Democrats see high-profile chance to snatch Senate seat

On a rainy evening last week, Sen. Rick Santorum went to St. Paul's Seminary to deliver a lecture titled, "Taking the Heat.''

His topic echoed President Harry Truman's admonition to fellow politicians, "If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.'' In the course of about an hour, Santorum demonstrated that he is comfortable with the heat -- indeed, happy to turn it up a few degrees.

That may be a good thing, for in a little more than a year, Santorum will be at the center of what promises to be the most watched, and potentially most expensive Senate race in the nation.

Santorum, who holds the No. 3 leadership post in the Senate GOP caucus, will be the highest-ranking Republican running for re-election in 2006. He is at the top of the target list for national Democrats and for liberal groups who brought unprecedented independent activity and fund-raising to the 2004 presidential race.

"He's an especially tempting target because he's a member of the leadership,'' said Ross K. Baker, a political scientist and expert on Congress at Rutgers University. "He's a conservative Republican in a state carried by John Kerry.''

But balancing his status as a lightning rod for Democratic opposition is the fact that Santorum has evolved into much more of a national figure than when he won his second term in 2000. With that national base come a vastly enhanced ability to attract money, both for his own campaign committee and from independent groups on the conservative side.

Using the name from the tax code that governs them, Baker said, "The activity of the 527s was the great innovation of the last election. Barring some Congressional action to reel them in, I can't imagine that they won't be active in [Santorum's] election.''

And without the preoccupation of a presidential race, those 527s will have the potential to focus resources on races such as Santorum's to an unprecedented degree,

Santorum's speech last week was an endorsement of religion as an active force in politics, coupled with a recital of his battles against abortion on the floor of the Senate.

"What I'm concerned about is we have some in our society today who say you can come to the public square influenced by anything other than faith. If you are influenced by faith, somehow that is illegitimate and your faith can only be private,'' he explained shortly before he took the stage at the Crafton seminary. "I think that is a very dangerous thing because it leaves the public square with sort of a secular world.''

Santorum's words were full of warnings about what he sees as the plight of people of faith besieged by the secular, leftist culture forces of the media.

His flailing of the left sparked a protest from one member of the audience of about 300.

"I am tired of this 'left' and 'right' destroying this country,'' a woman cried out from the back of the auditorium.

"I would agree with you on half of that,'' said an unapologetic Santorum.

Seeking his third term, Santorum will have the advantage of incumbency. To the consternation of many fellow conservatives, he is closely allied with his colleague, Sen. Arlen Specter, who is positioned to help Santorum both with the senior senator's political base in Eastern Pennsylvania and through his senior positions on the Appropriations Committee, which will allow him to aid Santorum in delivering the kinds of federal dollars and projects that incumbents love to take credit for.

Santorum also hopes to nurture and preserve the grass-roots volunteer base that boosted Presidents Bush's vote total in the state compared to 2000, even though it fell just short of delivering Pennsylvania's electoral votes.

But Santorum will be a prime Democratic target not because of his leadership position and swing state constituency, but because of perceptions of him as a combative, conservative ideologue. It is an image that brings passionate opposition countervailing his passionate support, and one that is at odds with the more moderate strain of Republicanism that still thrived in Pennsylvania even as the national GOP shifted to the right.

Several Democrats have voiced interest in challenging Santorum, but national party leaders are most ardently courting the candidacy of Bob Casey Jr., who will be sworn in tomorrow as the state's new treasurer. In recent weeks Casey has received numerous messages wooing him for the race from figures including Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the Senate Democratic leader, and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., the chairman of the Democrats' Senate Campaign Committee.

Casey was soundly beaten by Gov. Ed Rendell in the Democratic primary for governor two years ago. The conventional wisdom in Pennsylvania politics has been that Casey ambitions remained fixed on the governor's mansion and that he would bide his time awaiting the chance to succeed Rendell in the office once held by his father.

A figure close to Casey said last week, however, that he is seriously considering the Senate entreaties and would make up his mind about a possible bid in the near future. In his landslide victory for treasurer in November, Casey set a record for number of votes attracted in a Pennsylvania election. Many Democrats see his candidacy as an ideal counter to Santorum because, he, like Santorum opposes abortion and supports gun rights.

By taking those volatile social issues off the boards, Casey could recapture the votes of conservative Democrats, particularly in the western half of the state, who have increasingly strayed toward the GOP. Last November, for example, Casey managed to carry Westmoreland County while President Bush easily outdistanced Sen. John Kerry in that nominally Democratic county...

On the opposite side of the ideological ledger, however, a Casey candidacy could help Santorum in some traditionally Republican counties in the Eastern part of the state. In areas such as the Philadelphia suburbs, many Republicans are more liberal on social issues such as abortion and guns. But if those issues recede in importance, as they presumably would in a Santorum-Casey matchup, Santorum might have an easier time retaining the loyalty of vote-rich counties such as Delaware and Montgomery.

Other Democrats who have expressed interest in the race include outgoing Treasurer Barbara Hafer. Rendell has spoken enthusiastically about Hafer as a prospective candidate and she has said she will announce her plans on the race in the next few months. Former Rep. Joseph Hoeffel, who ran unsuccessfully against Specter, has also shown interest in the race, as has state Rep. T.J. Rooney, the state Democratic chairman. Rooney has said, however, that it is in his party's interest to avoid a primary in anticipation of a costly challenge to Santorum and he and other party power brokers are certain to do all they can to find a consensus candidate rather than see a challenger emerge through an expensive primary.

While some conservatives have been estranged from Santorum by his support of Specter, few Republicans expect him to face a serious primary challenge.

As he talked to the seminary audience last week, Santorum noted that he is writing a book. Its working title, he said, is, "It Takes a Family.''

The audience laughed at the deliberate contrast to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's work, "It Takes a Village.''

Normally, when a U.S. senator writes a book, that's a fairly reliable omen of plans to run for president. Santorum usually fends off discussion of that possibility but he acknowledges that he's discussed it. Last summer, at the Republican convention in New York, he dutifully and perhaps not coincidentally made the rounds of caucuses of some of the early primary states...

By James O'Toole,  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette  Jan 17, 2005

Back to News in Brief