Specter's Future and the Perils of Excessively Transactional Politics
Ross’s column highlights the intellectual and strategic incoherence of self-described Republican moderates:
Others, like Collins and Snowe and (until last week) Specter, are simply horse-traders and deal-cutters, whose willingness to cross party lines last month to vote for $800 billion dollars in deficit spending tells you most of what you need to know about their supposed fiscal conservatism. They’re politically savvy but intellectually vacuous. Their highest allegiance isn’t to limited government. It’s to meeting the party in power halfway, while making sure that the dollars keep flowing to their constituents back home.
This reminded me of Mark Scmitt’s excellent essay from April of 2008 on John McCain, “Maverick or Maneuverer?”
McCain also discovered a unique means of exercising power during the Bush years, after almost two decades as a notably ineffectual legislator. When bipartisanship and common sense were scarce resources, McCain realized he could effectively corner the market on both. … Even when nothing came of these efforts, he was able to block anyone else from taking that center spot, perhaps someone who might have done more with the opportunity.
Specter played a similar role. Now, however, every “independent” gesture will be met with hostility from Pennsylvania Democrats, who may decide that Joe Sestak is their best bet. I’ve been criticized for floating an implausible scenario re: Pat Toomey.
As a Senate candidate, Toomey will have to connect with voters in a state hard hit by industrial decline. To have even the remotest chance of winning the seat, he’ll need to offer effective solutions on health care, energy and transportation. This might not come naturally to Toomey. But if he can pull it off, and if he can claim Specter’s scalp, he’ll become the face of a revitalized GOP.
Rest assured, I don’t think Toomey will suddenly engage in some kind of major reversal. And so I don’t think he has much of a shot in 2010 against Specter or Sestak. I am, however, more sanguine about the prospect of a Tom Ridge candidacy. Daniel is skeptical.
The desperate national Republican moves to recruit Tom Ridge or some other Specter-like replacement makes Toomey’s nomination all the more likely, as it was heavy-handed national Republican interference on behalf of Specter five years ago that thwarted Toomey’s run then and enraged conservative activists. Having lost Specter, they cannot now stop Toomey.
How far out is Pennsylvania’s Republican primary electorate? Ridge is more personable and charismatic, he has a more appealing personal story, and he’s from Erie. That might not be enough. But it’s a promising basis for a reformerish campaign. My main concern is — why would Ridge bother? It would be a lot of work for a job that doesn’t strike me as terribly appealing. That, alas, is a deeper question.
Reihan, I saw the Star Trek teaser during Fringe and now I get why you’ve been busy.
— Sanjay · May 6, 12:55 PM · #
Call me a decadent Rockefeller Republican, but isn’t horse-trading and cutting-deals the essence of political activity? Not as it ideally exists but as it really exists and as foreseen by the framers of the Constitution? It is naive to think that the politicians we elect are sent to DC solely for the purpose of serving an ideal, be it limited government, fairness/redistribution – or indeed, a platform to reform a party that shuns its Moderates anyway.
Politicians void of any principles, like Blagovich today or Boss Tweed of yesteryear, are a danger to the republic. But I’d be a fool to think that the Senate is populated by virtuous republicans in the mold of Cincinnatus.
Douthat is, hopefully, correct to say that for Snowe, Collins & Specter, their highest allegiance isn’t limited government…rather, as he implies in his article, their highest allegiance is accorded to their constituents. That’s a good thing. That’s putting people first – those who elected them -before keeling to a concept, limited government, whose application in any and all circumstances is to be questioned.
That they should be singled out for waywardness towards limited government & fiscal conservatism principles after 8 years of profligate spending under the Bush administration and with the blessing of the Conservative & Southern wing of the GOP is risible. Well, not risible, rather typical of the conservative diatribe against the Moderate fold.
Note that I have few qualms in criticizing Snowe, for instance, for her pet projects that have benefited Maine only. Nobody’s perfect. But intellectual vacuous and strategically incoherent? Not her. To be a Republican in a liberal-leaning state and still be elected with Bush’s impopularity and the GOP’s brand image in the gutter, these are accomplishments. Strategy serves an objective, and that objective is maintaining office so that she can serve her constituents (and stroke her ego too).
If it were just personality contest between Toomey and Specter, it’d be Toomey easily since Specter is devoid of charm or something akin to the human touch. But he, too, has served Pennsylvania well and, taking a cue from South Carolinians who voted in Strom Thurmond for years, Pennsylvanians have probably taken a liking to having a Senator with such seniority. People in PA liked having that churl Specter in DC not because they loved him but because he served them well (brought the bacon home through pork? no doubt, that too).
Toomey runs on a low-taxes & anti-abortion plank. He’s a Santorum re-run. Reformist? Doubt it. He’s more representative of the electors in the Republican primary than he is of the people from the Lehigh Valley.
That Specter should vote for the stimulus package and be nominated Comrade of the Month by the Club for Growth, these are things he should be commended for. As a co-author of “Grand New Party”, I was surprized to see Douthat level a critique against Specter similar to that given by the Club for Growth, Toomey’s old haunt. There are times when theory must take a back seat to pragmatic problem-solving.
I’m a little guy feeling the turmoil of the economic crisis – and despite my Hamiltonian & libertarian sympathies, I’m of the opinion that noboby really has any clue as to what to do to get us out of this economic crisis, and that the uber-libertarians at Cato or with Norquist don’t know jacksh^t either.
Maybe this stimulus package could do something, its worth giving it a try anyway. Ideology be damned, parents have children to take care of and bills to pay.
— JB · May 6, 07:59 PM · #