RSS Feed MenuAccording to a recent poll, Pat Toomey has pulled even with Arlen Specter in the 2010 Senate race in Pennsylvania.
With spiking unemployment, Specter’s role in passing the increasingly unpopular stimulus package, and hostile crowds meeting Specter as he returns home to push Obamacare, conservative hopes for taking this seat from Specter — the former RINO — are on the rise.
According to the well-trod conservative theory, all it took in Pennsylvania was a real conservative like Toomey to make his case, and the power of conservative ideas would prevail. Those who assumed that Club for Growth orthodoxy had claimed another Republican seat when Toomey’s conservative challenge provoked Specter’s defection, advocated compromise where none was necessary.
Conservatives should not get too far ahead of themselves in assuming the vitality of the Toomey candidacy in a purple (at best) state where no Republican presidential candidate has won since 1988. While Specter is no doubt vulnerable, this is a state where two-time incumbent Rick Santorum, member of the Republican leadership and fundraising titan, was recently crushed by 17 points.
If Toomey is to prevail, he will need to do more than represent the ‘Republican wing of the Republican party.’
Toomey is not going to reinvent himself as a moderate. Yet, he is fortunate to have in Arlen Specter the perfect foil for an insurgent populist candidacy. As if his split-the-difference stimulus vote did not provide adequate evidence, Specter’s essential character has emerged with great clarity since becoming a Democrat. In short, Specter’s voting record has highlighted the deeply cynical careerism that is the guiding principle of his Senate career. Nate Silver’s “Specterometer” has demonstrated the Senator’s deep commitment to the virtue of his own reelection. Prior to becoming a Democrat, Specter broke with the GOP to vote with the Democrats on contentious votes 44% of the time.
After his party switch, but before the threat of Congressman Sestak’s primary challenge, he voted with the Democrats on key votes 69% of the time. But since the Sestak challenge, he has been voting with Democrats 97% of the time.
Driven to save his own skin, in a few short months “Specter” has morphed from Arlen Specter, into Ben Nelson, before finally settling in with Al Franken.
Pat Toomey would be wise to attack Specter and this record not simply as a conservative but as a populist. The problem with Arlen Specter is not simply that he has become a doctrinaire liberal and enabler of Nancy Pelosi’s agenda. Rather, he has demonstrated that he is an unserious person in quite serious times, willing to trade his support for a massive new entitlement that threatens the nation’s future economic growth, in return for President Obama’s efforts to clear the Democratic field in Pennsylvania and raise money for his reelection.
As I speak with my conservative friends outside of Washington, I am always struck at a populist streak in their analysis that is generally absent inside the Beltway. These conservatives have next to no faith that their representatives (even those in the GOP) — constantly working toward their own reelection — will make the hard choices necessary to secure our fiscal future and national well-being.
And as his two-step to the left has demonstrated, few individuals represent this despised Washington careerism better than Arlen Specter.
Pat Toomey will run as a conservative, and if 2010 proves a conservative year, he may prevail. But ultimately, if he seeks a fate different than Rick Santorum’s, he would be wise to promote explicitly populist policies that attack the Washington career track in the name of conservative reform. Rick Santorum won in 1994, as the GOP nationalized the mid-terms with a populist attack on the careerism of Congress. He won reelection during a presidential year with massive turnout. But along the way, Santorum and the Republicans had stopped being anti-establishment. They had become the establishment. Santorum moved his family to the D.C. area. He became associated with the “K Street Project.”
And as a traditional social and economic conservative, he eventually met his match in Bob Casey and was trounced.
Whether Toomey is able to beat Specter is almost beside the point. With a lousy economy and terrible unemployment numbers, a conservative Toomey might be able to eke out a victory over Specter. But he will have done nothing to create a lasting Republican majority or to drag Pennsylvania closer toward the Republican column.
As indicated by the weekend’s near riot in Philadelphia — as Senator Specter attempted to explain that he did not need to read legislation because in the interest of acting quickly, staff read the legislation instead — the grafting of a populist agenda onto the Toomey candidacy might point the way toward the new and lasting majority Republicans have sought since the Nixon administration.
More on that agenda later.
barker13 // Aug 5, 2009 at 8:38 am
“Conservatives should not get too far ahead of themselves in assuming the vitality of the Toomey candidacy…”
Er… (*SCRATCHING MY HEAD*)… your contribution comes down to “don’t count your chickens before they hatch?”
(*GRIN*)
OK. Good advice. Good advice on pretty much every topic in every setting.
(*CHUCKLE*)
In any case… all I know is that SOME of us have been vocally (er… our fingers doing the “talking” via our keyboards) supporting Toomey’s candidacy for… er… ever.
(*HUGE FRIGG’N GRIN*)
By the same token, “some” regular posters here (and of course Frum and several of his “contributor’s”) have “historically” been… umm… anti-Toomey.
Should we mark today (and “Hank’s” contribution) as the official start of NM.com historical revisionism…???
(*CHUCKLE*)
BILL
Cforchange // Aug 5, 2009 at 11:02 am
Just like healthcare polls, I ask again: Whooooo do they poll?
More overwhelmingly than ever Dems outnumber the GOP membership in PA. My guess is that 2/3 of the remaining GOP are very content with the total package for the push to the right in every regard. A real poll of the general population is where Toomey will not fly.
ottovbvs // Aug 5, 2009 at 11:14 am
………The bussed in Renta-mob strategy isn’t fooling anyone and it risks presenting the Republican party as a thuggish mob of racists…….. To start with Specter has to win his primary against Sestak……not a foregone conclusion by any means I’d say…….then and only then is it worth discussing polls………The fact is Toomey who is a rather nasty little far right conservative hasn’t got a cat in hells chance of beating Specter or Sestak in PA which isn’t a purple state but a solid blue one
sinz54 // Aug 5, 2009 at 12:19 pm
One big issue where populism collides with traditional conservative free-market economics is: Trade and globalization.
It’s very hard to tell auto workers who lost jobs to foreign competition, or white-collar workers whose jobs have been outsourced to India, that free trade is always a good thing. Free trade is a good thing for consumers who can buy more goods cheaply, but it’s not such a good thing for those who lose their jobs. In Pennsylvania, NAFTA was always deeply unpopular among the working class.
Further, populism is sometimes intertwined with nationalism. For the GOP, that’s a good opportunity. But free trade sometimes collides with nationalism too. As witness the furor over the Dubai ports deal a couple of years ago. National-security conservatives were opposed to letting Dubai-based companies operate our seaports; business conservatives (such as Larry Kudlow and the editors of the Wall Street Journal) were in favor.
I would love to see a more populist GOP. But it has to decide how to reconcile populism with its Wall Street wing.
To deal with this, conservatives need to propose programs to revitalize depressed areas, and help American workers get new jobs. That may require more Government intervention in the economy than free-market purists would like.
They also need to resolve a long-standing conundrum: The national security implications of free trade with unstable parts of the world.
sinz54 // Aug 5, 2009 at 12:24 pm
If the GOP is to go populist, it must tone down the anti-union rhetoric. The union-bashing among the GOP base now has reached a peak I haven’t seen since the 1960s. Attacking union workers as lazy and spoiled, and attacking union leaders as Commie thugs, isn’t the way to win working-class votes.
Nixon, Ford, Reagan, were able to win working-class votes by not bashing those voters’ unions. It doesn’t mean they couldn’t stand up to excessive union demands–Reagan did–but they didn’t portray organized labor itself as harmful to the nation.
ottovbvs // Aug 5, 2009 at 1:02 pm
“They also need to resolve a long-standing conundrum: The national security implications of free trade with unstable parts of the world.”
……….It’s an unresolvable conundrum because almost the entire undeveloped world is unstable and that’s where much of the planet’s raw materials are located……plus some stable places like Russia are rivals and in national security terms present much more of a threat than say Nigeria
Cforchange // Aug 5, 2009 at 1:28 pm
And there away goes the GOP in PA….
“If the GOP is to go populist, it must tone down the anti-union rhetoric. The union-bashing among the GOP base now has reached a peak I haven’t seen since the 1960s. Attacking union workers as lazy and spoiled, and attacking union leaders as Commie thugs, isn’t the way to win working-class votes.”
But the generic anti rhethoric about this and that has a much larger scope.
barker13 // Aug 5, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Re: Sinz54 // Aug 5, 2009 at 12:19 pm –
“One big issue where populism collides with traditional conservative free-market economics is: Trade and globalization.”
While you’re correct on sentiment, you’re wrong with regard to defining “traditional conservatism” and part and parcel of “conservative free-market economics.”
Traditional Republican conservatism was protectionist. The pre-civil war North was protectionist vs. the antebellum South which was “free trade.” Basically, manufacturing vs. slave agriculture.
Prior to this, prior to the Republican Party of Lincoln, the Founders were protectionists. Alexander Hamilton was a tarriff booster.
Heck, even regionally it wasn’t always clear cut “which” branch of “conservatism” favored free trade and which favored protectionism. Yes, the South wanted free trade to benefit their slave based large scale agricultural (cotton, tabacco, etc.) exports, but Henry Clay was a protectionist. Remember “The American System?”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_System_%28economic_plan%29
Basically free trade zealotry here in the States emerged following WW-1. Of course, there was that little “bump in the road” called Smoot-Hawley… (*SMILE*)
Anyway, Sinz… not trying to nitpick, just clarifying our terms as they apply to our national history, not just present day political shorthand. (*WINK*)
OH… AND OF COURSE… just to reiterate my own position… I’m a “fair trade” advocate and a protectionist/populist when convinced it’s in America’s and the American People’s cost/benefit interest at any specific point in time.
“…populism is sometimes intertwined with nationalism.”
One would hope so! (*GRIN*)
“…among the working class.”
(*ROLLING MY EYES*) (*GRITTING MY TEETH*) We’ve GOT to find a better phrase than that. How’bout… “The Value Producing Class,” aka “The VPC.” (*WINK*) Doctors are VPC. Lawyers aren’t. Entrepreneurs are VPC. Stock brokers aren’t. (*SHRUG*)
“…Larry Kudlow…”
Like you (or even in the extreme, Otto) Kudlow occasionally stumbles upon the truth. Still… I’d like to see him locked in stocks in Times Square and pelted with rotten fruit and vegetables.
“I would love to see a more populist GOP.”
Me too!
“But it has to decide how to reconcile populism with its Wall Street wing.”
Back to my idea about setting up stocks in Times Square… (*GRIN*)
One serious concrete suggestion: KEEP identifying the links between the Democratic Party and “name” Democrats (particularly those looked upon as liberal Democrats) and the Hedge Fund types and other elements of the uber-rich and uber-elite.
BILL
barker13 // Aug 5, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Re: Sinz54 // Aug 5, 2009 at 12:24 pm –
“If the GOP is to go populist, it must tone down the anti-union rhetoric.”
Disagree. 100% disagree. What the GOP do is FOCUS “anti-union” rhetoric upon bad union practices (“bad” from a common sense standpoint… “bad” from an overall societal standpoint… “bad” from a “patriotic” standpoint).
Pro-WORKER (as in pro individual American worker)… anti-Special Interest (as in top union leadership as a self-perpetuating, self-strengthening POLITICAL force). That’s the ticket!
“…Reagan…”
EXACTLY!
BILL