Specter Launches White House Bid, Assails Far Right

WASHINGTON —  Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter launched his bid for the Republican presidential nomination here Thursday with a sharp challenge to Christian conservatives who, he warned, could squander the GOP’s chance for enacting fundamental economic reforms by promoting divisive social issues such as abortion and school prayer.

“Neither this nation nor this party can afford a Republican candidate so captive to the demands of the intolerant right that we end up reelecting a President of the incompetent left,” Specter declared in what he described as a “core line” in his announcement speech--so important that he repeated it for emphasis.

The 65-year-old three-term senator spoke to several hundred supporters bused in from his home state on a hazy spring morning at a site carefully chosen for its symbolism. Facing the Washington Monument, Specter positioned himself so that television cameras could capture over his shoulder the gleaming white memorial to Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican President whose “commitment to equality and opportunity” Specter saluted.

Specter’s hardest shots were aimed directly at those he condemned as advocates of “a radical social agenda”--specifically rival GOP presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan; television broadcaster Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition, and Ralph Reed, director of the coalition, a 1.4-million-member national organization which says that it has the interests of tens of millions of churchgoing Americans at heart.

In his address, Specter, who is the first Jew to seek the Republican presidential nomination, said that--given the nation’s troubled moral climate--”people with deep religious and moral convictions” should be politically active. But he added: “It is not Christian or religious or Judeo-Christian to bring God into politics or to advocate intolerance or to promote exclusion.”

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In addition to his differences with Christian conservatives, Specter is counting on other issues too, according to Roger Stone, his campaign chief and top strategist. He will use economics, his stand favoring the right to an abortion and his record in the Senate to cut into the potential support for California Gov. Pete Wilson, whom Specter regards as his chief rival for moderate Republican primary voters.

Few Republicans give Specter much chance of winning the nomination. He is little known outside his home state and, despite his claim to be a disciple of conservative icon Barry Goldwater, generally is deemed too liberal for the taste of GOP primary voters.

Still, some party professionals think that Specter could have an impact on the campaign and the party out of proportion to his support among voters. This is because of his determination to debate the abortion issue, which most party leaders try to soft-pedal. Also by striking out at conservatives like Robertson and Buchanan, he could lend credibility to attacks on these same targets by Democratic strategists seeking to depict the GOP as on the verge of being taken over by extremists.

“If he (Specter) can get a fight going on these issues he can get more support than he can get on his own,” said David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union and an adviser to Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, who is scheduled to announce his candidacy on April 10. “So it’s in his interest to get a fight going.”

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Specter’s targets struck back immediately. “We are deeply disappointed that Sen. Specter has unfortunately used the opening and defining moment of his campaign to personally attack people of faith and religious leaders,” Reed said after Specter’s speech. “It is our belief that this attack on religious conservatives will backfire at the polls.”

Specter is the fifth Republican to officially enter the presidential campaign, following Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander, television commentator Buchanan and radio talk show host Alan Keyes. Those planning announcements in April, along with Dole, are California Rep. Robert K. Dornan and Indiana Sen. Richard G. Lugar.

In addition Wilson, who like Specter supports abortion rights, is expected to enter the race, probably in May. This would create a particular problem for Specter, whose candidacy was initially based in large part on the premise that he would be the only GOP presidential contender bidding for the abortion-rights vote.

Nevertheless Stone, a veteran of the Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon presidential campaigns, argued that his candidate will be more forthright in defending abortion rights than Wilson, who appears inclined to talk about the issue only when he is asked about it.

“What makes Specter different in this field,” said Stone, “is the fact that he is willing to criticize extremists in the party and that he is willing to say: ‘Let’s remove anti-choice language from the platform,’ ” a change that Specter pledged to fight for in his speech Thursday.

While Specter was offering evidence for his claim to be the chief foe of extremism, he also sought to back up the assertion that he is an economic conservative in the Goldwater tradition.

He pledged to balance the budget by the year 2002, helped by the centerpiece of his domestic program: a 20% flat tax rate. This plan, which would allow deductions only for home mortgage interest and charitable contributions, he said, would save Americans 5 billion hours a year by allowing them to file their returns on a post card. It also would boost the gross national product by $2 trillion within seven years by encouraging savings, he said.

Citing his 12 years of crime-fighting as Philadelphia’s district attorney, Specter promised to cut violent crime by as much as 50% by imposing the death penalty and tough prison sentences on hardened criminals while providing job training and education for juvenile offenders.

Similarly, Specter referred to his role as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee in pledging to increase American security abroad. Complaining that President Clinton has been too lenient in negotiating with North Korea over that country’s development of nuclear weapons, Specter said that the United States needs a well-defined foreign policy “that is more than a surprised reaction to world events.”

All these issues will help Specter in any comparison with Wilson, contended Stone, particularly the flat-tax proposal. This idea, Stone said, touches on “the area of Wilson’s greatest vulnerability” because of the big tax increase he signed into law in his first term as governor.

“Wilson’s people need to understand that Wilson will never get a free shot in this campaign,” Stone said. “Specter will consistently be out there. Whether it is crime or choice or whatever he tries to use as an issue, Specter will continually be there.”

Such a performance by Specter would be consistent with his lifelong reputation for tenacity and belligerence. “Warm” and “endearing” are words rarely applied to him, except by members of his immediate family.

“He is conniving and tough,” said Saul Shorr, a longtime Philadelphia-based Democratic media consultant, who likens Specter to Nixon, a comparison accepted by Stone, who broke into politics in Nixon’s 1968 campaign. “We don’t elect a President to be lovable,” said Stone.

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Profile: Arlen Specter

Background on the latest entrant into the GOP race:

Age: 65

Education: University of Pennsylvania, B.A., Phi Beta Kappa, 1951. Yale Law School, LL.B. 1956.

Experience: First lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force, Office of Special Investigations, 1951-53. Practicing lawyer, 1956-59, 1974-80. Assistant district attorney, Philadelphia, 1959-64. Assistant counsel, Warren Commission, 1964. Assistant attorney general, Pennsylvania, 1964-65. District attorney, Philadelphia, 1966-74. Senator 1981-present.

Family: Wife, Philadelphia Councilwoman Joan Levy Specter. Two children.

Source: Associated Press