Arlen Specter might be in trouble

Arlen Specter might be spending his final days as a Republican senator. Once Specter crossed the aisle to vote for President Obama's economic stimulus measure, the GOP began targeting him for elimination.

Former congressman Pat Toomey has announced that he is thinking about running against Specter in the 2010 primary.

Now, anti-abortion activist Peg Luksik is running, too.

A conservative activist from Johnstown who ran for governor three times in the 1990s says she'll challenge Arlen Specter for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate next year.

Peg Luksik said today she is not deterred by the prospective candidacy of former congressman Pat Toomey, a fellow conservative who narrowly lost to Specter in the 2004 primary.

Some commentators believe that Specter should switch to the Democratic Party. Specter was a Democrat early in his career but switched to the Republican Party in 1965 before running for District Attorney in Philadelphia.

Governor of Pennsylvania Ed Rendell recently claimed that he has been trying to get Specter to switch parties...with the help of some other big names.

"We've tried," said Rendell. "Myself, Senator Casey, Vice President Biden have tried to talk him into it, but he's bound and determined to stay a Republican."

But it isn't as though Specter and the Democratic Party are a match made in heaven. While Specter might be a relatively moderate Republican, he is far more of a Republican than he is a secret Democrat.

His voting record tells the tale:

Specter sided with the GOP on 62 percent of votes from when he entered the Senate in 1981 through last year, according to a University of San Diego database of votes. His highest party unity score: 81 percent in 2003-2004, when Toomey last challenged him.

If Specter stays with the Republican Party, he will have to face an increasingly difficult primary...one which political commentators generally give him very little chance of surviving.

And with Specter one of only three Republican senators supporting President Obama's economic- stimulus efforts - an action many conservatives see as worse than opposing Reagan Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork in 1987 for which Specter was labeled "Benedict Arlen" - the long knives are out...

...There are, for example, 239,000 Pennsylvania voters (mostly Republicans) who switched last year to the Democratic Party. There's little question the vast majority are moderate Specter voters.

That leaves a far-more-conservative pool of GOP primary voters, one in which the 47-year-old Toomey can float but Specter could well sink.

Also, Specter in '04 was endorsed by the state's other incumbent Republican senator, Rick Santorum, and by the incumbent Republican president, George W. Bush.

The only people on the right pushing Arlen this time will be those trying to push him out the door.

Clearly, re-election will be difficult in 2010 for Specter. But then again, re-election often is difficult. It isn't as though he waltzed through the 2004 primary against Toomey. While Specter triumphed in the end, it was a hard battle.

The tough 2004 primary underscored a conundrum of Specter's five-term career. He is more popular with the Pennsylvania electorate as a whole than he is with the conservative constituency that identifies with the Republican Party and votes in its primaries.

Specter took 51 percent of the primary vote to Toomey's 49 percent. In the general election that November, Specter topped then-Rep. Joseph M. Hoeffel, the Democratic nominee, by a much more comfortable 53 percent to 42 percent count.

One silver lining? The AFL-CIO is willing to back Specter in his reelection campaign if he votes for the Employee Free Choice Act.

Senior officials with the powerful AFL-CIO have privately assured GOP Senator Arlen Specter that they’ll throw their full support behind him in the 2010 Senate race if he votes for the Employee Free Choice Act, a senior labor strategist working closely with the AFL on the issue tells me.

But with the sea of change with Pennsylvania Republicans (those 239,000 party switchers are going to hurt considerably) even with the backing of the AFL-CIO it might not be enough to help Specter survive a Republican primary.

Unlike Joe Lieberman, Specter cannot lose the Republican primary but still turn around and run as an independent. Pennsylvania law doesn't allow it.

"A candidate who loses in a primary cannot run as an independent in the general election," said Leslie Amoros, press secretary for the Pennsylvania Department of State.

Specter needs to decide if he wants to rejoin the Democratic Party or pull a Jim Jeffords and go independent. The idea of staying with the GOP doesn't appear to be a viable option.