ELEPHANT CORNER: Debate-Watching, Republican Style

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER passed away last weekend, and his funeral was on Tuesday at Har Zion Temple in Penn Valley. Specter served as District Attorney of Philadelphia and went on to represent the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the US Senate for 30 years. For most of that time he was a Republican. He changed parties in 2010, fearing his vote for the Obama Administration’s stimulus package would cause him to lose the Republican primary to PAT TOOMEY. He had barely beaten Toomey in the 2004 primary. He entered the Democratic primary with the support of the Democratic Party but lost to former CONGRESSMAN JOE SESTAK.

Despite his leaving the party, a number of Republicans attended his funeral, including Pennsylvania delegate to the Republican National Committee BOB ASHER, COUNCILMAN DENNY O’BRIEN, CITY COMMISSIONER AL SCHMIDT and State Rep candidate AL TAUBENBERGER. CONGRESSMAN PAT MEEHAN served as a pallbearer. Meehan had worked on Specter campaigns and as a Senate staffer. Republican WARD LEADER MATT WOLFE, who was a staffer on two of Specter’s campaigns, also paid his respects. Specter was eulogized by former GOV. ED RENDELL, who was an Assistant DA when Specter was DA. VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN, a long-time and close friend, bid a heartfelt farewell to Specter.

A very different Biden came to the Vice Presidential debate with CONGRESSMAN PAUL RYAN last Thursday. We expected him to be combative, but his unending sneering smile and condescending laughs, frequently at inappropriate times, were off-putting. This elephant has always liked Biden despite his left-leaning views and frequent bouts with foot-in-mouth disease. The Biden that came to the debate was not the Biden I have watching for 30 years. The polls following the debate were mixed. The most-interesting one was the CNN poll that had Ryan winning. CNN’s reporting of the debate used a split screen where both candidates were visible even when they were not speaking. This did not help Biden with those who found him boorish. The Philadelphia Young Republicans sponsored a party to watch this debate at the United Republican Club with the help of WARD LEADER KEVIN PASQUAY, who is a member of URC. YR CHAIRMAN STEVE BOC reported attendance at the party exceeded 150. The crowd included members from both sides of the intraparty dispute.

On Tuesday night, a debate-watching party was held at Paddy Whacks for the Presidential candidates’ town hall at Hofstra University. The 60-plus crowd clearly thought MITT ROMNEY won. Some of the polls show PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA winning. Obama clearly did better than he did in the first debate, and this time he had some help from the moderator CANDY CROWLEY. At one point she decided to play fact-checker. She was right that the day after the murder of a US Ambassador and three other Americans in Libya, that the President referred to the act as “terrorism.” But she declined to point out that for 14 days, Obama and his Administration, including his Ambassador to the United Nations SUSAN RICE, claimed the cause of the violent terroristic acts were a spontaneous response to US made derogatory video of the Prophet Muhammad. The administration now acknowledges the murders in Libya were coordinated by an Al Qa’ida-related group. JIM LEHRER, who moderated the first presidential debate, was criticized for giving Romney too much leeway. Oddly, it was noted in the Washington Post this week that Lehrer allowed Obama 4½ more minutes than he did to Romney.

Monday night, Supreme Court JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA was the guest of the Federalist Society at the Union League. The Federalist Society is a conservative group comprised primarily but not exclusively of attorneys. It was founded on the principles that state exists to preserve freedom and that the separation of governmental powers is central to our constitution. Given the Federalist Society’s conservative bent, most members are Republicans. LINDA KERNS, who is also the chairwoman of the Southeastern Pennsylvania chapter of the National Republican Lawyers Association, was there, as well as local Republican lawyers Matt Wolfe and WALLY ZIMOLONG. Scalia is considered by many to be a strict “constitutional originalist”. In layman’s term, that means that he does not believe the Supreme Court, or any court for that matter, should be legislating from the bench.

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