WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Potentially facing a tough Senate primary, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter announced Friday that he will run for a fifth term when he is up for re-election in 2004.
\nQuestions about Specter\u2019s candidacy have been quietly percolating in Pennsylvania as Rep. Pat Toomey eyes a Republican primary challenge against the state\u2019s senior senator.
\n\u201cThere\u2019s no question in my mind,\u201d Specter said Friday. \u201cI am running.\u201d
\nSpecter dismissed as speculative questions about a potential race against Toomey.
\n\u201cI\u2019ve had primaries in the past, and I\u2019m proceeding with my own game plan,\u201d Specter said, adding that he has been raising money, traveling the state, and maintaining a 99 percent voting participation record.
\nSpecter said he and Toomey get along well.
\n\u201cI work with him all the time,\u201d he said.
\nSpecter, 72, is a moderate Republican who was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1980. If he wins in 2004, Specter would be the first Pennsylvanian elected to five Senate terms. He had $5.1 million in his campaign bank account as of June 30, the latest totals available.
\nToomey, 41, a conservative Republican, said when first elected in 1998 that he would limit himself to three House terms. Now entering his final term after cruising to re-election by 14 points over Democrat Ed O\u2019Brien, Toomey has $609,999 in his campaign war chest \u2014 more than three times more than any other House lawmaker in the state delegation.
\nToomey would not rule out a 2004 Senate campaign Friday.
\n\u201cI\u2019ve had a number of conversations about a variety of different political options,\u201d Toomey said. \u201cI\u2019ve considered a wide variety of options. At this point, my primary focus is on doing a great job in my third term in the House. I just haven\u2019t made any decisions about what I\u2019m going to do in 2004.\u201d
\nAsked about his relationship with Specter, Toomey said
\n\u201cThere\u2019s certainly no personal friction or animosity that I\u2019m aware of.\u201d
\nSpecter supports abortion rights and has relied on help from traditionally Democratic constituencies such as labor unions in past elections. That makes him more vulnerable against a well-known conservative candidate in a GOP primary than against a Democratic challenger in a general election, said Tripp Baird of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington.
\n\u201cIf a conservative like (U.S. Sen. Rick) Santorum can win pretty handily, logic would assume that a viable conservative candidate would give Specter problems,\u201d Baird said. \u201cIt just would.\u201d
\nBut with Specter expected to chair the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee in 2004, he\u2019ll a hard person to defeat, Baird said.
\n\u201cIt\u2019d be hard, if I was a voter, to say, \u201cLet\u2019s fire him right when he gains some real clout,\u201d\u2019 Baird said. \u201cSpecter\u2019s been one of these politicians who\u2019s been able to find the middle on some issues. It makes conservatives howl sometimes, but nonetheless, from a political standpoint, he\u2019s an operator.\u201d
\nSpecter easily defeated two little-known Republican opponents in his 1998 Senate primary before handily winning re-election, with 61 percent of the vote, over Democratic state Rep. William Lloyd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Potentially facing a tough Senate primary, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter announced Friday that he will run for a fifth term when he is up for re-election in 2004. Questions about Specter\u2019s candidacy have been quietly percolating in Pennsylvania as Rep. Pat Toomey eyes a Republican primary challenge against the state\u2019s senior senator. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47739\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}