“Last week”:https://themonkeycage.org/2009/04/how_liberal_will_specter_be.html, John noted that many thought Senator Specter must have extracted a promise from leading Democrats that they would “clear the field” for him in the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania. Sure enough, on Friday Senator Casey suggested that he was “hopeful” that Democrats would do just this. Now while doing so would undoubtedly be good for Specter, the question remains whether this would be good for the Democratic Party.
Specter’s decision to switch parties raised the age old question for political scientists of the extent to which this was likely to affect Specter’s actual forthcoming votes. As Specter himself seemed keen to reiterate yesterday on “Meet the Press”:http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/03/specter-loyal-democrat/, simply switching parties does not by definition mean he has to vote differently on any particular issue than he would have previously. Nevertheless, there are of course reasons – Specter’s protestations to the contrary – why we might expect Specter the Democrat to vote differently from Specter the Republican. As both “Nolan McCarty”:http://blogs.princeton.edu/mccarty/2009/04/the-specter-of-a-filibuster-proof-majority.html and “I noted”:http://www.politico.com/arena/perm/Joshua_A__Tucker_C9A0AB61-26A9-4554-82D0-1E3CA830F16B.html elsewhere, the extent to which Specter is likely to deviate from his preferred vote choice (or, put another way, the extent to which the shift in parties is likely to make a difference) will in part be a function of the changed dynamic of his forthcoming primary race: he will no longer have to face a Republican challenger on the right, and he may have to face a Democratic challenger on the left.
If we assume that the goal of the Democratic party is to get as many votes for Obama’s agenda out of Specter’s seat as possible, the in the short term – defined here as the period of time between now and the 2010 Pennsylvania Democratic primary – a clear case can be made that the Democratic Party would actually be better served by having a challenger in the primary to Specter’s left. Consider the alternative: if the Democrats “clear the field”, then Specter has no need to do anything other than vote for the next 13 months as he would have otherwise chosen to do. However, if Specter is just enough worried about the Democratic primary to think he has to be careful of getting outflanked from the left, then that might cause him to tip toward the Democrats in some cases where he might not have done so otherwise. (While I’m guessing that the number of cases is too low for any large scale analysis, it would be interesting to know if there is any outstanding research about whether party switchers move closer to their new party if (a) their next election is more imminent and (b) if they face a challenger in that forthcoming primary.) Seen in this light, Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak’s rumblings about “considering a primary challenge”:http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/05/03/sestak-says-hes-not-sure-specters-a-democrat-yet/ to Specter look quite rational for the Democratic Party.
With this logic in mind, it seems legitimate to ask why, then, do we see Senator Casey making comments about clearing the field? Three possibilities seem likely. First, as John suggested, perhaps some deal was indeed made, and Casey is just playing his part in ensuring the deal is kept. Under this scenario, Casey (and other leading Democrats) may be perfectly happy to see a primary challenger emerge to Specter’s left, but will nevertheless go through the motions of speaking out against such a development. Second, Casey (and others) may genuinely think that Specter has the best chance of holding the seat for the Democrats in 2010, and/or that a serious primary challenge could hurt the chance that the Democrats hold on to seat, regardless of who wins the primary. In this case, the long term goals of keeping the seat in Democratic hands would surely trump any short term benefits of having Specter vote Democratic a few more times over the next year. The third, and potentially most intriguing, option is that perhaps leading Democrats think that they are playing a longer term game. Put another way, it may be worth it to have a Specter(D) that votes against Obama’s agenda more often in the short term if it keeps open the possibility of a Snowe(D) or Collins(D) joining the party in the future.