One of the unlikliest politicians to win citywide elections in Philadelphia and then statewide elections in Pennsylvania is a Republican named Arlen Specter. Unlikely? Let me count the ways. He was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants and he grew up in Kansas where he developed a nasally midwestern accent that could crack slate, an accent he hasn’t lost since arriving in Philadelphia for the first time 60 years ago to attend the University of Pennsylvania. In a city of homeboys he was an outsider who didn’t seem to notice, or care, that he was different. Specter was a Democrat in 1965 when he ran on the Republican party ticket and defeated the incumbant Democratic District Attorney James Crumlish. Specter, now a Republican, became so popular so quickly that two years later he challenged the incumbant Democratic mayor, James H.J. Tate, and lost by the closest margin by a Republican candidate for mayor — 11,000 votes — since the Democrats took control of City Hall when Harry Truman was president.

People respected Arlen Specter, but they didn’t necessarily like him. He was prickly and independent from the very beginning. He still stands by his “single bullet theory” that brought him notority as assistant counsel for the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. And when you listen to Specter explain it, it almost makes sense. After getting hammered in a couple of Republican primaries for statewide office (in 1976 by John Heinz for U.S. Senate and by Dick Thornbugh for governor in 1978) most political observers agreed that Specter’s political career was toast. Everyone except Specter. He was elected U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania in 1980 and has served five terms, almost three decades, in that post — more than anyone in Pennsylvania history. Next year Specter will seek election to an amazing sixth term in the U.S. Senate at the age of 80. And the only thing standing in his way isn’t Democrats or cancer or that gawdawful accent. It’s his own party.

Most political observers agree that Specter can’t win a party primary election next spring because he barely survived the last one against a more conservative opponant, and the Pennsylvania Republican party is smaller and more conservative than ever after last year’s mass defections during the presidential race. The only way he can win that primary is if enough Democrats switch their registrations to Republican to vote in next spring’s primary. Count me in. Arlen may talk funny, but he’s a Philadelphia original and he’s got my vote.

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