Charm has never been a big part of Specter’s political repertoire. His mirthless, prosecutorial style is more tolerated than admired by Pennsylvania voters. Intelligence and hard work have won the former Philadelphia district attorney their respect, if not their deep affection. But that relationship will be put to the test this year. Specter is still feeling heat from his relentless cross-examination of Anita Hill during Clarence Thomas’s confirmation hearings last October. His performance as the Senate Judiciary Committee’s designated hit man put him at the center of a nationally televised spectacle that catalyzed women’s anger over male indifference to sexual harassment. It also made him a principal player in an event that brought Washington into sharp relief for enraged voters as a town run by pompous, bloviating white men in desperate need of a reality cheek.
The “Anita Hill Bump,” as one Philadelphia journalist coined it, has already laid at least partial claim to one victim. Illinois Sen. Alan Dixon, who already had high negatives among Democrats, drew the wrath of Republican suburbanite women angry about his vote to confirm Thomas. They crossed party lines in last month’s Democratic primary for Carol Moseley Braun. Fallout from Hill, compounded by the anti-Washington anger that ambushed former attorney general Richard Thornburgh in last November’s Senate race against Harris Wofford, could spell trouble for Specter. “It’s going to be a rocky election for Arlen,” says David Buffington, editor of the Pennsylvania Report, a political newsletter.
As if all that weren’t enough, Specter has also found himself trashed in Oliver Stone’s “JFK.” As a staff attorney for the Warren Commission, Specter championed the theory that a single bullet wounded Texas Gov. John Connally and killed President John F. Kennedy. Thousands of Pennsylvanians heard Kevin Costner, portraying New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, call him “an ambitious junior counselor” responsible for “one of the grossest lies ever forced on the American people.” (Specter stands by the theory.)
These should have been fat days for Specter. Over his two Senate terms he’s perfected the moderate straddle that’s worked for Pennsylvania Republicans since Bill Scranton. He’s been solid on abortion rights, civil rights and child care (the National Women’s Political Caucus gives him a two-term average of 82) and hardline on crime (pro-death penalty) and defense (pro-SDI). With Specter’s $3 million-plus war chest and a so-so field of opponents, 1992 looked like a walk. But in the glare of the Thomas hearings, the game changed. Specter’s jowled face, his remorseless questioning of Hill (". . . In fact, he never did ask you to have sex, correct?") and charge that she perjured herself made him vulnerable in the new, volcanic environment of gender politics.
Specter is largely unrepentant about his encounter with Hill. “What we were doing was trying to find out what happened between a man and a woman 10 years ago. And that’s a very hard thing to do,” he says. And in a year fraught with peril for incumbents, Specter, 62, doesn’t hesitate to offer a ringing endorsement of the career politicians whom voters are putting in their cross hairs this year. “I think politicians are what make the world go around … You don’t get governance unless you get accommodations and coalitions.”
He knows what it’s like to lose. He lost the 1967 Philadelphia mayor’s race and his district attorney’s job in 1973. He also lost a Republican senatorial primary in 1976 and a gubernatorial primary two years later. The setbacks have bred a cautious outlook. After a morning squash game at a Philadelphia hotel last week, someone asked him who won. “I define winning as playing and surviving,” he said. He is still favored to win re-election, but the danger signs are there. A primary Republican challenge from state Rep. Stephen Freind, an anti-abortion activist, could become a close race if primary-day turnout is light. Specter’s approval ratings, solid immediately after the Thomas hearings, have slipped. One poll shows him drawing under 50 percent against his most likely Democratic opponent, Lt. Gov. Mark Singel.
Specter is particularly wary of another potential opponent, civic activist Lynn Yeakel. She’s been running ads showing Specter grilling Hill. “Arlen’s afraid she can tap into that Anita Hill anger,” says Buffington. It’s real enough. On April 4, nearly 2,000 people lined up for blocks to hear Hill speak at the University of Pennsylvania. Specter will soon find out whether Hill’s specter will return to haunt him in November.
