Why did Specter switch?

[Note: I intended to post this one about a month ago, so it is no longer particularly up to date. But, since no one reads this blog anyway...]

One of my favorite blogs, and one of very few political blogs I read regularly, is Jay Cost over at Real Clear Politics http://www.realclearpolitics.com/horseraceblog/. One of the reasons I like Cost is that he is relatively well versed in most sub-fields of political science and is able to translate them into plain English. His series on battleground states in the 2008 election was required reading for students in my campaigns and elections class.

The reason I bring up Cost today is that he had a unique perspective on the Sen. Specter defection. The typical line of thinking has been that Specter left the party because the right-wing of the party was out to get him. Cost brought out a different side of the story. He argued that the demographics were such that Specter was going to have a hard time as a Republican, even if he won the nomination. His political base of support is in the Philly area, but most of the Republicans in the state are outside the Philly area. Republicans from Central and Western PA have never particularly cared for Specter. I remember this from attending my overwhelmingly Republican college in Western Pennsylvania. Specter was deemed the prototypical RINO (Republican in Name Only).

The question Cost raised was whether Specter could have won Pennsylvania as a Republican with few GOPers in his Philly base and the ones to his west not being too fond of him. Chances are the GOP turnout for Specter would have been low, basically handing the seat to the Democrats anyway.

Now I’m not sure if Specter is the type to read blogs from RCP, but it would be interesting to hear his reaction. He and the media have been playing this up like the GOP has become narrow minded and exclusionary to diverse viewpoints. I have to say that there might be something to this. Several movers and shakers behind the scenes have been pushing Toomey to run and financing his campaign. The Republicans would seem to have a better shot at keeping the seat with Specter than with Toomey (although I’m not convinced of this). Why would they force Specter out unless they were pushing for party purification?

Well, the same thing happened not that long ago in Connecticut with this guy named Joe Lieberman. He ended up running as an Independent to keep his Senate seat. That was clearly a case of party purification (the moveon.org people were upset about his stance on the Iraq war) rather than practical politics. The Democrats got lucky that Lieberman still caucuses with them.

The Republicans were not so lucky and they lost Specter altogether. Sure, he will probably vote with them still from time to time, but that is little consolation given the numbers in the Senate right now.

But, returning to Jay Cost’s fundamental question, is this really an issue of party purification or just an issue of practical politics? Well, it seems to be both. The fact of the matter is that the Republican party in Pennsylvania has changed. The electorate would not have allowed Specter to win a primary. That is practical politics. If Specter wanted to keep his seat, he had to switch parties (or run as an independent with no institutional support, which was less likely to be successful). On the other hand, why did the Republicans of Pennsylvania reject Specter? Because of party purification. That probably was not on the mind if individual voters, though. They were thinking about the fact that they really didn’t like this Specter guy and would rather have someone else in office. Most individual voters don’t think on a macro-electoral level. They think about personal preferences. Why would a social conservative vote for a social liberal so that he could run against another social liberal?

Remember, in Pennsylvania’s last senatorial race, you had Bob Casey, a socially conservative Democrat, running against Rick Santorum, a socially conservative Republican. That’s right, two social conservatives. Two candidates NARAL hated. Why did the Democrats run a social conservative? Because they wanted to win. Why does it make sense now for there to be two socially liberal candidates? Pennsylvania hasn’t changed that much since 2006. Depending on turnout, Toomey might have a chance in this thing. Okay, not much of a chance, but a chance.