Arlen Specter's Zigzag Trajectory

As a top staffer for the Warren Commission nearly a half century ago, Arlen Specter helped devise the "single bullet theory" to explain the bizarre trajectory of a shot that purportedly hit both President John Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally. But nothing other than sheer ambition and an amazing knack for political survival explains the bizarre trajectory of Specter's own career -- which took another dizzying turn today when the five-term Pennsylvania Republican senator announced Tuesday that he was (shazam!) becoming a Democrat.

In politics, there is nothing like a primary challenge to concentrate a man's mind. Specter, who was one of only three Republican senators to vote for President Obama's stimulus package, was facing a daunting primary rematch next year against conservative challenger and former congressman Pat Toomey. In 2004, Toomey, a zealous tax-cutter, came within 17,000 votes of ousting Specter in a primary that underscored the rightward tilt of the Pennsylvania Republican Party.



Standing aptly enough against a brick wall at a Washington press conference, the 79-year-old Specter bluntly admitted: "The prospects for winning a Republican primary are bleak. I am not prepared to have my 29-year record in the United States Senate decided by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate."

Instead Specter, a former Philadelphia district attorney, went jury shopping in the Democratic Party. On Tuesday, the Democrats initially embraced their new convert as the probable key to a filibuster-proof 60-vote Senate majority (assuming that the ensnarled 2008 Minnesota Senate race is resolved before the six-year term expires). But Specter balked at any hint of party-line predictability. At the press conference, Specter went out of his way to volunteer, "I will not be an automatic 60th vote," stressing that he would not vote to break a filibuster on labor-backed "card check" legislation designed to ease union organizing.

A strong case can be made that Specter, who started out as a Democrat in Philadelphia politics in the early 1960s, has always represented no one but himself. He could be a viciously partisan Republican, as he was during his no-holds-barred questioning of Anita Hill during the 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearings on Clarence Thomas. He could be a political weathervane, as he was during the 1999 Senate vote on the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Rather than voting to impeach Clinton and antagonizing swing voters in Pennsylvania, rather than voting against impeachment and enraging orthodox Republicans, Specter invoked an ancient Scottish verdict of "not proven."

But Specter, whose support of abortion rights is about the only ideological constant in his long, zigzag political career, could be a loyal Republican soldier when it was in his self-interest. Eager to become Judiciary Committee chairman after the 2004 elections, Specter took an oath of fealty to Senate conservatives, promising to be a rubber stamp for George W. Bush's judicial appointees. As a result, Specter, who will get a Judiciary subcommittee as part of Tuesday's backstairs bargain, has the rare Democratic distinction of voting to confirm the four most conservative members of the Supreme Court.

Only against the backdrop of the politically polarized Senate can Specter be described as a moderate, as he frequently was Tuesday. "Everyone is talking about what a heretic Specter has been," said G. Terry Madonna, thedirector of the Franklin and Marshall College Poll. "He has a 50 to 60 percent voting record with the Republican Party. The reason he was in trouble is that the conservatives want 90 percent."

Sensing the Democratic surge in Pennsylvania, Specter was the invisible man throughout most of the 2008 presidential campaign, despite his professed affection for John McCain. As Jon Seaton, who ran the McCain campaign in the state, said, "Throughout the presidential campaign in Pennsylvania, it was always clear that Arlen Specter was more concerned with Arlen Specter than John McCain."

If these reversals are a bit confusing, imagine what it must be like to be Senator Specter and keep all these fast-changing story lines straight. For example, as recently as two weeks ago, when Specter was still planning to defend his seat in the GOP primary, he was casting himself as the last bulwark against the horrifying threat of Obama Unbound. At a campaign press conference in mid-April, according to ABC News, Specter declared, "The 41st Republican, whose name is Arlen Specter, is vital to stopping tax increases, passage of card check, and the Obama big spending plans." With the president now promising to fund-raise for Specter, it is a safe bet that once again the mercurial Pennsylvania senator will change his tone.

Ross Baker, a Rutgers University political scientist and an expert on the Senate, adroitly captured Specter's political style: "The party switch is consistent with his long-term desire to be the center of attention. This is a
guy who wants to be the bride at the wedding and the corpse at the funeral."

Specter's latest swivel can be seen as a potent symbol of the Republicans' fast-dwindling political base through the Northeast. Pennsylvania now has two Democratic senators for the first time in 62 years. "This is further evidence that there is a major realignment taking place," said Simon Rosenberg, the president of the center-left New Democratic Network. "But Specter's shift also has other major implications. It puts more pressure on the congressional Democrats to deliver on President Obama's agenda."

All signs suggest that Specter will romp through the 2010 Democratic Senate primary, even though Joseph Torsella, who was the founding director of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, bravely vowed Tuesday to stay in the race. But it was clear that a deal had been cut the moment that White House press secretary Robert Gibbs confirmed that the president would back the freshly minted Democrat. In fact, Specter's carefully choreographed conversion of convenience serves as a reminder that, even in Obama's Washington, principles and party can be exceedingly malleable commodities.



SEE ALSO:
Sen. Reid Speaks out on Specter Switch
Poll last week showed Specter in Trouble
Arlen Specter, Traitor ... Loser