FOR A PRO-LIFE Democrat, Bob Casey Jr. finds himself wooed by some unlikely backers. New York senator Chuck Schumer, for one. Earlier this year, the unfailingly pro-choice Schumer recruited Casey to challenge GOP incumbent Rick Santorum in the 2006 Pennsylvania Senate race. The very day Casey announced his bid (March 4), Democratic governor Ed Rendell coaxed his chief primary rival into withdrawing. (Funny, given that Casey lost a nasty gubernatorial primary to Rendell in 2002.) So it appears Casey will have a relatively painless path to the nomination. And a new Keystone poll shows him in a dead heat with Santorum.
The family name commands great clout in Pennsylvania. Casey’s father, Bob Casey Sr., was governor from 1987 to 1995. The elder Casey never soft-pedaled his thoughts on Democrats and the unborn. “The Democratic party broke its historic compact with mainstream America when it volunteered itself as the party of abortion on demand,” he once said. Such comments made him the national paladin of pro-life Democrats. Last November, his son received more votes than any candidate for statewide office in Pennsylvania history (albeit against a weak GOP opponent) to become the new state treasurer. The younger Casey, state auditor general from 1997 to 2005, is fiscally liberal, yet, like his father, forthrightly pro-life.
And because of that, not all Democrats have embraced him. Several prominent abortion advocates–including National Organization for Women president Kim Gandy, Feminist Majority president Eleanor Smeal, and feminist grande dame Gloria Steinem–recently cosigned an email “alert” that reports “some Democratic leaders are actively recruiting anti-abortion candidates and forcing out pro-choice Democrats!” They point to Casey–“a staunch abortion opponent in the mold of his father”–and call his candidacy “a calculated effort by party leaders to build a so-called ‘bigger tent’ at the expense of women’s rights.” By signing their e-petition, folks can tell Schumer and Rendell “that women will no longer be taken for granted.”
It’s possible pro-choice groups might draft and fund another Democrat to run against Casey in the primary. But either way, says Democratic consultant Larry Ceisler, “everybody that counts is on board with Casey.” As the No. 3 Senate Republican and a liberal bête noire, Santorum makes a prime target. “Santorum is Pennsylvania’s Daschle,” explains Ceisler, referring to the Senate Democratic leader defeated for reelection in 2004. “That’s why there was such an effort to court Bobby Casey.” Which means Casey, despite his conservative views on abortion, may become for Democrats in ’06 what South Dakotan John Thune was for Republicans in ’04–the principal focus of the party’s Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Santorum recognizes this. “They want to ‘Daschle’ me,” he notes without prompting. All the same, Santorum adds, he’d rather “play in the Super Bowl” than in “an exhibition game.” He sounds confident–“I feel very good”–and brushes aside the notion that Casey’s social conservatism will cut into his base. “Pro-lifers aren’t gonna leave me,” Santorum says.
That’s not just bravado. Santorum, 46, is among the most vocal and tireless abortion foes in the country. He led the fight for a partial-birth ban. He cosponsored “Laci and Conner’s Law.” He’s championed the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act. He’s also pushed for curbs on RU-486 and tighter parental notification statutes. His pro-life paper trail is impeccable. Casey, by contrast, has no legislative record on abortion. And if elected, he’d be joining a Democratic caucus that frowns on pro-life legislation and opposes anti-Roe judicial nominees.
But Democrats don’t expect Casey to “out-pro-life” Santorum. Instead, they hope his pro-life stance will neutralize abortion as a campaign theme. They feel Casey can strike a chord by talking up Social Security, education, health care, and the economy. So expect Casey to run from the center and depict Santorum as too “right wing” for the Keystone state.
How will that message sell? On the one hand, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 500,000. But as James Carville has quipped, Pennsylvania is “Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, with Alabama in between.” Statewide elections frequently turn on two regions: the leafy Philly suburbs and the industrial, working-class west. The west boasts huge swaths of former Reagan Democrats, while moderate Republicans predominate in the suburbs. But party tags mean little. Blue-collar western Democrats prefer Republicans about as often as southeastern Republicans prefer Democrats.
The reason is cultural more than anything. A steady surge of Central and Eastern European immigrants–Germans, Italians, Poles, Slovaks, Lithuanians–flooded western Pennsylvania in the late 1800s. Combine the region’s large Catholic population with its history of steelworks and coal mining and you have a pool of voters who tilt socially conservative (anti-abortion, anti-same sex marriage, pro-gun) but economically populist (anti-free trade, pro-labor).
Though Casey, 44, hails from Scranton, in northeastern Pennsylvania, socially conservative Democrats in the west recognize him as one of their own. “He’s a perfect fit in our neck of the woods,” says congressman Mike Doyle, a Democrat from the Pittsburgh area. Like Santorum, Casey opposes same-sex marriage and favors gun rights. In the 2004 election, he was the only Democrat to win conservative Westmoreland County, once a hotbed of Reagan Democrats, which George W. Bush carried easily. But Santorum is from the west–he grew up in suburban Pittsburgh–and many conservative Democrats there have supported him.
The 2006 Senate race will likely hinge on the Philadelphia suburbs, which are historically Republican but also are home to swelling numbers of soccer moms and wealthy liberals. Philly’s four main suburban counties–Bucks, Montgomery, Delaware, and Chester–have indeed trended Democratic over recent years. But fiscally conservative GOP moderates hold the balance of power. Democrats who poll well among such voters–like the popular Gov. Rendell–tend to be pro-choice and anti-gun.
Casey is neither. And as GOP consultant David Welch points out, moderate Republicans “are used to voting for Senator Santorum, even though they disagree with him on some social and cultural issues.” Santorum carried the Philly suburbs handily in 2000, when the Democrats fielded a pro-life, pro-gun congressman named Ron Klink. Klink’s heresy on abortion and firearms cost him dearly among local and national Democratic donors. Santorum outspent him and won by 6 points.
But Casey, who declined to be interviewed for this article, has at least four things working in his favor that Klink didn’t. (1) Klink was scarcely known outside his native Pittsburgh. Casey’s name recognition goes without saying. (2) Rendell, the former mayor of Philadelphia, is up for reelection in 2006. Democrats trust he will boost turnout for Casey in the Philly suburbs. (3) Since 2000, Santorum has become a hate figure for many social liberals, partly for his remarks on the Texas sodomy case in April 2003. Some see Santorum as the new Jesse Helms, or perhaps the Senate’s version of Tom DeLay. This may help pro-choice liberals reconcile themselves to voting for the pro-life Casey. (4) Democrats are already painting Santorum as the GOP’s Tom Daschle–the scalp they covet most. This will make Pennsylvania’s Senate campaign a truly national race.
Santorum’s opponents concede he is a tenacious campaigner, an attractive speaker, and one of the smartest GOP senators. He’s never lost an election. And while Casey must corral piqued liberals, Santorum enjoys a cohesive base. Still, Santorum “is in for the battle of his life,” says Welch. If the senator wants a “Super Bowl”-type contest, he may get his wish. “From this day forward,” Welch predicts, Santorum-Casey will be “the number one Senate race in the country.”
Duncan Currie is an editorial assistant at The Weekly Standard.
