For those of you who are younger than 40 or who didn’t grow up in the Philadelphia suburbs like me (yes, South Jersey is a Philly suburb), let me introduce you to Arlen Specter. More specifically, let me explain why I am writing a eulogy – and not a flattering one – for a man who died 11 years ago.
Arlen Specter first rose to national prominence as an assistant to the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In that position, Specter was one of the main proponents of the “single bullet theory” that was eventually adopted by the commission in its final report.
In 1965, Specter ran successfully for Philadelphia District Attorney, a position that he held for eight years. His initial citywide campaign was the first indication that Specter was a political chameleon with few strong convictions. Denied the Democratic nomination, he switched parties and won as a Republican by a scant 36,000 votes.
During his time as D.A., the always ambitious Specter ran for mayor, and later for both the U.S. Senate and Governor of Pennsylvania, losing all three races. Finally, after several years in private practice, he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1980.
Throughout his 30-year tenure inside the Washington Beltway, Specter tried to placate voters in both parties by labeling himself a fiscal conservative, but a social moderate. That combination, of course, is a virtual impossibility, because traditionally, social moderates support “Big Nanny” government programs that, by definition, rule out being a fiscal conservative. In similar fashion, Specter stated that whereas he was “personally opposed to abortion,” he simultaneously supported “a woman’s right to choose.”
Forever a fence straddler, Specter angered mainstream Republicans when he became one of only three GOP senators to cross party lines and support the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Having survived a tough 2004 primary fight against Pat Toomey thanks to the support of President George W. Bush and Sen. Rick Santorum, Specter knew that he was in even deeper trouble in 2010. However, he squashed rumors that he would run for re-election as an independent, stating unequivocally in March 2009 that, “To eliminate any doubt, I am a Republican, and I am running for re-election in 2010 as a Republican on the Republican ticket.”
As you may have guessed, just six weeks and one devastating poll later, Specter made the following announcement. “As the Republican Party has moved farther and farther to the right, I have found myself increasingly at odds with the Republican philosophy and more in line with the philosophy of the Democratic Party”. Despite earning the overwhelming endorsement of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, Specter lost the primary the following year to challenger Joe Sestak.
Arlen Specter’s penchant for political expediency had finally backfired and his career came to a screeching halt… and an inglorious end. Specter, who supported the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 but later called for its repeal, left behind an embarrassing record of political ambivalence. According to the National Journal and FiveThirtyEight, Specter the Republican split his votes evenly between the two parties until he was primaried from the right by Toomey, after which he only supported Democrat initiatives 16% of the time. As a Democrat, he voted with his new party 69% of the time before Sestak entered the race, but 90% of the time afterwards.
I share the political epitaph of Arlen Specter for one important reason: we don’t need any more chameleons in Congress. The go-along to get-along approach championed by Mitch McConnell – and before him, John McCain – has handicapped the Republican Party for decades. In my humble opinion, it is high time we send those double-minded men and women (yes, that means you, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski) packing… and please take Bill Cassidy (LA), John Cornyn (TX), and John Thune (SD) with you.
After all, the Republican Party was founded by social conservatives called abolitionists and Ronald Reagan, our greatest post-Lincoln president, rose to power on the coattails of the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, the Eagle Forum, and the Concerned Women for America. Its future now lies in the capable hands of Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley in the Senate and the likes of Byron Donalds among others in the House.
And yes, for the record, they are all in their 40s, roughly half the age of our sitting president… and Mitch McConnell, for that matter.
