Democrats: Specter's Biggest Foes?

Last week's top politics story sounded a lot like a perverted game of Clue -- Arlen Specter (?-Pa), in the Senate, playing the defection card, killing what little cohesion the Republican Party still coveted. Add to that stinging defeat the retirement of Justice David Souter, and it was easy to understand why the GOP was so worried.

But maybe it's the hubris-hampered Democrats who ought to show some concern.

Put simply, the newly-minted Specter faces two big challenges in 2010. The first threat is borne from his previous party: Pat Toomey, the former House member who almost defeated Spector in 2004 and ultimately triggered the incumbent's defection nearly five years later.

Spector's second -- and more interesting -- challenge, however, originates within his new party: Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA). Sestak is not an unabashed progressive, as perhaps some of Pennsylvania's more liberal voters would prefer, but his stances on a host of issues align nicely with Democratic prerogatives. Among other initiatives, he supported the 2009 stimulus, he appears more amenable to variations on pending card check legislation and he is a guaranteed vote on health care reform.

Pitted against Specter in the primary, Sestak's odds are unfavorable. The latter's donor list is not nearly as expansive as his incumbent rival's, even if Specter's defection has actually alienated a number of his longtime supporters. Further complicating Sestak's potential bid is the Democratic leadership's unabashed support for Specter, both rhetorically and financially. That even the president -- who carried Pennsylvania in 2008 -- also promises campaign aid to Specter does not bode well for any of his challengers, Sestak included.

What the sitting representative does have, however, is a voice. As Sestak brazenly told CNN's John King on Sunday, "I'm not sure [Specter's] a Democrat yet." That comment was merely an echo of a statement he made days earlier on MSNBC, in which he said of a potential bid: "I'll wait and see.... Is [Specter] gonna be for what we believe in? If it's not good for Pennsylvania, well then, we'll make that decision [about my campaign]."

That skepticism is bad news for Specter. It is unlikely that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was unnerved by Specter's comment on Sunday that he was not a "loyal Democrat." Rather, the Senate leader must have known that the price of a 60-vote supermajority would be a rogue opportunist. But perhaps that is also part of the reason Reid, Obama and others offered the turncoat such significant campaign support so early in last week's news cycle. If anything, extending a very generous olive branch to Specter was a potent way to deter Pennsylvania Democrats, like Sestak, who might run and reveal the obvious issue contrast between Specter and his sort-of new party.

Yet, Sestak is perhaps more unrelenting than Reid anticipated. Even if he loses, the representative will at least be able to pigeonhole Specter into openly supporting (or opposing) any number of Democratic positions. This is a doubly powerful maneuver, too, given the national media attention that both the party primaries and the general election are likely to generate.

Hence the GOP's secret weapon in the 2010 Pennsylvania Senate race: Democrats. Toomey is unlikely to win the general election, no matter which Democrat wins the party primary. But his loss could further antagonize local Democratic schisms -- a spoil of war the GOP cannot ignore.

Of course, success here largely depends on the extent of the Republican Party's internal malaise. The GOP's recent shortcomings are rivaled in frequency and intensity only by the party's own pathetic defeatism, which is certain not to sit well with voters -- in Pennsylvania or elsewhere. True, Specter's defection is bad for Republicans, who presently need all the help they can get. But one turncoat hardly qualifies as a manifest end game. The Democrats are presently winning at the game of politics, to be sure, but the GOP is decidedly its own transgressor if it packs up its pieces this early in the election cycle.