Pennsylvania Politics -- Santorum and Murtha

Things are beginning to get interesting in Pennsylvania. The electoral situation is beginning to clarify. So far Swann has gained little traction against Ed Rendell’s mega machine and there is a lot of grumbling from the Republican rank and file to the effect that the campaign is being managed by amateurs. Maybe it is, but the “professionals” running the other Statewide race aren’t doing much better. Santorum, unlike Swann, has a huge war-chest, but his twists and turns as he tries to reinvent himself are costing him credibility even with his base.

A big part of Santorum’s problem has been that there is little ideological distance between him and Bob Casey. This makes the race one of personalities, not principles, and there the hard-charging, high profile, openly ambitious Senator loses to his somewhat fuzzy, affable, and comfortable seeming challenger. Santorum has been portrayed as a ruthless hard-liner as opposed to “nice guy” Casey. The portrayal is not altogether fair, but fairness has little to do with politics and the image is sticking.

Santorum had hoped that as the public sees more of Casey, who is not the brightest bulb on the tree, the challenger’s limitations would become apparent, but so far Casey’s handlers have been able to keep him away from uncontrolled situations and out of trouble, and anyway, intelligence has never been an important qualification for public office. Perhaps, if Santorum can entice Casey into high-profile debate situations that might change, but so far Casey’s polls have not dropped far enough to make the race competitive.

There was also some hope that the idiot left would run an effective candidate against Casey and draw off some Democrat support, but Kate Michelman, the only really credible loon out there declined to run giving Casey a free field on his left. What is more, Casey has been smart enough to resist the temptation to toss a few bones to the disappointed lefties. He has hewed carefully to the moderate positions he staked out at the beginning of the campaign, frustrating efforts by the Santorum forces to associate him with Kennedy and the Democrat left. Lefties may whine and snarl all they want, but they really don’t have a candidate in this race and the best they can do is to hold their noses, vote for Casey, and hope for the best. Santorum is hoping that a lot of them will throw a temper tantrum and sit the race out, but Democrats are so desperate for a win and their hatred for Bush runs so deep that they are likely to turn out in large numbers in the fall no matter who is on the ticket.

Democrat attempts to portray Santorum as part of an imagined Republican “culture of corruption” have been similarly ineffective, despite attempts by the Philly media to make his children’s private school education and the fact that he has homes in two States an issue. Rick has always been something of a Boy Scout and attempts to tar him with the brush of corruption aren’t being very effective, not the least because they run at cross purposes with the other major Democrat indictment – that Rick is a right-wing zealot. Either he is corruptible, selling his vote to the highest bidder, or a mad zealot pushing a right-wing agenda at all costs. He can’t reasonably be portrayed as both. But then, coherence has never been a big element in political campaigns.

So what are we left with? Neither party has succeeded with its major attacks, and so we are back where we started many months ago – with Casey holding a comfortable lead on Santorum. Responding to this Santorum has changed course in recent weeks. Moderate Rick has been put back in the closet, and Rick the right wing crusader is taking his turn on stage. They have finally found a hot-button issue on which the candidates disagree – immigration.

The Inky notes [here] that in recent weeks “immigration - to be precise, illegal immigration - suddenly is topic No. 1 in the contentious U.S. Senate race.”

The reason is that Casey, in a move that many professionals consider a misstep, has endorsed the immigration reform bill passed by the Senate, which hard-line conservatives have branded as “amnesty” and therefore unacceptable. Santorum has pounced on the issue and has run a couple of campaign commercials charging that Casey has “joined with Ted Kennedy and other liberals in supporting a bill that grants amnesty to millions who've entered our country illegally... . That's just not fair." Casey has responded with commercials attempting to tie Santorum to Bush, but that is unlikely to be effective since Bush and Santorum are on opposite sides of the immigration issue.

This is certainly an issue that can move voters and has demonstrably done so in some places, most notably California. But this is Pennsylvania, not California or Arizona or Colorado or any other State feeling the budget pinch of too many immigrants. The immigration issue might not bite as hard here. Approximately half a million of Pennsylvania’s twelve million residents were born outside the country. Since the immigrant population skews young that means that fewer than one in twenty-four voters is likely to strongly oppose Santorum on immigration, and the vast majority of those voters were already in the Democrat camp. Thus the anti-immigration stance costs Santorum little or nothing and may help to repair relations with his hard-line social conservative base. At least, that seems to be what he is hoping. The issue, as I already noted, also helps to separate Santorum from Bush, who political pros say is a liability [something I am not convinced of, but they are]. It also places the Senator on the same side as the AFL-CIO, and that can’t hurt him, especially in Western Pennsylvania.

In the next few weeks we will be seeing some polling results that will tell us how effective Santorum’s offensive has been. At least one recent poll had him more than twenty points down, but that could be an outlier. If Santorum can close the gap somewhat he still has a shot at winning re-election. A lot of commentators have written him off, but it’s still far too early to do that.

Stay tuned….

Meanwhile on the Murtha madness front, things are also getting interesting. This week Jack announced that, should Democrats recapture control of the House of Representatives, he would like to be Majority Leader [here]. This comes on top of his very public airing of very strong views on the alleged Haditha massacre and earlier demands that the US abandon Iraq. That might be a problem for him because the Haditha story is starting to fall apart and it is beginning to look as though he was played for a sucker on it.

The point is that Murtha is sticking his neck out all over the place, taking unnecessarily risky stances that could very well come back to bite him in coming months. What to make of it?

First the inside baseball angle: One school of thought is that Nancy (“the Evil Witch of the West”) Pelosi is manipulating one of her flying monkeys. There is a long history of antagonism between her and Steny Hoyer, currently first in line to become majority leader if the House changes hands. Murtha’s declaration could be a preemptory strike against Hoyer’s ambitions. If so it is probably not going to be very effective and is certain to make Murtha some powerful enemies. But it is at a minimum a shot across Hoyers’ bow from the Pelosi camp and the figuring is that Murtha might as well do it because he has little to lose.

An alternative view is that despite long service in the House, Murtha really has done nothing to distinguish himself. He has been a party hack, reliably delivering pork to his district, but accomplishing little else. Now, in his waning years, he might be reaching for some national stature as a leader of the anti-war coalition and darling of the loony left, and as a real, live wielder of power within an ever-more left leaning Democratic Party. This might be his only chance to make his mark. Age and recognition of his own mediocrity thus might be spurring the old porker into the risky positions he has adopted.

Finally, there is the speculative position. Murtha, against all expectations, is facing determined opposition in his home district. Diana Irey, his Republican challenger, is starting to make waves and Murtha might feel that he needs to raise his profile a bit to stave her off. Early in the campaign he tried to ignore her, but in recent weeks he has begun to actively campaign against her, a sure sign of her effectiveness. His recent moves might be seen as a way of demonstrating his capacity for ideological and parliamentary leadership in the face of an unexpected challenge.

At this point who knows? These perspectives are not mutually exclusive and all may be at least in part right. Whatever, something is stirring over in the highlands and it will be interesting to see what develops.

Stay tuned….

UPDATE:

There is a lot of commentary on Murtha's latest moves. The NYT reports his bid for Majority Leader here. The WaPo notes that his announcement caught many Democrats by surprise and speculates that it was an attempt by Pelosi to signal to Democrat voters that there would be conservative elements in the Party Leadership after November [that sounds extremely unpersuasive to me, especially since most voters see Murtha simply as a spokesman for the anti-war elements of the Party]. They also note that Pelosi was aware of Murtha's intentions and did nothing to dissuade him. [here] Michael Crowley notes that lots of Democrats are upset at Murtha's move [here]. Steny Hoyer has friends..., powerful friends. This does not bode well for Jack. Also on CNN Murtha made two flat declarations about Iraq:

There's no question we can't win this militarily. It's a matter of time.

....

I think we cannot win this. It's a civil war we're involved in. Al qaeda is a small part of this. We've diverted ourself away from the war on terrorism to the war in iraq.

The first of these is uncontested -- in fact the whole point of Bush' policy for the past three years has been to find a political, rather than a military settlement.

The second is more problematic. He is suggesting that a political settlement cannot be achieved and that Iraq was a diversion from the war on terror. I happen to think that he's absolutely wrong on both points, but they have some support among the intelligence VIPS and some Pentagon dinosaurs. These are the people Murtha talks to, and they seem to be leading him far out on a limb that is rapidly being sawed off behind him.

See the CNN interview here.

Captain Ed thinks that Murtha's missteps are so damaging to the Democrats that Rove must be behind them. [here]