Arlen Specter is ready to rumble.
On Tuesday, one day before former Republican Congressman Pat
Toomey formally declared his intention to challenge Specter in a
2010 replay of their fierce primary struggle six years earlier,
Specter came out swinging.
In an exclusive interview with The American Spectator,
Specter, looking fit at 79 from his famous early morning squash
matches, stood patiently in a Harrisburg drizzle launching one
verbal attack after another at Toomey and the Club for Growth, a
conservative political action committee that Toomey has served as
president since his defeat by Specter. Toomey resigned his
leadership post several days ago and announced his candidacy
Wednesday morning, April 15th. The five-term Senator
made it clear he was more than eager for round two of what was an
unexpectedly close primary in 2004, an election in which the
tenacious Specter rolled to victory with an unexpectedly close
17,000 vote margin.
“I’ve been sitting back for the last six years taking insistent
criticism from him,” Specter said of Toomey. “The campaign is
underway and I intend to fire back. It’s hardball. Hard
hardball.”
Without missing a beat, speaking without notes, Specter zeroed in
specifically on Toomey and the Club, charging the latter with
“cannibalistic tactics” that had lost the GOP control of the US
Senate in 2006.
“Toomey represents the Club for Growth which has engaged in
cannibalistic tactics. When they fought [now defeated GOP Senator
Lincoln] Chafee in the Rhode Island primary, spent all his money,
beat him in the general, that cost us control of the Senate. In
the Senate…we would have controlled the Senate had we retained
Chafee’s seat in 2007 and 2008.”
The 2006 election shifting control of the Senate from Republicans
to Democrats cost Specter his long-sought and briefly attained
goal to serve as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In
that position Specter helped confirm then-President George W.
Bush’s nominations of John Roberts as Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court and Samuel Alito as Associate Justice. Yet in
Specter’s eyes there was still plenty of work to do on judicial
nominations in the Bush presidency, work he was unable to
accomplish after yielding the chairman’s gavel to Vermont
Democrat Patrick Leahy. Specter’s own unhappiness at the results
he attributed to the Club and Toomey was plain, making it clear
he would be reminding conservative voters unhappy with his vote
for the Obama stimulus package of his work getting Bush judges on
the bench.
“Bush left 13 circuit judges on the table and I think about 24
district judges on the table who could have been confirmed had we
had Republican control and I had been the chairman [of the Senate
Judiciary Committee],” he said.
Even as Specter was speaking, his re-election campaign was
flooding the air with a television commercial tying Toomey to the
current economic crisis. It zings Toomey for selling “risky
derivatives and swaps” in his earlier career as a Wall Street
“trader.” The ad, featuring Specter himself as opposed to just
the usual candidate-required voice-over at the close saying he
approved of the contents, goes on to say, “it’s derivatives and
swaps that have now plunged us into this financial mess.” The
commercial says the former Allentown Congressman wants to
“gamble” with Pennsylvanians’ Social Security accounts by putting
them in the stock market, a particularly potent charge in a state
that has a high proportion of senior citizens. It also charges
Toomey with fighting for less oversight of regulation on Wall
Street while serving in Congress. The ad ends by using a word
that has become explosive in recent weeks. After all of these
alleged Toomey misdeeds, the commercial asks if he should be
given Specter’s Senate seat as a “bonus.”
As if the point were missed, while Specter was calmly discussing
playing “hard hardball” his campaign had released a letter from
Specter to Toomey accusing him of deliberately editing his
biography on the Club for Growth website to remove previous
references to his Wall Street connections. Notably, the missive
was signed by Specter himself instead of a campaign aide. The
letter said:
A recent check of the Club for Growth’s website shows that
your official bio has been altered to delete any reference to
the many years you spent selling risky derivatives for the Wall
Street firm Morgan, Grenfell Finance.
Your original online bio (http://www.clubforgrowth.org/toomey.php)
stated that you “developed and managed a $21 billion
derivatives trading operation for Morgan Grenfell Finance Inc.
in New York, supervising sales and trading operations in New
York, London and Tokyo.”
Yet your new online bio (http://clubforgrowth.com/pat-bio.php)
omits any mention of your work as a derivatives trader, merely
noting that your “first career was in investment banking from
1984 through 1991,” with Morgan Grenfell Finance, Inc.
In the 1999 Derivatives Magazine article about your finance
career, entitled “Patrick Toomey: From Wall Street to Capitol
Hill,” you boast of joining Morgan Grenfell to start a “serious
derivatives operation.”
Could you please explain the discrepancy about this basic fact
of your professional career?
Why did you seek to omit this fact as you ready your Senate
campaign?
When were the changes made?
Sincerely,
Arlen Specter
United States Senator
In his Spectator interview Senator Specter made it clear
that he believed Toomey was simply unelectable should he win the
nomination.
“There’s no way Toomey can win a general election,” Specter said.
“You know that the Santorum experience is conclusive on it.
Toomey is to the right of Santorum. Santorum’s lifetime
conservative record is 88, Toomey’s is 97.” He recounted in a
disturbed tone the Santorum 2006 defeat to Democrat and
now-Senator Bob Casey. “Santorum spent $31 million, two-term
senator, number three in leadership and he lost by 18 points.”
Also in the race, by the way, is pro-life activist Peg Luksik.
Perhaps tellingly, Specter never mentioned her name,
concentrating all his fire on Toomey.
As if to drive the point home yet again about the consequences of
the GOP’s losing control of the Senate he added: “The only check
and balance on the Democratic sweep with the White House and the
House is 41 of us in the Senate. Because if Toomey is the
Republican nominee and my seat goes, the Democrats get 60 votes.
And they run rough shod on increasing taxes and bringing card
check and a lot of other things that are anathema to
Republicans.”
There was no mistaking Specter’s willingness to demonstrate his
clout as the state’s senior Senator. The same morning he spoke
with the Spectator he dropped by Harrisburg Hospital
bearing a check for $190,000 in federal emergency room funds. If
Republicans were to re-gain control of the Senate, he has pointed
out, he could become Chairman of the Senate Appropriations
Committee.
While Toomey was announcing his own candidacy on Wednesday,
Specter, in typically combative style, was invading his
opponent’s home turf. Showing up for a press conference in the
lobby of a Four Points Sheraton — in Allentown.
Arlen Specter has had one of the most remarkable careers in
Pennsylvania political history. While he won his first race — an
upset GOP win for District Attorney of Philadelphia in 1965 —
other than a successful re-election in 1969 he chalked up a
series of vivid losses over the next decade and a half. First for
Mayor of Philadelphia in 1967, next for a 1973 re-election bid as
DA, then the GOP nomination for an open U.S. Senate seat in 1976
(losing to then Congressman John Heinz) and finally a loss of the
Republican gubernatorial nomination to Dick Thornburgh in 1978.
It wasn’t until 1980 that Specter was finally able to succeed,
capturing the Senate seat he holds today — as a record-holding
five-termer.
As Toomey and many others before him have come to understand,
perhaps Specter’s single greatest attribute as a candidate is his
relentless persistence, a true grit that in recent years has come
to be symbolized by conquering everything from repeated political
defeats to brain surgery to cancer. To get into a political fight
with Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania — or for that matter with
Senator Arlen Specter in Washington — is to know that you have
been in the fight of your life. This refusal to bend to the
prevailing winds has infuriated conservatives (lately on the
Obama stimulus bill) and sent liberals around the bend (his
staunch defense of Supreme Court nominees Clarence Thomas and
Samuel Alito.) Through it all, Specter just keeps on coming.
Can he do it again? Can he break his own record — already a
Pennsylvania one-of-a-kind record — by winning an unprecedented
sixth term in the U.S. Senate? Only a fool would count Arlen
Specter out.
After launching his series of verbal missiles at Toomey, Specter
laughed as he turned to leave for his next stop accompanied by a
solitary aide. The eyes twinkled, but the voice, even in humor,
imparted a warning sense of steel.
“After this I’m going to send a tough one.”
