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The Morning Grind / DayAhead |
Specter has plenty of pals in Pennsylvania
By John Mercurio
CNN Political Unit
 |  Pennsylvania power: Sen. Arlen Specter, center, enjoyed Teresa Heinz Kerry's support in the past and now has President Bush on his side. |
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- I'm going to keep the Grind relatively short, recognizing that you all have loads of other reading to do. Admittedly, I didn't spend 3 1/2 hours interviewing President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Nor did I talk with more than 75 key people directly involved in any "plan of attack."
I just don't get calls returned like some people in this city. (Woodward: Tenet told Bush WMD case a 'slam dunk')
Humbled, I move on to a Senate race in Pennsylvania.
What do Bush and Teresa Heinz Kerry have in common?
The real answer is not much -- that's true. But both are friends of Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania -- although, it seems, for widely different reasons. The Heinz heiress (then the recently widowed wife of Sen. John Heinz) cut a TV ad for Specter in 1992 during his tough post-Anita Hill race. She even gave $1,000 to his short-lived White House bid in '95, the same year she married Sen. John Kerry.
For his part, Bush travels to Pittsburgh on Monday to raise money for Specter, who faces a tough challenge in the April 27 GOP primary from conservative Rep. Pat Toomey. It's Bush's 27th visit to the battleground state as president.
While current events have cooled relations between Specter and Heinz (she's not backing him this year; he's not backing her husband's prez bid), it's somehow easier to make sense of their bond than the one between Bush and Specter. Sure, both men have Rs next to their names, but they're on opposite sides of many key issues, including abortion, gun control and some tax cuts.
Of course, ideology only goes so far in politics. And this being Pennsylvania, a vote-rich swing state he's targeting for his re-election, Bush decided long ago to side with the moderate Specter, who would better help him draw independent and Democratic voters to the GOP column this fall. (This, of course, is nothing new in the Bush White House: Just ask Tom McClintock in California.)
No reliable polls (yet) show Toomey within the margin of error, and Specter has stared down tough challenges before. But new campaign-finance reports released last week suggest that something is spooking Specter, who spent a whopping $7 million between January 1 and March 31 to beat back Toomey's challenge. (Toomey spent $2.2 million.) Waiting in the wings is Rep. Joe Hoeffel, a Democrat who also appears to be waiting to start his major fund raising.
Curiously, while in Pennsylvania, Bush will make a pitch for a law that has brought Specter and Toomey together against the president: the Patriot Act.
Bush plans to make the case for renewing the Patriot Act, which doesn't expire until next year but is under increasing attack from civil liberties groups from all over the ideological spectrum. Bush will talk about the act Monday in Hershey, Pennsylvania, where he'll be joined by Specter, and Tuesday in Buffalo, New York.
During his weekly radio address Saturday, Bush said letting the Patriot Act expire next year would demonstrate a "willful blindness to a continuing threat."
Meanwhile, Kerry continues his Southern fund-raising tour Monday in Atlanta, Georgia, after collecting checks Sunday night in Florida.
Some Kerry lines from his Sunday fund-raiser, where he was introduced by Sens. Joe Lieberman, D-Connecticut, and Bill Nelson, D-Florida: "You have no idea how little is happening in the Senate. ... We have to win. ... This is about all of us. ...This country is getting more and more unfair."
