Thank Bush, Santorum for Specter party switch

My Examiner column this week discusses Arlen Specter's homecoming to the Democratic Party:

When the fox that has been living in your henhouse makes off with some hens, you don’t curse the fox. You ask who let the fox in. Republicans today should be angry not at Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., but at former President George W. Bush and former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.

Santorum, the pro-life Catholic leader in Washington at the time, spared no effort in 2004 saving Specter from a primary challenge by then-Rep. Pat Toomey. President Bush, similarly, went above and beyond the call of duty protecting Specter.

Had either Santorum or Bush simply endorsed Specter and let him fend for himself, Toomey would have won the 2004 primary and been a slight favorite in that year’s general election.

But Santorum and Bush played their Rovian game of clever pragmatic politics and saved Specter. Had they not, we probably would have a Republican senator from Pennsylvania right now with Toomey.

You can read the whole thing here.

Did DeMint endorsement of Toomey drive Specter off the cliff?

[originally posted at Beltway Confidential]
Last Thursday night on the Senate floor, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., told Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, then still a Republican, that DeMint would be supporting Specter’s rival, former Rep. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., in next year’s Senate Republican primary. DeMint says Specter “pretty much cut me off and said, ‘I’ve heard enough.’”

DeMint wouldn’t speculate whether this conversation spurred Specter to switch parties, but the conversation came within hours of the release of a poll showing Toomey leading Specter among primary voters 51 percent to 30 percent. “We knew Pat was going to win the primary,” DeMint said in a Capitol Hill interview Tuesday, minutes after Specter announced his move. “This [party switch] shouldn’t surprise anyone. It was a clever political move.”

DeMint had not yet gone public with his support for Toomey by the time Specter switched.
DeMint said Specter's switch “shows that there were not principles attaching Arlen to the Republican Party, but the Republican Party was the means to get elected.”

DeMint continued: “I would rather have 30 Republicans in the Senate who really believe in principles of limited government, free markets, free people, than to have 60 that don’t have a set of beliefs."

Toomey had speculated in an interview with National Review's David Freddoso that Specter might leave the party before the primary, because Pennsylvania has a “sore loser law” that prevents primary losers from running for the same office on a different party line.

Specter versus Toomey is Wall Street versus Main Street

Sen. Arlen Specter is the top GOP recipient of Wall Street cash. Former Rep. Pat Toomey has twice started up his own business. The GOP primary battle between them could shape the future of the party. My column this week explains:

Next year’s Senate Republican primary in Pennsylvania—Sen. Arlen Specter versus former Rep. Pat Toomey—could be a battle for the soul of the GOP. But it’s not a liberal-versus-conservative battle as much as a Goldman Sachs-versus-Mom n Pop fight.

Campaign finance records show that Specter is Wall Street’s favorite Republican, and voting records show why. While Specter attacks Toomey as a banker, and tries to paint his donors as Wall Street fat cats, Toomey is actually a small businessman—having run a community bank that didn’t take bailout cash, and before that starting a neighborhood bar in Allentown, Pa.

Read the whole thing here.