Opinion: Democrats strip Specter of committee seniority as Republicans ponder: Can Ridge win Pennsylvania?
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Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter is having a rough entry into the Democratic Party.
He’s twice voted against President Obama, the man who pledged to campaign for him in blue Pennsylvania. On Sunday, he said on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ that he never promised to be a loyal Democrat. Then, as if to prove it, he told the New York Times Magazine that he thinks Republican Norm Coleman should win in his recount fight against Democrat Al Franken in Minnesota, if only to ensure that the U.S. Senate includes at least one Jewish Republican.
True, he took back the Coleman line, telling Congressional Quarterly that ‘in the swirl of moving from one caucus to another, I have to get used to my new teammates.’
His Democratic colleagues are not amused.
Last night, ignoring Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid‘s pledge that Specter could keep his committee seniority, Specter’s new Democratic friends pulled the plug, making him the most junior member of all the committees he serves on and denying him a selling point with voters (that ‘I can deliver the goods from Washington’ line) in next year’s election. (Reid’s folks said this would all be revisited again after the 2010 elections.)
Which is one reason that Republicans are eyeing the Pennsylvania Senate race with new interest.
Former Rep. Pat Toomey, now the frontrunner in the GOP primary contest, is the darling of conservatives. After almost defeating Specter in the GOP primary in 2004, Toomey has thirsted for a redo. He was so far ahead of the 79-year-old incumbent in this cycle that Specter saw no way of winning the Republican primary. Hence the party switch.
But now some in the Republican Party — one hesitates to say moderates, didn’t know there were any left — are urging former governor, former Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge to challenge Toomey for the nomination. The theory: A moderate Republican stands a better chance of winning in the fall.
Recent polls show Ridge polling better than Toomey against Specter in a general election contest. A Quinnipiac University poll on Monday had Specter leading Toomey by 20% and Ridge by just 3%. A Susquehanna Polling and Research survey, also released Monday, had Specter ahead of Toomey by six points and trailing Ridge by one.
Tempting as those numbers might be for Republicans, Toomey is a rock star on the right, and the right is frustrated by years of electing a senator who rarely reflected their views.
As for Ridge, seen above campaigning for Republican John McCain, he is a former Bush administration official, governor and representative, who hasn’t run for office in Pennsylvania in more than a decade.
Watch this space.
— Johanna Neuman
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