Specter and the left begin to make nice

Newly Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter has President Obama, he has Gov. Ed Rendell (D-Pa.) and he has the Democratic leadership.

But will he have Pennsylvania’s Democratic voters? Or, more specifically, will he have enough of them?

{mosads}With a new party label and a new lease on his political life, the three-decade incumbent now begins the long process of ingratiating himself with his former opponents and finding the right balance between his politics and his new party.

Specter brings with him a voting record that, while centrist, is more right than left. Democrats loved him after he voted for Obama’s stimulus package, giving Specter a 71 percent approval rating in a March Quinnipiac poll. But even that poll suggested that the Democratic approval is soft, giving a generic Democrat a 33-31 lead over a Republican Specter in the general election.

Specter has promised he won’t be an automatic vote for Democrats, and feathers are sure to be ruffled at some point. Specter already cast his first major vote against his new party Wednesday when he voted against President Obama’s budget. He was joined by just three other Democrats.

It appears unlikely that a reputable Democrat would go against so much of the party establishment, and Specter looks to be a near-lock for the Democratic nomination. At the same time, there are still 13 months until the primary, and talk has begun to percolate about Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) or a wealthy liberal taking a shot at Specter.

In an interview with The Hill, Sestak noted that his first run for Congress came against the wishes of Democratic leaders — a suggestion that he wouldn’t back down for that reason.

The de facto leader of Specter’s skeptics said the senator will have “a few weeks” to prove he’s the right man for the job.

“While the political establishment in Washington may support him, the determination has to be made by the fellow sitting in a diner in Upper Darby,” Sestak said. “Is this the gentleman who has the right leadership to shape the Democratic Party when [he has] had a pretty tough dialogue with his base and didn’t shape that party?”

{mospagebreak}{mosads}There is a reason Specter could no longer survive in the Republican Party — he irritated so much of his base that, when that base started to erode, he was left with too small a piece.

There is little evidence that Specter has grown more liberal over the years; in fact, some measures suggest he has moved slightly to the right.

Democratic consultant Tony Bawidamann, who has worked with Republican-to-Democrat party-switchers running at the state level, said things change after the switch, and Specter will have to run two campaigns — one for his base and one for the general electorate.

“People that are hard-line Democrats in Allegheny, outside of Pittsburgh, are waking up and saying, ‘Do we know him?’ ” Bawidamann said. “I think that’s a long journey.”

Democratic members of Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation say Specter is a shoo-in, noting the establishment support.

But some of them won’t go so far as to endorse him. Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D-Pa.) balked at the opportunity Tuesday, and on Wednedsay, Reps. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) and Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.) declined to back Specter.

“I think that he’s a good candidate; he’s in good shape,” Kanjorski said, adding: “I certainly think that [Sestak’s] a formidable potential candidate, also.”

In a swing state that has trended very blue in recent years, it’s hardly a stretch to think that Democrats could elect a party-line senator in the mold of Casey, the former state treasurer who defeated an incumbent by 18 points in 2006.

But the reaction to Specter has been largely warm from important Democratic groups, including labor unions, which would be the first to jump on Specter for his highly publicized opposition to the union-organizing Employee Free Choice Act, or card-check.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) issued a glowing statement Tuesday that didn’t even mention its difference with Specter on the biggest hot-button union issue of the day.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has suggested that Specter might be open to a future version of the bill, and some union leaders have hinted that they feel Specter can be converted, even as he reiterated his opposition Tuesday.

Terry Madonna, a pollster at Franklin & Marshall College, acknowledged Specter’s GOP-leaning voting record, but also noted that many issues that could inflame Democratic voters are unlikely to rise to the top of the agenda in the near future.

Though Specter could depart from his Democratic colleagues on issues like clean coal and card-check, Madonna said he doubts it would be enough to put him in serious trouble.

“I think he will be largely accepted by Democrats, many of whom have voted for him in the past and are moderate in their predilections,” Madonna said. “Pennsylvania voters are very pragmatic.”

Molly K. Hooper contributed to this article.