The Senator Democrats Love To Hate
Pennsylvania Congressman Ron Klink is hoping an infusion of cash from D.C. Democrats will help to give him the kind of name recognition he needs to defeat GOP Sen. Rick Santorum.
Meanwhile, Santorum, whose lead over Klink has shrunk in recent statewide polls, is trying to run out the clock. Santorum has blanketed the state with rosy, well-produced ads, and has refused to confer rival status upon Klink by engaging him.
"Basically, he's doing a dance just to avoid debates," Klink said at a recent campaign stop in Philadelphia. "I will debate him as long as he wants - any time, any place, on any issue."
The GOP freshman, one of the Senate’s most conservative members, is running a campaign designed to tout his moderate credentials.
"We are running a very positive, upbeat campaign," said Santorum campaign spokesman Robert Praynham.
In keeping with this campaign-season strategy, Santorum himself is sounding much more like an Abe Lincoln Republican than a member of the Christian Coalition.
"Have I changed? Have I grown? I hope so. If you stop listening, you stop learning," he told reporters this month.
Pennsylvania is a very large state - especially going East-West - with many congressional districts. Congressmen in the Keystone State are local politicians. Klink, whose district borders Ohio on the western end of the state, is little known in eastern Pennsylania, with its hundreds of thousands of Philadelphia-area Democrats.
| Scandal Remnants Since he was elected to the Senate in 1994, Rick Santorum has been of President Clinton's harshest critics. He loudly called for Clinton's head during the White House sex scandal. But the GOP freshman has softened his tone in his campaign for re-election. “The impeachment trial was an unfortunate matter in our nation’s history,” said Santorum spokesman Robert Praynham. “Sen. Santorum pledged to be fair … he believed that the president did not uphold the oath that he swore to uphold.” While the Democrats are focusing on issues like Medicare and education, they have not forgotten Santorum’s scandal-season criticisms of the president – and his votes to remove Mr. Clinton from office. “Rick Santorum has never been afraid to tout his moral superiority to everybody else,” said David DiMartino of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “But he’s not out there talking about ‘should the president resign,’ now, is he? People didn’t want to hear about it and the Republicans finally got it through their heads.” size> |
Klink hopes to bring down Santorum by painting him as a right winger - a victory that would surely gladden the hearts of Democratic Prty leaders.
“It’s basically all about Rick Santorum. He is probably the most unpopular member of the Senate that’s ever been,” said David DiMartino of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Long before Santorum was hammering President Clinton in connection with the Lewinsky matter, the senator gained notoriety on the Senate floor by accusing the president and the Democrats of "telling bald-faced untruths," with regard to GOP fiscal policy.
Santorum also took to holding up a sign on the Senate floor (for the C-Span cameras), which read "Where is Bill?" He also repeatedly hammered pro-choice Democrats for their abortion views.
At the time, veteran Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd castigated Santorum's tactics, calling him a "bickering juvenile."
The man who hopes to exploit Santorum's conservative positions is hardly a liberal Democrat himself. Klink has Republican-leaning positions on gun control and many social issues (though his abortion views are more moderate than Santorum's). But on the three issues resonating loudly in Pennsylvania this year - Medicare reform, prescription drug benefits and pre-school education - Klink is in lockstep with his party.
Anonymity isn't Klink's only problem. His campaign is so under-financed that he took out a mortgage on his home to help fund his Senate bid. Now, all of a sudden, he has a great deal of help from Washington Democrats, who will be spending $880,000 on so-called "issue ads"
But Klink still doesn't have anywhere near the hard money that Santorum has. Santorum has over $4 million cash on hand, according to federal data, while Klink only has about $500,000.
So, why did the national Democratic Party wait so long to bolster Klink? Is it because of Klink's relatively conservative social views or his long-standing weakness in opinion polls?
"We just don’t have an unlimited bank account … we need to make strategic decisions,” said DiMartino.
Working in Klink's favor is the fact that there are 500,000 more registered Democrats in Pennsylvania than Republicans.
“We are focusing in the East a great deal. But we’re spending time all over this state,” said Elizabeth Stanley, Klink’s campaign spokeswoman.
One of the lightning-rod issues in the Keystone State will be Santorum’s vote against the patients’ bill of rights favored by the Clinton administration. That measure failed to pass the Senate by one vote, and Democratic challengers across the nation are bringing it up at each opportunity.
But Santorum’s campaign is sanguine with respect to this issue.
“There’s two versions of the patients’ bill of rights. Sen. Santorum voted against the Democratic version,” Praynam said this week. “We voted for a piece of legislation that reoves trial lawyers from the examining room. That was a piece of legislation that Sen. Santorum was comfortable voting for. Lawyers should not be in the examining room with room with patients.”
With Santorum running as the incumbent, it’s unclear who will get the upper hand in the battle over the patients' bill of rights.
This much is clear: Klink so far has failed to scare Santorum. Therefore, the senator is running like an incumbent - all the while subtley moving leftward - and watching the weeks dwindle as Election Day approaches.
“Our internal polls show us with a double-digit lead,” said Praynham. “And so the true judges of his popularity will be the 12 million constituents of this commonwealth.”