Running To Win
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F
or many Jews, Sen. Arlen Specter, son of a Russian
Jewish immigrant and an influential champion of
Israel, had become public enemy No. 1.
On this day in 1990, the tough-talking former prosecutor
stood defiantly before national Jewish leaders in New York
City. He truculently defended his controversial meeting with
Saddam Hussein and his staunch opposition to sanctions against
Iraq.
The moves by the Pennsylvania senator were widely inter-
preted as naive attempts to appease one of the world's cruelest,
most irresponsible and anti-Israel dictators. They were also,
many said, a horrible signal of indifference to the Iraqi leader's
blatant transgressions of international law.
The assembled Jewish leaders expected that Mr. Specter,
chastened by the recent Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, would eat
kosher crow. They were wrong.
"He stood his ground," said Rabbi Jacob Bronner, an official
with the Belzer Hasidim in New York who counts many U.S.
senators among his friends. "I was very impressed with that;
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he took a lot of heat for that position,
and he didn't back down."
That independence — some call it
contrariness — defines the 65-year-old
legislator's long-shot bid to win the 1996
Republican presidential nomination
and ultimately the White House. In do-
ing so, Mr. Specter hopes to drive a
wedge between the fundamentalist,
anti-abortion wing of his party and
what he believes to be mainstream
America.
The pollsters give him little chance
to beat front-runners like Sen. Bob Dole
and Sen. Phil Gramm. But some, like
Edward H. Rosen, a retired Philadel-
phia businessman and Specter backer
who played squash with the senator for
years, disagree.
"He's a heck of an aggressive play-
er," he said. "He never gives up, he nev-
er accepts defeat. That's the way he's
always played squash, and it's the way
he's always run his campaigns. He has
a capacity for wearing opponents
down."
LLJ
1 --
Saving the Constitution
44
Predictably, Arlen Specter used a re-
cent interview to insist that he really
Reed Jr. [the executive director of the
Rev. Pat Robertson's Christian Coali-
tion and a major force in GOP politics]
saying that pro-choice Republicans are
automatically disqualified, that's ab-
solutely infuriating," he said. "And
when you have [presidential candidate
Pat] Buchanan wanting a holy war, and
Robertson saying that there's no con-
stitutional doctrine of the separation of
church and state, and that it's a `lie of
the left,' that's dangerous. I feel very
strongly about that point."
The party's growing extremism on
these issues, he said, jeopardizes the
GOP's future — and guarantees that
Jews will not switch to the Republican
Party.
He attributes much of his emotion-
al reaction to the church-state issue
to his status as the first-generation
product of a Jewish emigrant from the
Kiev area who settled in Russell, Kan.
— the same town that produced one of
Mr. Specter's rivals for the GOP nom-
ination, Senate Majority Leader Bob
Dole.
"My father came to this country in
1911 for religious freedom," he said.
"I'm just not willing to stand by and see
this fringe take over our party."
Close associates describe a complex
man who is driven by uncompromising
principle, personal ambition and a kind
of emotional intensity that can make
him an unlikable public figure.
Mr. Specter's small-town upbring-
ing and his strong sense of his ethnic
roots are primary motivations behind
his crusade to head off the Christian
right, they say.
"Growing up in Russell, he some-
times felt like an outsider," said friend
and squash partner Ed Rosen. "It's not
exactly a Jewish town. Because of his
background, he is deeply disturbed by
what he sees happening with the reli-
gious right. Ws not just a political issue
to him, it's personal."
plans to capture the GOP nomination
in 1996. But just in case he doesn't, he
wants to make a point: the party of fis-
cal conservatism and social libertari-
anism has been hijacked by extremists
who want to remake America in their
harsh image.
"I'm running to win," he said. "But a
key factor in my candidacy is the fringe,
which is trying to take control of the
party. I call it a 5 percent fringe, and I
think it's very important that it be con-
Ruthless Stamina
fronted directly."
He described a pivotal experience in
Such personal intensity has defined
his decision to run — a state GOP con- Mr. Specter's career in public service;
vention in Iowa. Mr. Specter, one of a it is both a plus and a minus in his cur-
dwindling group of pro-choice Repub- rent quest for the ultimate political
licans, spoke in opposition to an anti- prize.
abortion plank in the state party
He began his public career as a top
platform.
staffer with the Warren Commission;
"I expected to get opposition," he said. his belief in the theory that President
"But I was really shocked when I was Kennedy was killed by a single assas-
booed when I mentioned the First sin has been a source of controversy for
Amendment freedom of religion and years.
the constitutional doctrine of church-
Initially a Democrat, he became
state separation."
a Republican in the mid-'60s and
The abortion and church-state issues ;; served several terms as district at-
seem to encapsulate his concerns about torney in Philadelphia. He was elected
a Republican Party that is lurching out , to the Senate in 1980, propelled
of the mainstream. iby an unusual Republican coalition
"When you have people like Ralph that included labor, Hispanics,
African-Americans and Jews.
By all accounts, he is a brilliant, im-
patient, demanding man — one of the
hardest workers in the Senate, a ter-
ror to staffers who are unwilling to keep
the same punishing hours, an extraor-
dinarily smart man whose intellectual
impatience often comes across as in-
tolerance and arrogance.
Carl Feldbaum, president of the
Biotechnology Industry Association, a
Washington trade group, was a student
of Mr. Specter's at the University of
Pennsylvania Law School, and worked
with him in the Philadelphia district
attorney's office. Later, he served as Mr.
Specter's Senate chief of staff.
"I've never met anybody as relent-
less or as persistent or as resilient," he
said. "He matches that with a load of
energy that would be remarkable for a
25-year-old. He never stops, he doesn't
quit. Some people say this candidacy is
not plausible. But he sticks to things to
a degree that tends to surprise people."
That intensity makes Mr. Specter
a tough person to work for. On Capitol
Hill, he is legendary for burning out
staffers; he is quick to criticize, and his
standards are high.
"To say he is intellectually rigorous
is to put it lightly," Mr. Feldbaum said.
"He's demanding and exacting. When
you go to him with a point or an argu-
ment, you'd better be damned ready to
argue it as if you're arguing before the
Supreme Court. He can be very diffi-
cult to work with. Some don't make it;
working for Specter is an intellectual
Parris Island."
Survivors of the Specter treatment,
he said, are ready for anything.
"I try to hire people from his staff for
my current job," he said. "I want peo-
ple who have been exposed to his way
of doing things, and who have made it."
But that intensity also is one of Mr.
Specter's problems as he gears up his
presidential machine.
"He's not a warm and fuzzy guy,"
said a leading pro-Israel activist in
Washington who is heavily involved in
presidential politics. "He tries; he real-
ly works at it. But he can't get away
from a kind of intellectual arrogance.
It may be justified; he's a very smart
man, and he does his homework. But
it doesn't win him friends when he's out
there in front of the public."
Anita Hill's Shadow
Mr. Specter still is recovering from
the negative public reaction to his harsh
questioning of Anita Hill during the
confirmation hearings for Supreme
Court Justice Clarence Thomas; his
prosecutorial style incensed many
American women, a key constituency
in the coalition that has rewarded him