I want to return to last night’s thesis that Arlen Specter can be seen as a sort of national barometer.
Here are Pennsylvania’s presidential numbers:
9342 of 9425 precincts – 99 percent
x- John F. Kerry Dem 2,868,674 – 51 percent
George W. Bush (i) Rep 2,746,856 – 49 percent
Michael Badnarik Lib 20,902 – 0 percent
Michael Peroutka CST 6,426 – 0 percent
David Cobb Grn 6,192 – 0 percent
And here are Pennsylvania’s senatorial numbers:
Pennsylvania race for U.S. Senate
9338 of 9425 precincts – 99 percent
x- Arlen Specter (i) Rep 2,880,584 – 53 percent
Joe Hoeffel Dem 2,282,425 – 42 percent
James Clymer CST 216,266 – 4 percent
Betsy Summers Lib 77,260 – 1 percent
Note that Arlen Specter was the top vote-getter in Pennsylvania, out-performing either Bush or Kerry. That a Republican moderate can win in a Democratic state is newsworthy in itself, but that he’d get more votes than either presidential candidate in a highly-charged election like this — well, in my opinion it puts ideologues in both parties on notice that the voters like moderately conservative candidates who can work with both sides.
Factor into this Arnold Schwarzenegger’s huge popularity (65% in a heavily Democratic state) and I think it’s obvious that the Republican Party is in a position where it could become the party of consensus.
I stress “could” because I know the ideologues in both parties will do their damnedest to stop this from happening. Consensus and ideology are like tar and water. Yet ordinary Americans love consensus and eschew ideology. Regardless of his positions on individual issues, Specter is seen as a symbol of both.
NOTE: Far right senatorial candidate James Clymer got a whopping 216,266 votes — with help from the left. That’s 34 times more than his party’s presidential candidate drew in Pennsylvania — and (as of this writing) more than twice the national numbers of his party’s presidential candidate (Michael Peroutka). Clymer’s Pennsylvania numbers even approach Libertarian Badnarik’s national numbers. What this shows is that at least in Pennsylvania, even an unholy alliance of the left and the right working together cannot defeat consensus.
None of this constitutes an endorsement by me of Specter, his policies, or his positions. Rather, I think the Republican leadership needs to recognize that there’s a reason why ordinary voters like him. I think it’s related to why they lie to the damned in-your-face pollsters. They don’t like people, candidates, or issues which make them nervous.
UPDATE: In Alaska, legal marijuana is more popular than Kerry, but less popular than Bush (although more people voted for Bush than against marijuana.)
Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
MORE: Despite the gay marriage issue, it seems gay voters are more capable of independent thought than previously credited.
(I’m not surprised.)
