Specter courts conservatives in Pa. rematch

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) has been laying the groundwork for a grudge rematch against former Rep. Pat Toomey since 2004, when Specter almost lost his seat to the conservative firebrand.

Conservative leaders say that Specter’s relationship with conservative activists is much stronger than four and a half years ago, when the senator relied on then-President George W. Bush and -Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) to rally support before surviving his toughest primary challenge to date. He beat Toomey by just 2 percent.

{mosads}As a result, these same conservative leaders and activists may well have a stronger influence over Specter in the18 months leading up to Election Day, making it more difficult for Democratic leaders to woo his support for their agenda.

“What he’s done is to try to develop a relationship with conservatives in Pennsylvania and elsewhere,” said David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union.

“Specter decided after the last primary with Toomey that if people wanted to disagree with him on issues, that would be fine, but that he would also make friends with them,” Keene added.

“You’ll find a lot of conservatives in Pennsylvania who might be upset with Specter but also have access to him and can argue with him, which was not the case before the Toomey primary.”

Specter took a major leap toward reconciling with conservatives by ushering the Senate confirmations of Bush’s two Supreme Court nominees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito, in 2005 and early 2006 when he was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Jim Broussard, a conservative activist in Pennsylvania and chairman of Citizens Against Higher Taxes, said: “I’m not sure Specter knew who I was before 2004. We had very little contact.”

Now Broussard says that he and Specter “get along fine personally.”

Broussard supported Toomey in 2004 but has yet to make a decision about whom to back this go-round.

Terry Madonna, a professor of political science at Franklin & Marshall College, estimates that more than 130,000 Republicans left the Pennsylvania GOP over the past 15 months.

{mospagebreak}“Many of them were moderate Republicans who have been in the party more than 20 years — in other words, Specter Republicans,” said Madonna.

The changing demographics of the Republican primary electorate have put significant pressure on Specter to win backing from conservatives.

Toomey bills himself as a “real conservative,” but activists in Pennsylvania see him as more of an economic conservative with a libertarian bent than a social conservative.

{mosads}“I’ve heard him say that while he’s a social conservative, he’s more geared toward economic issues,” one activist said of Toomey.

Specter has attempted to exploit that by making a strong pitch for the support of social conservatives in Pennsylvania. He has sponsored hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of earmarks for sexual abstinence education programs in Pennsylvania.

He sponsored 25 earmarks, each worth between $21,000 and $44,000, for abstinence education in the fiscal 2008 appropriations bills.

Specter sponsored 22 earmarks worth $24,000 each in the fiscal 2009 omnibus Congress passed earlier this year.

“Sen. Specter is the only member of Congress I’ve found that earmarks funding for abstinence education, and you’re talking about dozens of earmarks in each of the last fiscal years,” said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a group that tracks federal spending.

Tom McClusky, vice president of government affairs at the Family Research Council, a prominent conservative advocacy group, said that Specter has also earmarked hundreds of thousands of dollars for embryo adoption.

Specter, who chairs the Appropriations Health and Human Services subcommittee, touted this fact at a recent hearing. He reminded the audience that he has included $2 million for embryo adoption awareness campaigns in every budget for the Department of Health and Human Services since 2002.

{mospagebreak}McClusky said this has been part of Specter’s broader effort to reach out to conservatives.

“I’ve seem him at some of the meetings of conservatives where you wouldn’t expect him, such as the Grover meeting,” McClusky said, in reference to a weekly meeting hosted by Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.

McClusky added that “without a doubt” Specter has been more active in conservative circles since his close call with Toomey in 2004.

{mosads}Tim Kelly, Toomey’s spokesman, charged that Specter is making a last-minute appeal to conservatives.

“Conservatives in Pennsylvania have long known that Arlen Specter does a dance in which he’s a liberal for five years of a Senate term and then casts a few conservative votes leading up to a primary,” said Kelly. “This time — after voting for all of the bailouts and the pork-filled stimulus bill — Sen. Specter is dancing the same old dance, but the music isn’t playing.”

Chris Nicholas, Specter’s campaign manager, however, said that Specter has been supporting conservative initiatives long before his 2004 battle against Toomey.

“He’s been working on abstinence-only funding for more than a decade,” said Nicholas.

Nicholas noted that Specter met with conservative activist leaders in Harrisburg 10 days ago but insisted that has been part of Specter’s regular outreach for years.

“He’s meeting with social conservatives in the Southeast, just like he meets with lots of constituent groups. It’s been part of political outreach the past five or six years,” said Nicholas.

Specter has championed other issues dear to conservatives both social and fiscal.

Specter first introduced  legislation in 1995 establishing a flat tax, which many conservatives consider the Holy Grail of tax reform. He reintroduced it at the end of last month.

The senior Republican has also long been considered a solid opponent of gambling, an issue gaining momentum among Pennsylvania conservatives who oppose efforts to loosen state gambling restrictions.