on any other vote, from any other senator, at any other time. He wants to continue enjoying the attention and the fundraising opportunity.”

Doug Stafford of the anti-EFCA National Right to Work Committee added in a statement that Specter’s move should be “viewed with some skepticism,” adding that other labor-oriented proposals championed by Specter remain “totally unacceptable” and will enable “Big Labor to corral more workers into forced unionism.”

Let me pause from the electoral politics analysis for a second to note that federal labor agencies currently fail workers by neglecting to enforce the laws on the books. For example, the Wage and Hour Division of the Labor Department mishandled 9 out of 10 cases brought to them by undercover agents, in an investigation from last year. I hope Hilda Solis will rectify this, and have a fair degree of confidence she will, but let's be clear that the current system is irreparably broken. Specter's suggested revisions to labor law wouldn't hurt, but are painfully inadequate.

Back to Specter. It seems like he has almost no support left. Labor is pummeling him for this betrayal, and the hard right has no brief for him either. I have to agree with Jonathan Singer - Arlen is toast.

My prediction, on the basis of this move, is that Specter will not win a sixth term in the United States Senate. I just don't see the path. Even with this move, Specter isn't going to be able to make it out of a Republican primary. He only narrowly beat Toomey in 2004, with the White House on his side, with Rick Santorum on his side, with the fact that the GOP held just a two-seat majority in the Senate at the time on his side, etc. Unless Specter already struck a deal with Toomey -- that in return for Specter siding with the GOP corporatists against working Americans on EFCA, Toomey wouldn't run in the primary -- I can't see a path to renomination for Specter. And given that this move has alienated organized labor, which was likely to support him as an Independent had he supported EFCA, I can't see the path to Specter winning in a three-way race as an Independent against Toomey and a strong Democrat.

I realize that we are more than 19 months away from election day 2010, so I'm going out on somewhat of a limb here. But I'm putting it in writing: I do not believe that Specter will win another term in the Senate next year.

PA-Sen: Specter's Ghost

Looks like Pat Toomey changed his mind:

Former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) will challenge Sen. Arlen Specter in a primary for the second straight cycle, according to Pennsylvania GOP sources.

The Allentown Morning Call reported Thursday that two friends of Toomey’s have said the Club for Growth chief has decided to enter the race.

Toomey narrowly lost to Specter in a 2004 primary by less than 1 percent and recently said he was considering another run.

This means the NRSC will likely spend a lot of time and money having to deal with Specter during the primaries instead of on candidates challenging Democrats. It also means that all good candidates for the Pennsylvania Senate on the Democratic side should apply, because if Rick Santorum couldn't break 41% as a sitting Senator, Toomey, who's probably to Santorum's right, can't break 35%.

As for Specter, his only way out is to pull a Lieberman and either become an independent or switch parties entirely (he was a Democrat early in his career).

From this vantage, the only way Specter wins another term (and it's hard for me to envisioning him not wanting this) is if he leaves the Republican Party (though not necessarily the Republican caucus) and calls himself and independent for 2010. In a three-way race against Toomey and a Democrat, Specter wouldn't have to carry a majority of Republican primary voters, or indeed even a majority of Republicans overall. Instead, he would only have to pull in perhaps a third or so of Republicans, as well as a good chunk of independents and Democrats (which he has fairly consistently done). In such a scenario, Specter would be freed up to vote on measures like the Employee Free Choice Act, among others, as he would be competing not only for the votes of conservatives but also the votes of moderates and liberals.

It's his choice, but either way, the Republicans are losing a seat.

The Specter Of A Primary

Arlen Specter knew that he was going to get a primary contender, and he supported the stimulus bill anyway (after extracting a bunch of concessions). The fact that Pat Toomey, who came this close to beating him in 2004, had dropped out of the race prior to the stimulus conversations probably made it easier for him to make the decision. No more, however:

Former Congressman Pat Toomey (R, PA-15), current Club for Growth President, just announced on Bobby Gunther Walsh’s 1-On-1 Show, WAEB, 790AM, that a Primary challenge to Senator Arlen Specter is “now back on the table.”

Mr. Toomey acknowledged that “Senator Specter cast the deciding vote on the very worrisome stimulus Bill, when he could have negotiated with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Obama for more productive tax cuts and less wasteful spending.” Pennsylvanians need to do some soul searching about who will really represent us in the Senate.

There are enough crazies in the Republican Party in Pennsylvania - most of the sane ones left for the Democrats - that Toomey could win. And when I say "win", I mean win the primary and the right to be pummeled worse than Rick Santorum in the general election. So I can think of worse things happening.

The flip side, of course, is that Specter will need to be more mindful of protecting his right flank, making him less likely to side with Democrats on a lot of policy between now and the primary. But he's a stubborn mule, and if it suits him I don't see him totally breaking away.

...no matter the opponent, Specter's re-election chances are in peril. Jonathan Singer has an interesting theory:

So what can Specter do at this point? It seems unlikely to me that he would opt against running for a sixth term in the Senate -- that just doesn't seem like the Arlen Specter we have all come to know over the years. But he has to realize that he wouldn't have much of a shot in a Republican primary against Toomey, even as he would would have a shot at reelection running as an independent (nearly twice as many Democrats as Republicans want to see him reelected).

I don't know enough about Pennsylvania election law to determine whether Specter could pull a Joe Lieberman -- running in his party's primary, but holding out the possibility of running on his own ticket in the event he lost the primary -- but I'd imagine that Specter's team already knows the answer. It may be that Specter would even forgo the attempt to run in a Republican primary against Toomey or a similarly strong conservative. Then again, Specter isn't one who has tended to give up on fights in his career, so maybe he would opt to enter what appears to be a nearly unwinnable primary just to prove his political courage. Either way, this is shaping up to be one of the most interesting races of the cycle.

Pat On The Head And A Food Pellet

So let's get the timeline of events right. Arlen Specter slanders Barack Obama's nominee Eric Holder and leads the effort to question him in the media, perhaps at the behest of Karl Rove. Then Pat Toomey, the head of the Club for Growth, decides he won't run in a primary against Specter from the right. And a couple days later, Specter decides to back Holder.

"I can say with some confidence that there won't be a successful filibuster," Specter told reporters at a press conference gathered to share his thoughts on Holder in advance of tomorrow's Judiciary panel vote on the nominee.

Specter added that the strong recommendations Holder received from former FBI director Louis Freeh and former DoJ No. 2 James Comey were influential in swaying his vote.

"At no time did I challenge Mr. Holder's integrity," the Pennsylvania senator concluded. (But he sure came close, according to Holder himself.) "It was a question of judgment."

Mind you, this MORNING Specter had a letter to the editor printed in the Philadelphia Inquirer, questioning Holder and CITING Louis Freeh as a reason to be concerned.

Maybe that was written before Toomey dropped out.

Is there anyone more pathetic than Arlen Specter?

PA-Sen: No Rightward Leverage For Specter

Pat Toomey, who nearly defeated Arlen Specter in 2004, won't try a second primary:

Former Lehigh Valley Congressman Pat Toomey has decided against a repeat run for Senate in 2010, turning instead toward a possible bid for governor as he reaches out to Republicans statewide to assess his potential candidacy next year.

Toomey, president of the anti-tax group The Club for Growth, is scheduled to sit down with several influential and deep-pocketed Lehigh Valley Republicans in early February to “discuss his thinking of a possible gubernatorial run,” according to an e-mail invitation sent out Friday on behalf of Arcadia Properties founder Richard Thulin.

He has also put calls out statewide to supporters this week with the aim of raising money to do some preliminary polling.

At the same time, Toomey has dropped consideration of a repeat run for Senate in 2010.

I'm OK with this. I know people think that a tough primary damages an incumbent, but Specter survived Toomey in '04 and then cruised to victory. Plus, this is more substantively better for the Obama agenda than anything. Specter will now have to be more worried of a challenge from a Democrat than a Republican, and presumably he'll vote accordingly. He's already become the only Republican male to vote for the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and as 2010 approaches he'll probably need to cross the aisle more.

Specter is still among the most threatened incumbents in 2010.

2010 Begins!

I know, the last election of 2008 is today, with the Georgia runoff between Saxby Chambliss and Jim Martin. But there's news on the next set of elections too! Don't you just love the perpetual campaign?

And the news is bad for Republicans, to boot. First, Mel Martinez is resigning, setting up an open seat in the newly blue state of Florida.

Florida Sen. Mel Martinez (R) has decided against seeking a second term, a decision he will formalize shortly in the Sunshine State, according to an informed party source.

Martinez's decision was based on a desire for more free time and a less scheduled life, said the source. The first term senator also was an almost certain Democratic target in two years time although those familiar with Martinez's political prospects insisted his strengths in South Florida, coupled with his political base along the I-4 corridor, made his path to reelection possible.

The Democrats' favored candidate, State CFO Alex Sink, begged off the race yesterday. I could totally see Jeb Bush trying to rehabilitate the Bush name by running for this, and he'd be a strong favorite, but it's not a slam-dunk.

In Pennsylvania, the biggest news is not Tweety Bird's destined-to-crash-and-burn Democratic campaign, but the fact that wingnut's wingnut Pat Toomey may take on a primary challenge rematch.

Toomey, the president of the conservative Club for Growth, insisted Specter faces more hurdles than he did four years ago.

"He's significantly more vulnerable now than he was in 2004," Toomey said in an interview.

He argued that Specter's core constituency in the GOP, which he called "liberal and moderate Republicans," have since left the party and will be unable to vote in Pennsylvania's closed Republican primary. That will make it more difficult for Specter to prevail against a conservative opponent, Toomey said.

Toomey is absolutely right. It also means that he would have no shot at winning the general election, since all those moderates left the party thanks to nutballs like him.