The Awful Specter of Yet Another Term: Conservatives need a friend in Pennsylvania

National Review, Sept 1, 2003 by John J. Miller

'I'll go straight to the point," said Arlen Specter, shortly after sitting down to dinner with Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation in March. "I've got a primary and I'm being hit from the right. I want your support."

The Republican senator from Pennsylvania wasn't going to get it merely by breaking bread. Says Weyrich: "I told him I was disgusted with how he comes around just before his elections and asks for conservative endorsements, when we all know he won't give us the time of day later on." In years past, Weyrich has traveled to Specter's home turf and urged conservatives to stick with one of the GOP's most liberal members. "I'm not sure what I'm going to do this time."

The choice for Weyrich-and the whole conservative movement-is whether to make another uneasy peace with Specter in the prudential belief that no party holding a one-seat majority in the Senate should dump an incumbent who has won four previous elections in a swing state. The alternative is to rally behind Pat Toomey, an impressive congressman from Allentown who has launched an energetic primary bid against the man who has done more to frustrate conservative goals over the years than perhaps any other member of his caucus. Specter may not be the most unreliable GOP senator-he faces strong competition in that category from Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island-but he is almost certainly the most harmful, because he is smart, ruthless, and influential.

Weyrich's complaint is a common one: Specter votes like a Democrat until late in his term, when he remembers that he will need at least some conservatives on his side if he's going to win another six years. "Arlen is not a team player, but we're getting a little more cooperation out of him this year," says one GOP senator. In 2001, for instance, Specter was in his usual form, helping slash the Bush administration's tax cuts by $250 billion. This year, however, he embraced the president's tax-relief proposals early on. "There's more reason for an economic stimulus now," he says. Skeptics think it's not the economy he's trying to jump-start as much as it is his Republican base-which he'll need in next April's primary.

The 73-year-old Specter is one of the Senate's best-known but least-liked members. His notoriety dates back to 1964, when, as a young lawyer serving on the Warren Commission, he invented the "single-bullet theory" to explain how Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President Kennedy. Ever since, conspiracy groupies have blamed him for a major cover-up. In Oliver Stone's movie JFK, Kevin Costner's character labels Specter "an ambitious junior counselor" behind "one of the grossest lies ever forced on the American people."

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have much better reasons for disliking him: They regard Specter as one of the prickliest pols in Congress-a humorless man who is cold to colleagues and cruel to staff. Late one night several years ago, Senate majority leader Trent Lott needed Specter to sign off on an appropriations bill. Specter agreed to do it, for a price: Lott would have to attend two fundraisers in Pennsylvania. Lott made the deal, but this sort of legislative hostage-taking doesn't win fans. "There are two kinds of senators: Republicans who don't like Specter and Democrats who don't like Specter," says a former leadership aide. In a Washingtonian magazine survey, Hill staffers rated him the Senate's meanest member. This has given rise to one of Specter's nicknames: Snarlin' Arlen.

Being "mean" isn't necessarily a bad quality in a politician. When Weyrich stumped for Specter in 1992, he made a simple point to his conservative listeners: "Arlen Specter is a jerk, but he's our jerk." A former Senate staffer puts it this way: "If there's a tough debate going on, you definitely want Specter on your side."

The problem for conservatives is that Specter isn't their jerk nearly enough. He is an abortion-rights absolutist, a dogged advocate of racial preferences, a bitter foe of tort reform, a firm friend of the International Criminal Court-the list is long. When Citizens Against Government Waste recently listed Specter in its "Pig Book" as one of the Senate's most profligate spenders, he shot back: "If they left me out, I'd be worried." In 1995, Specter briefly ran for president and pursued the unique strategy of attacking the base of his own party: His announcement speech lobbed a grenade at "the intolerant Right." After pressing this theme for several months, one poll showed him attracting support from a grand total of 1 percent of Republicans. The senator's lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union is 42 percent (Pat Toomey's is 97).

In July, Specter disappointed conservatives yet again when he blocked a school-choice proposal that would have granted vouchers to 2,000 poor students in the District of Columbia. Prominent Democrats, including D.C. mayor Anthony Williams and Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, support the plan. So did Specter six years ago, when he voted in favor of a similar measure. "I've regretted it ever since," he now says. "I believe school choice violates the separation of church and state. It's unconstitutional." But didn't the Supreme Court rule otherwise last year? "It was a 5-4 decision. The court may change its mind." Specter's own children attended private school in Philadelphia. "They didn't have access to a good public school," he explains. So what would he say to a mother in D.C. who insists that her kids don't have access to a good public school either? "There are charter schools available. I've led the way to improve the quality of education in America."