2003

Specter launches campaign road trip to tout 5th Senate bid
LARA JAKES JORDAN
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The last time Sen. Arlen Specter faced a daunting Senate election threat from a fellow Republican was the first time he won his job - nearly a quarter-century ago.

Now, as Specter, R-Pa., steps off Thursday in Philadelphia for a two-day statewide campaign swing, he enters the final stage of a GOP primary challenge with millions of dollars in the bank, statewide name recognition and his teeth bared for the fight. He knows it will not be an easy run against Rep. Pat Toomey, the three-term conservative congressman from the Lehigh Valley who launched his challenge 11 months ago.

"I anticipate a tough fight," Specter said Wednesday. "I am leaving no stone unturned. The political field is a very uncertain one - it's something that I have learned for many, many years."

But "we're into a new year; we're looking at a primary which is less than four months away," he said. "And I'm raring to go, and I'm laying it on the line."

Specter travels with his family and campaign staff to Harrisburg , Pittsburgh and Erie on Thursday and will visit State College , Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and Bethlehem on Friday.

No Pennsylvanian has ever won five popularly elected terms to the Senate, as Specter is seeking to do. To achieve that, he must not only defeat Toomey in the April 27 primary, but also Rep. Joe Hoeffel in November. Hoeffel, a three-term congressman from the Philadelphia suburbs, is widely considered one of the most established Democrats to challenge Specter since he won the seat in 1980.

That year, Specter barely won, edging a fellow Republican by three percentage points during the primary election and defeating the Democrat by two points. While he easily overwhelmed his primary opponents in his last two races, they had little money and even less name recognition compared to Specter.

At the last Federal Election Commission count on Oct. 15, Specter had $9.3 million in his campaign bank account to Toomey's $1.8 million and Hoeffel's $625,000. But Toomey has raised more than three times as much money than all of Specter's primary challengers in 1992 and 1998 combined.

The aggressive congressman also unleashed a new round of TV and radio ads Thursday, branding Specter as a liberal.

"Pennsylvania Republicans deserve a senator who will stand up for our principles," Toomey says in the ad.

On Wednesday, Specter nabbed the endorsement of the National Rifle Association, spokesman William Reynolds said - support that will help him with many of Pennsylvania 's conservative faithful. But moving to the right for the primary may put Specter in an awkward position with many socially conservative Democrats he has so long cultivated for the general election.

Hoeffel aides note that in the last two presidential election years during which Specter was running for the Senate - 1980 and 1992 - he won with an average of just 50 percent of the vote.

Both of Specter's opponents are banking on the senator's high disapproval ratings - as many as 44 percent of registered Pennsylvania voters favor putting someone else in his job, according to a Quinnipiac University poll last month.

But Specter also "is one of the nation's most durable career politicians," according to the Almanac of American Politics, and is a master at working the campaign trail that he will tread over the next two days.

"Specter has spent time here, and he's been up here for a number of public events," said Wilkes University political scientist Thomas J. Baldino, based in northeast Pennsylvania where Democrats have a stronghold. "He's also been meeting with local political leaders and economic leaders, and he's been very visible. Those are the kinds of things you'd expect an incumbent senator to do anyway, but in this election season, those things take on even more importance."

Asked about Toomey's political presence in the region, Baldino said: "If he is, I haven't seen it."

How about Hoeffel? "Even less than Toomey," Baldino said.