The Full Specter

IV. From Three-Time Loser to the Senate

Specter decided to run for a third term as D.A. in 1973, despite the fact that he no longer wanted the job. With Watergate dominating the front page and Republican candidates taking a beating, Specter lost to Emmett Fitzpatrick and was ushered into the most fallow period of his political career. Over the next six years, he lost primary elections for senator and governor. Finally, in 1980, after Senator Richard Schweiker decided to retire, Specter won the Republican primary and then beat Pittsburgh mayor Pete Flaherty to become a U.S. senator.

Elliott Curson: He didn't really want to run in 1973. He wanted to run for governor the next year, and [Republican Party boss] Billy Meehan said, "No, I got 42 judges up for reelection, you gotta run." He ran his own campaign. It was not an energetic campaign. He was just getting it out of the way so he could get the nomination to run for governor. And he went down in defeat. That was the end of the Republican Party in Philadelphia.

Mark Klugheit: He had lost a primary for the Senate to Heinz, and he had lost a primary to Thornburgh. He was on a losing streak. People thought he ought to get the political bug out of his body and be a practicing lawyer. I don't think Arlen ever thought that.

Michael Smerconish: I met Specter when I crashed a $500-per-person fund-raiser for him at the Bellevue in 1980. Ronald Reagan was there, and I wanted to meet him. In my only blue sport coat and a wide knit tie, I walked in. That's where I met Shanin [Specter, Arlen's son], and we became close friends. Later, I ran for the state legislature in my second year of law school, from Bucks County, and Senator Specter invited me to be the campaign manager for Philadelphia in his 1986 race against Bob Edgar. That was the transition from family friend to someone working on the team. In that campaign, we had an office at Broad and Spruce — where Ruth's Chris is now. I remember a particular day, he was in Center City and was due at headquarters at some point. We had protesters arrive on our sidewalk. What they were protesting, I don't remember, but I felt obliged to call and warn him so he could delay his return to avoid the protesters. In what I learned to be typical Specter, all that made him do was have the driver floor it to get back to the campaign headquarters, where the action was.

Mark Klugheit: I think when the 1980 election came along, the seat was pretty much an open seat; there was not a really strong Republican. His principal opponent was a guy nobody had heard of, Bud Haabestad, so I think Arlen saw an opportunity. He's never been one to be dissuaded by what other people think. He saw an opportunity to get back in the game.

Arlen Specter, from his book: When I first came to the Senate, watching senators congregate and talk on the floor, I thought of Valhalla, the meeting place of the Norse gods. I watched with some awe prominent senators about whom I'd read for years come in to vote: Barry Goldwater, Scoop Jackson, Bob Dole, Ted Kennedy, John Tower. ... This is not to say the Senate always inspires goose bumps. Senator Dale Bumpers of Arkansas and I used the Senate gym at about the same hour and had long talks in the steam room. One of the earliest bits of advice Bumpers gave me was, "Arlen, you're going to spend the first six months wondering how you got here, and then you're going to spend the next five and a half years wondering how the other guys got here."

Michael Smerconish: When Shanin was at Cambridge, his father, a freshman senator at the time, came over. And his father debated at Cambridge the proposition that "The Soviet Union is, by definition, an evil empire." And the tradition at Cambridge in debating is that audience members exit a particular door based on who they think won the debate. When the debate was over, Arlen refused to budge from the room until every person had walked out the door. He needed to know if he'd won or lost.

Ed Rendell: When I ran and lost in those two elections within the span of a year — governor in '86 and mayor in '87 — after you lose like that, people tend to stay away and write you off. Arlen was one of the few to call and say, "Keep your chin up, you never know what can happen down the road." He didn't have to do that, call a twice-defeated Democrat.

Michael Smerconish: I remember Mother's Day, 1991. I had to go to his house in East Falls and ask for his support to be the regional director of HUD. It was a painful meeting. Bill Meehan was the Republican boss, and he didn't want the first Bush administration appointing me. Meehan got on a train and went to the White House to campaign against me. And I had this relationship with Arlen Specter, and it put Specter in a tough position. So he'd been noncommittal, and on that day, I had to go to his house for a one-on-one meeting in the front porch room. In the end, he bucked the wishes of Meehan and let the White House know I was his choice. So here's the one elected official to whom I most owe the job, and he's the only elected official I can think of in the tri-state area who didn't pick up the phone and ask for something [while I was with HUD]. The one guy who would be the most deserving of a payback is the one guy who wouldn't ask.

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