Having lost his once-comfortable lead in the Democratic Senate primary, Sen. Arlen Specter played his trump card Tuesday: President Obama.
Specter "helped pull us back from the brink" with his decisive vote last year for the economic stimulus, Obama says in a new 30-second TV ad. "I love Arlen Specter."
The image, from a September fund-raiser, counters Rep. Joe Sestak's footage of President George W. Bush endorsing Specter as a "firm ally" in the 2004 Republican primary - a stark reminder that Specter switched parties last year. Sestak's ad also uses Specter's own words from news clips saying he became a Democrat last year "to get reelected."
Specter changed parties out of concern he might lose a Republican primary. But now, he's imperiled in a Democratic one.
A Muhlenberg College-Morning Call nightly tracking poll released Tuesday showed that Sestak had edged ahead of Specter, 47 percent to 43 percent. That is within the survey's margin of error of 5 percentage points, but the challenger's advantage in the poll has grown steadily since late last week.
Similarly, a Rasmussen Reports survey conducted Thursday showed Sestak at 47 percent and Specter at 42 percent, with a 4.5-point margin of error. And a Franklin and Marshall College poll to be released Wednesday is expected to show Sestak's numbers exceeding Specter's for the first time in that poll.
Meanwhile, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama had no plans for another campaign trip to Pennsylvania for Specter before Tuesday's primary, dampening hopes for a weekend get-out-the-vote rally in Philadelphia.
Analysts say Specter, a five-term senator, has been caught up in an anti-incumbent mood, compounded by his April 2009 party switch, which has fed into Sestak's chief narrative that Specter is an untrustworthy opportunist.
"The wave against incumbents is of great concern," Specter acknowledged while campaigning in Philadelphia on Monday. On Saturday, three-term Utah Sen. Robert Bennett was denied the Republican nomination for reelection. Conservative activists angry at Washington toppled him at his state's GOP convention.
On the other hand, incumbents and party-endorsed candidates in both parties triumphed last week in primaries in Indiana, North Carolina, and Ohio.
"I am surprised at the depth of anti-incumbent feeling," Gov. Rendell said Tuesday. He said Specter was the state's "most visible incumbent."
With the contest razor-close, Specter could yet stage a surge, with analysts saying his greatest reservoir of strength is deep support in Philadelphia, particularly among African American voters.
"The race has tightened - we knew it would," Specter campaign manager Chris Nicholas said. He declined to discuss polls, saying that there was so much volatility "you get twisted like a pretzel" trying to parse them.
The Muhlenberg poll uses strict screening to pick likely primary voters: Respondents must be registered Democrats, say they definitely plan to go to the polls Tuesday, and have voted in the last midterm election in which they were eligible to do so. The latest poll, taken Friday through Monday, surveyed 401 people.
Pollster Chris Borick said the criteria may exclude African Americans, younger voters, and Democrats who registered for the first time and surged to the polls to participate in the competitive 2008 Pennsylvania presidential primary and to support Obama.
"We absolutely make assumptions about who's going to turn out - it's not an exact science," Borick said Tuesday. "Past performance suggests that people who come out and register for the first time to vote for president don't usually show up in high percentages for midterms, but we could be wrong."
Specter will have some advantages on primary day, including extensive get-out-the-vote operations on the ground, with union members plus workers from county Democratic organizations, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and, in Philadelphia, Rep. Chaka Fattah's field operation.
"I personally don't see an energized Democratic base this year," Borick said, "but turnout is the wild card."
Specter's campaign has sought to frame the race as a referendum on Sestak, with ads alleging Sestak was fired from a top Pentagon job in 2005 for creating a "poor command climate" among subordinates. Sestak has denied the account, and his campaign responded with an ad in which veterans call Specter a liar.
Sestak's 127 missed votes last year, one of the highest totals in the House, and his paying most of his campaign staff less than the minimum wage also came under scrutiny in Specter attack ads.
But nothing has seemed to slow Sestak's rise, with the percentage of voters holding an unfavorable view of him increasing only slightly. Specter is such a known quantity in Pennsylvania public life that the race has always been a referendum on him, analysts say.
The irony of Specter's predicament is that many Democrats believe he would have a better chance of appealing to independents and moderate Republicans in the general election.
"I don't think they'd be there for Sestak in the general election," Rendell said.
Democratic media consultant Larry Ceisler said: "Arlen is built for general elections, not for primaries. That's always been the case. Why should it surprise anyone that an independent centrist would have problems from the right in a Republican primary and from the left in a Democratic primary?"cherish
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