Like Money, Party-Switching Doesn’t Solve All Your Problems — The Four Reasons Why

As the former campaign manager for a party-switcher — Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.) — I found out quickly that changing the party affiliation after your name brings with it ramifications that are not readily apparent. In 1998 I ran the successful reelection campaign for Sen. Campbell in his only time to run as a Republican after years in both the House and Senate as a Democrat.

It wasn’t a simple proposition to shift support from one party to another. Just like endorsements from one politician to another, it simply doesn’t transfer. Instead, you have to start from scratch. Starting over may still be a better electoral situation for Sen. Arlen Specter (D/R-Pa.), but this will soon become evident to the latest party-switcher.

In the state, your former party hates you and your new party doesn’t trust you. Specter will find that the Democrats who have worked so hard to defeat him for the last five terms in the Senate aren’t used to suddenly supporting him. Sure, the party diehards will salute and get to work, but the real voters don’t just fall in line. The Republicans, and not just those who held their noses and voted for him for decades, will feel jilted and become hostile despite how many relationships Specter believes he has.

The fundraising lists are shot. For fundraising purposes, you are now a challenger. Despite the fact that you may believe they supported the man and not the party, you are wrong. They were supporting the party.

Now Specter has to go out and find new Democrat fundraisers, hosts and donors. There will be low-hanging fruit, but after the easy money it becomes a heavy lift — especially if this turns out not to be a slam-dunk in the polls.

Interest group support fades. These nonpartisan groups find it very hard to cross party lines. And the ones you should “automatically” get sometimes don’t materialize.

Will the women’s groups forget Anita Hill or Specter’s maneuvering on late-term abortion? Will labor forgive his recent tortured flailing on the union-organizing card-check bill? And don’t forget Specter’s deal to support President Bush’s conservative jurists on the Supreme Court.

Some will forgive and forget, but not all. In order to solidify his new Democrat status, he needs solid support among those constituencies, not just something north of 50 percent.

In Colorado we quickly found that labor support of Campbell as a Dem did not translate to that same support for Campbell as a Republican, even though his positions were the same. We did manage to get support from some local unions, but the national ones were party-line supporters of the Democrat candidate.

Political expediency is not a good enough reason for the switch. When asked what he would tell his constituents about his party-switch, Specter said, “I don’t have to say anything to them.” Wrong. And he will revise and extend those remarks soon. Even a politician needs a better reason for a supposed change in philosophy than simply that there is an election in 18 months.

In the Campbell race we spent a good portion of the year explaining the party-switch, even though it had happened with much fanfare over two years earlier. It just hadn’t been explained.

Specter’s situation is complicated by the sheer political convenience of this party-switch.