Conventional wisdom has U.S. Sens. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and Phil Gramm (R-Texas), former Defense Secretary Richard Cheney an former congressman Jack Kemp among the likely front-runners in the race for the 1996 Republican presidential nomination.
Yet the first formal entrant into the race may just be U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the U.S. Senate’s only Jewish Republican.
Specter is expected to announce the formation of his presidential exploratory effort on Monday, making stops in Philadelphia; Concord, N.H. and Des Moines, Iowa to mark the occasion.
Specter is expected to focus on his concerns both for the country and for his party, in what sources say will be “exploratory” endeavor to determine whether the race is politically and financially feasible.
The long-shot bid of the politically moderate Specter, elected to his third term in 1992, is being received with mixed reviews by political analysts and Jewish community leaders.
Over the last six months, the 64-year-old Specter – who, if successful in this new effort, could become the first Jewish president or vice president in American history – has been positioning himself toward the Republican center or even left of it.
He has made a series of speeches blasting what he terms the “far-right fringe,” or what is more commonly referred to as the religious right.
During a speech to an Iowa Republican audience in June, Specter was roundly booed when he warned the GOP against violating the “basic American Principle of separation of church and state that’s older than the Constitution.”
And speaking in late October to an Anti-Defamation League executive committee meeting in Los Angeles, Calif, Specter slammed the “far-right fringe,” saying it is “really not in the Christian or Judeo-Christian tradition in practicing the values of tolerance, understanding and brotherhood, but instead (it) advocates the opposite.
He added that the “far-right fringe must be defeated on the American political scene.”
Specter, who is pro-choice on abortion and centrist on other social issues, has long been seen as moderate within the GOP, not infrequently breaking ranks with majority Republican positions. But he angered many once and potential female and Democratic allies when, in his ex-prosecutor’s style, he grilled Anita Hill during Clarence Thomas’ U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
In part because of his performance at the hearings, Specter faced his toughest reelection challenge in 1992. He narrowly defeated Democrat Lynn Yeakel, 49 to 46 percent.
His target niche in a presidential race, say Republican and Jewish community analysts, will be moderate Republicans, those disquieted or uncomfortable with the religious right’s increasing influence over the GOP. He also specifically hopes to capture the votes of Jewish Republicans, possibly a natural draw for Specter because of their unease with fundamentalist Christian political activism – as well as Specter’s religion and solid pro-Israel record.
But Specter may have to contend for that vote with Jack Kemp, among other candidates. The former Buffalo congressman and secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Bush administration, also is a tested friend of Israel and supporter of other Jewish causes.
Some analysts question the plausibility of a Specter candidacy and ask whether he is actually running for a shot to be the “moderate power broker” at the 1996 Republican convention – or simply aiming for the number two spot on the ticket. Activists and analysts alike look on a Specter candidacy with interest.
Referring to Specter’s speeches on the religious right, Jess Hordes, Washington representative of the Anti-Defamation League, said that although the “cynical view is that he’s positioning” himself for a candidacy, “my own view is that these are strongly held and principled views he has held for a long time.”
Mike Russell, a Christian Coalition spokesman, took exception with Specter’s speeches, and said that his apparent strategy is going to backfire. It’s “unwise to walk away from religious conservative voters,” he said.
“He has no hope,” said Stephen Hess, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution who has written numerous books on Congress and the presidency. “Anyone as far to the center” in the GOP as Specter, according to Hess, “has no shot.”
If not to position himself for a possible vice presidential nod, Specter can only be “doing it to present a moderate voice in the Republican dialogue, and that’s a very admirable thing,” according to Hess.
According to Morton Klein, a longtime Specter supporter and Jewish activist, a Specter candidacy would “draw a surprising amount of support.”
Specter, who has drawn in Pennsylvania “from both liberals and conservatives,” might have similar appeal on a national scale, said Klein, national president of the Zionist Organization of America.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
