RED TIDE RISING

...Outside the door the line is long at the table where Santorum patiently signs copies of his recent book, It Takes a Family...

...Representative Melissa Hart "have tapped into a constant demographic" in western Pennsylvania...

...When it comes to the abortion issue there is "more support on our side" within the state as a whole...

...We go on...

...Gerow, with tax activist Dr...

...In a state where Pinchot's legacyproduced a string of moderate Republican senators and governors with names like Hugh Scott, John Heinz, Arlen Specter, William Scranton, Richard Thornburgh, and Tom Ridge, this is decidedly no small thing...

...He says the actuality of GOP congressional nile--which would include Santorum-has meant a"squandered opportunity" to govern with conservative principles...

...In addition to two other fundraisers, Specter says he "had a party at my condo and raised him a couple hundred thousand dollars, I have written letters for him, I have asked friends of mine to hold fundraisers, which they have, that I have spoken at...

...Hart, a rising star herself, represents southwest Pennsylvania's 4th District and is frequently mentioned as a prospective candidate for the Senate or governorship...

...Gerow agrees...

...The brainchild of Pennsylvania Reagan supporters, the Conference was founded at the end of Reagan's presidencyin 1989, modeled after the national Conservative Political Action Conference...

...These events and the approach of the election have overshadowed conservative discomfort over Santorum's NAFTA or fiscal stances...

...The notion that Casey, gunning for the Reagan Democrats that elected his father, could succeed and torpedo any conservative gains is dismissed completely by Toomey...

...Has the conservative movement now attained enough gravitational pull to tug the state's Democratic Party to the right...

...As Gifford Pinchot penned manifestos for Progressives called The Fight for Conservation and Breaking New Ground, Santorum's book serves the same purpose for conservatives...

...Ideals guide us, not personalities...

...So much for conservative activism in Hugh Scott's moderate Pennsylvania Republican Party, where Scott billed himself as "the most powerful Senator Pennsylvania ever had...

...While Santorum claims he voted against NAFTA because its risks outweighed the benefits to Pennsylvania's economy, he surelywas well aware of the state's long protectionist history as he cast this vote...

...One additional sign of conservative success is the nomination of the pro-life Casey as Santorum's opponent instead of a pro-choice Democrat...

...Indeed, no one is giving Swann high marks as a candidate beyond his winning personality...

...I am spending a lot of time on Senator Santorum...

...How delicious that the son of Goldwater's nemesis and the grandson of Pinehot's ally is emerging as a major conservative voice in the state...

...These are the men and women attending the conservative Pennsylvania Leadership Conference (PLC), an annual weekend gathering of hundreds of conservative activists from throughout the state...

...Arlen Specter, in a 2004 primary challenge over conservative Lehigh Valley Congressman Pat Toomey triggered cries of betrayal...

...Ask Pennsylvania's two-term junior Republican U.S...

...Meanwhile, there is another way that Specter's repeated insistence that Santorum's re-election is "my number one priority" does resonate with conservatives: campaign money...

...Gerow disagrees, believing it better to be a governing majority than a minority...

...Civil war," says Lowman Henry, now president of the Lincoln Institute for Public Opinion Research...

...When the Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) GOP chairman announced for Goldwater in 1963, he was quickly stripped of his patronage by the Scranton political operation, defeated both for a convention delegate's seat and reelection to his chairmanship...

...Rick Santorum strides into the packed ballroom of a suburban Harrisburg hotel...

...The year 1964 provided a stunning rebuke to the Establishment...

...Yet for all of Santorum's cachet as a conservative hero, particularly to the social conservative wing of the movement, his endorsement of his senior colleague, moderate icon Sen...

...Scott had been appalled at Goldwater's convention triumph over Scranton...

...Forty years after Scott pondered the Reagan "riddle" the Pennsylvania conservative movement has emerged from the wilderness, poised to enter its politOCTOBER 2006 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 35 RED TIDE RISING ical maturity...

...Santorum campaign press secretaryVirginia Davis claims his remarks have been taken out of context...

...Adhering to positions entirely different from the personal "stand-pat" economic conservatism of the old bosses, its adherents surfaced within the state from time to time but were either effectively ignored, or, if they proved too irksome, were swiftly deposed of whatever crumb of party power they possessed...

...Santorum, Toomey, Swann, and former Lieutenant Governor William Scranton III, all invitees, either show up in person at these events or have allies working the room...

...Writing books that served as progressive manifestos, Pinchot created the template progressive true-believers would use to successfully transform the state GOP into what is now 34 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 2006 a well-worn mold of middle and upper-class moderate activism...

...A recent comparison Santorum made of himself to former New York GOP Sen...

...Yet he transformed the state's GOP into the very essence of what would become known as liberal or "moderate" Republicanism...

...Conservatives were called upon two years ago to unite behind Arlen Specter in the general election, and largely did so...

...by Jeffrey Lord IFFORD PINCHOT'S EYES, said Philadelphia novelist ~n OWen Wister (The, Virginian), "look as if they gaze upon a Cause...

...I have gone to dinners on his behalf...

...The answer from the first president of the PLC is short and to the point...

...Santorum, she said, was only saying that he was "committed to helping his constituents navigate through government 36 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 2006 JEFFREY LORD bureaucracy" in obtaining Social Security, veterans, and other benefits...

...I f the conservative view of Specter was set years ago, the view of GOP gubernatorial nominee Lynn Swann has more the air of a disappointed romance...

...Once Toomey gave absolution," says one prominent conservative leader, conservatives began returning to the fold, sending Santorum's numbers rising...

...Michelman swallowed her anger in an Inquirer op-ed to support Casey...

...Toomeytouched on the issue in a recent interview when he said that conservatives were "disappointed with the way Republicans have governed" since taking control of Congress in 1994...

...He is greeted like a rock star...

...Can a conservative be elected governor of a blue state...

...This is in fact already happening this year with the state legislature, where conservatives have made themselves felt with all the subtlety of someone wielding a baseball bat...

...Fred Anton, chairman of the Pennsylvania Manufacturer's Association, is a key financial backer along with Richard Mellon Scaife, among others...

...After attracting considerable media attention with his OCTOBER 2006 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 37 RED TIDE RISING entrance into the race, then attracting so much support he forced his once favored rival, Scranton, to withdraw, Swann quickly came to be perceived as not ready for prime time...

...The conservative campaign in Pennsylvania is one Pinchot himself might admire for its sheer audacity...

...Crisscrossing Pennsylvania he made it clear that the last thing he wanted was to be identified as a conservative...

...There is a quiet sense Can a conservative be elected governor of a blue state...

...His support of the Bush prescription drug program, his pride in getting "earmarks" for Pennsylvania projects (and voting against attempts to kill Alaska's infamous Bridge to Nowhere), plus his opposition to NAFTA--to name just three issues--have caused conservatives to carp...

...Santorum, citing Reagan as Pinchot once quoted Teddy Roosevelt, is leading a Pennsylvania effort to "pull people into the [Republican] camp--low and middle income" voters who once regularly voted Democratic...

...Less understood is that Santorum, like Pinchot, has effectively emerged as a transformational figure in Pennsylvania politics...

...The scion of a wealthy Eastern Establishment family, Pinchot is remembered in history as the controversial Chief Forester of the United States in the administration of his friend, fellow servationist and progressive Republican political ally President Theodore Roosevelt...

...The Casey selection-and his backing of Bush Supreme Court nominees Roberts and Alito--so angered national abortion rights activist Kate Michelman, a Gettysburg resident, that she briefly entertained liberal pleas to run as an independent against both Casey and Santorum...

...Other than abortion, Casey is in fact very much the "big liberal" tax-and-spend Democrat who rails against "tax cuts for the rich...

...Like Pinchot, Bill Scranton was the son of a wealthy Eastern Establishment Pennsylvania GOP family...

...If the conservative view of Specter was set years ago, the view of GOP gubernatorial nominee Lynn Swann has more the air of a disappointed romance...

...The PLC has become a major stop on the calendar of Pennsylvania Republicans...

...He insists it is "not a net negative...

...Toomeybelieves there is something "about an executive position" that makes voters in the Northeast "even more comfortable" with a conservative than they might be with a federal legislator...

...He blew it" said one observer, running through a litany of Swann missteps ranging from an early, nationally televised unfamiliarity with abortion law to a prolonged reliance on personality over substance once nominated...

...OCTOBER 2006 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 39...

...Pinchot brashly took aim at Penrose's Senate seat in 1914 as a third party candidate...

...Thus Santorum's importance as more than just another U.S...

...It is a rise that all agree will continue, regardless of whether Santorum wins or loses a race where his poll numbers are barely into the 40s, never a good sign for an incumbent...

...Ex-Reagan aide Gerow says flatly: "Nothing happens...

...Senator Boies Penrose...

...As Jubelirer, Brightbill, Perzel, Specter, and even Santorum have discovered, there is now a "conservative infrastructure" in the state that has brought the conservative movement to the table as a permanent player...

...I F CHANGE FROM THE STATE'S boss-driven politics t o Republican moderation beckoned in 1914, a change to conservatism was already glimmering on the political horizon as early as 1966...

...James Brouss38 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 2006 JEFFREY LORD ard, hosts ahot-ticket monthly"strategery" gathering of conservative leaders in the offices of his Harrisburgpublic relations firm, Quantum Communications...

...His mother, a Pinchot ally, was a legendary force in both state and national politics...

...Fired in 1910 for his outspoken Progressive politics by TR's Republican successor, William Howard Taft, Pinchot trained his sights on the Pennsylvania Republican Party machine of his home state...

...Specter, using his position as a subcommittee chairman on the Appropriations Committee, believes he is lending a hand to Santorum by"putting him first in earmarks," a type of help that only fuels conservative criticism that Santorum has abandoned his base to join the moderates...

...It was noticed...

...With a growing network of conservative think tanks, radio talk shows, websites, activists, candidates, and financial resources supporting the Cause, the state's conservatives, with Santorum in the lead, have gone from the 90-pound weakling of Pennsylvania politics to a movement that, if not yet of Arnoldesque proportions, clearlyhas developed serious political muscle...

...Absolutely," responds Toomey, who immediately cites conservative governors in Massachusetts and Rhode Island...

...In spite of a recent battle with cancer Specter claims to be in excellent health and looks it...

...A simmering challenge from conservative legislators now threatens a third GOP moderate state legislative honcho, House Speaker John Perzel...

...Whatever his fate in November, it is clear that Santorum, like the relentless Gifford Pinchot before him, has been transforming his state party, in his case to the cheers of Reaganites...

...Yet Toomey, now head of the thriving Club for Growth, has campaigned vigorously for Santorum across the state...

...But the question of whether pro-choice activists in the once solidly GOP Philadelphia suburbs will turn out to choose a Democrat pro-lifer over a Republican remains open...

...Scott, writing about California's conservative governor in his 1968 book Come to the Party: An Incisive Argument for Moderate Republicanism, was uncharacteristically puzzled...

...Popular radio talk show hosts Michael Smerconish (WPHT Philadelphia), Bob Durgin (WHP in the state capital of Harrisburg), and Fred Honsberger (KDKA Pittsburgh) carry their own independent versions of the conservative flag in media markets collectively covering the entire state...

...I f Santorum loses, it will not be because angry conservatives did not come home...

...Angry conservatives-and Specter himself-concluded the difference was Santorum...

...It is whether Rick Santorum's two Senate terms were the movement's high water mark-or the beginning of a conservative flood...

...Santorum responds by saying that the Medicare prescription drug bill was designed to make Medicare into "a 21st century program," leaving unanswered the realization that its passage effectively created a brand new--and massive-federal entitlement, hardly a conservative small government prescription at work...

...What amazed this analyst was that Santorum was behind the normal Republican vote in the conservative central part of the state by almost 30 points, leading to speculation that Santorum, in an ultimate irony, would be dealt a defeat by his own followers-if not for his votes on things like prescription drugs then certainly for opposing Toomey...

...If Swann does indeed lose, there is a particular irony to the man many conservatives are looking to in the next governor's race...

...Some Pennsylvania Democrats, he says, are now coming to believe the only way to beat strong conservative nominees is with a candidate who is "pro-gun, pro-life, and pro-labor...

...In 2010 Specter will be 80...

...There are conservative eyebrows aplenty raised at the thought that t h e y - meaning Toomey--might have to battle Arlen Specter one last time...

...Toomey came within a dramatic percentage point of upsetting Specter...

...While the national Republican Party battle between moderates and conservatives began tilting to conservatives with the 1964 nomination of Arizona's Barry Goldwater over Pennsylvania's GovernorWilliam Scranton, aprocess acceleratedwith the Reagan presidency, in the Northeastern GOP conservatives have remained outsiders...

...Henry's Lincoln Institute tests conservative ideas as it takes the state's political and economic pulse...

...Or is he, and the conservative movement that supports him, merely a passing phenomenon, unable to win statewide elections-and therefore govern-with any regularity...

...Alfonse D~nato, who called himself"Senator Pothole" for his ability to bring the federal bacon home for New York, ignited another conservative brushfire...

...The Philadelphia Inquirer once said something years ago to the effect that ifPennsylvaniaconservatives wanted to pick a fight with the state Republican Party's liberal establishment they needed to spend some serious time in the gym," muses former Reagan aide and Conference co-founder Charlie Gerow...

...The Democrats, says Santorum of these voters, "left them out there.., in noman's land" where they were "not comfortable...

...Absolutely," responds Toomey, who immediately cites conservative governors in Massachusetts and Rhode Island...

...If Santorum loses and exit polling/post-election analysis shows it is the fault of 'moderate' Republicans, look for conservative Republicans to totally abandon the party on anyone not perceived to be a conservative...

...I WAS A FOLLOWER OF [THEODORE] ROOSEVELT while he was living," said Gifford Pinchot after taking his oath of office as governor of Pennsylvania...

...There is considerable, if divided, speculation on whether the Republican state house majority is doomed already...

...You cannot stop a man with a great purpose so long as he is alive," he said...

...senator...

...ing the capitol for the last time, his progressive agenda now firmly rooted and rising in the Pennsylvania political mainstream, he took a leisurely and quite prominent stroll through the adjoining Capitol Park...

...It has solid grounding and real clout...

...For sure," Santorum concedes, noting that his own stance on abortion impacts negatively in the four suburban counties...

...You cannot stop a party with great purpose at all" Very much alive with a great purpose for a verylong time (he died in 1946 at 81), Pinchot went on to win two terms as a Republican governor, losing two more Senate runs and a third gubernatorial bid...

...Raised as the son of an Italian immigrant in a culture where familywas everything~ he says these former Democrats %vant a vote" on "how they raise a family...

...The hierarchy very much recruited moderates" Santorum said recently as he sped across the Allegheny Mountains of his native Western Pennsylvania in his campaign's RV, emblazoned "Keep Up the Fight" Santorum, himself a controversial symbol of the 21st-century conservative Cause, is this fall at the center of what many believe is the hottest Senate race in the country...

...And every now and then I wake up at three n,M...

...While Toomey's point about a "squandered opportunity" stands, the pollster says, the revelation of the airliner plot and Lamont's rise "have had an impact," bringing the war on terror "back on the radar screen...

...Now a writer, he lives in Pennsylvania...

...The idea that a Santorum defeat would mean it is impossible to elect a conservative in a statewide election is dismissed out of hand by all...

...Matthew Brouillette's Commonwealth Foundation is one of several think tanks focusing on applying free-market principles to state issues...

...Clearly, the movement's time in the political gym has paid off...

...His ideas on both social and economic policy are precisely the kind that are of interest here...

...A CCORDING TO ONE informed Republican s o u r c e , an internal state GOP spring poll on Santorum's race showed him still competitive in the suburbs with his Democratic opponent, State Treasurer Robert Casey, Jr...

...His blend of progressive politics mixed with what the Nation magazine called "echoes of Onward Christian Soldiers" (a Christian moralist, he was a staunch supporter of Prohibition) made him always a figure of controversy...

...It was noticed by one of the canniest Pennsylvania moderate Republican leaders of the day...

...The unanswered riddle of the [1966] election grows out of Ronald Reagan's whopping 965,000 vote win in California," wrote Pennsylvania's Republican U.S...

...As Democrats moved left they ignored what Santorum calls a significant Pennsylvania "cultural demographic" of voters disaffected on issues ranging from family values such as abortion and gay marriage to economic policies like NAFTA (the NorthAmerican Free Trade Agreement...

...For Specter, there is doubtless a distinct difference between assisting Santorum and helping a movement that almost ended his Senate career...

...Senator Rick Santorum about this and he freely admits he has "broken the mold" of the Pennsylvania Republican Party that was Pinchot's creation...

...Until the Pennsylvania conservative movement that has alarmed some and startled others moves beyond just a seat at the Pennsylvania political table to own the table itself, as Pinchot's political heirs from Scott to Specter have done so routinely, the real question is not whether a red tide is rising in a blue state...

...It grew quickly into an influential gathering of Pennsylvania's public policy conservatives, the movement's financial backers, and media stars...

...The Philadelphia Inquirer once said something years ago to the effect that if Pennsylvania conservatives wanted to pick a fight with the state Republican Party's liberal establishment they needed to spend some serious time in the gym...

...Also cited by a conservative pollster was news of the foiled terrorist plot to blow up ten American airliners and the Connecticut Democratic primary win of anti-war activist Ned Lamont...

...Scott himself, the national party chairman during Dewey's 1948 upset by Truman, almost lost his Senate seat in the Johnson landslide...

...It was also said of Reagan, who went on to carry the state twice in his presidential bids...

...Dominated since the Civil War by a succession of oldfashioned bosses, the party at the time was ledby U.S...

...He is rarely recalled as the tenacious Pennsylvania politician who spent decades successfullyleading his "Cause"the early 20th-century Progressive movement-into the heart of Pennsylvania politics and government...

...On the day his successor took office and Pinchot was leavThe question of whether pro-choice activists in the once solidly GOP Philadelphia suburbs will turn out to choose a Democrat pro-lifer over a Republican remains open...

...One legislative observer notes there are conservative Young Turks in the House who simply aren't afraid of the powerful Speaker, whose defiant support of the pay-raise grab they have not forgotten...

...Rising to their feet at the entrance of the young conservative who now sits in Hugh ScoWs Senate seat, participants reach out to clap the third-ranking member of the Senate's GOP majority leadership on the back...

...But has he begun to transform the state itself...

...A challenge to Perzel remains a "serious prospect " - t h a t is, if the Republicans retain control of the lower house...

...Lynn Swann, the ex-Pittsburgh Steeler and first black to win either party's gubernatorial nomination, has already delivered an address that was televised live across the state...

...O NE REASON FOR THIS SUCCESS, Santorum says, is that conservatives like himself and Republican U.S...

...Movement conservatism as an ideology was the landscape of extremists and moonbats, in ScoWs view...

...The Republican Party must go progressive or stay bust," Pinchot would later proclaim, ignoring Taft's charge that he was guilty of "fanaticism" and of others that he was a"zealoC and "a self-appointed Messiah" He lost, raisingpolitical eyebrows bycoming in second...

...Jeffrey Lord, the author of The Borking Rebellion, served as a political director in the Reagan White House...

...Unfazed, Pinchot continued toward his goal of converting Pennsylvania to the Cause...

...The movement which resulted in my election is the direct descendant of the Roosevelt Progressive movement in 1912...

...If he does lose...

...Swann "is not viewed as a conservative," said one leader...

...This is a movement about following ideas, principles...

...Senator Hugh Scott, soon to succeed to the job of Senate Minority Leader...

...Several have either their own radio or TV shows or guest on those of others, Henry alone having a network of 84 outlets across the state for his radio program...

...In perhaps atellingtale of the perception of his conservatism versus his actual voting record, his current Democratic opponent mistakenly attacked him in front of a labor audience for supporting NAFTA, He was also skewered for sticking to his conservative guns and voting for CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement...

...Combined with social conservative groups such as the Pennsylvania Family Institute the rise of the movement is indisputable...

...This does not surprise Toomey, who says he "always thought" his conservative supporters "would get over" Santorum's endorsement of Specter by election day...

...Here, at least, Santorum did indeed use his seat on the Senate Finance Committee to return to conservative free trade principles, pointing out that by supporting CAFTA he won market access in six countries for two major Pennsylvania industries, agriculture and sugar manufacturing...

...The Pennsylvania Republican Party is significantly more conservative," says former Lieutenant Governor Scranton, adding that whether this will be true of the state "remains to be seen...

...Said of Santorum the first time he ran, it was said again when he won a second Senate term...

...The Young Conservatives of Pennsylvania alone, under the guidance of activist Chris Lilik, raised almost $100,000 for radio ads...

...Others wondered aloud whether Santorum was governing with conservative principles at all...

...As employees cheered from the Capitol windows, he gallantly swept offhis floppy hat and bowed gracefully to them," Paul Beers wrote in Pennsylvania Politics: Today and Yesterday (1980...

...A LTHOUGH RICK SANTORUM IS THE FOCUS of attention this election year, the story behind the story in Pennsylvania is the rise of what Pat Toomey calls the "conservative infrastructure" within the state...

...Arlen has never been invited and has never attended," said a PLC official tersely...

...Assailed like Pinchot as a zealous fanatic with a moralistic Christian bent, like Pinchot he serves as both idea man and spokesman for an increasingly visible and powerful effort to remake both the state's Republican Party and the state's politics, this time into an East Coast bastion of the modern conservative movement...

...Suddenly, he turned and walked back towards the capitol...

...So too does it have implications for the national party, where Pennsylvania delegations to Republican National Conventions would support moderates Dewey, Eisenhower, Scranton, Rockefeller, and Ford over conservative candidates...

...that neither Swann nor conservatism is headed to the governor's mansion in 2006...

...and think of something else to do to help him...

...Longtime Republican State Senate President Robert C. Jubelirer of Altoona and Republican State Senate Majority Leader "Chip" Brightbill of Lebanon, both moderates, were defeated in the May primary by conservative opponents of a legislative pay raise who trained an unprecedented political fusillade in their direction...

...Thanks to a combination of talk radio attacks, doorknocking activists, Lilik's potent website, and think tank-generated policy prescriptions, conservatives stunned the moderate Establishment...

...Henry predicts many conservatives are ready to toss "the GOP majority overboard rather than re-elect a RINO [Republican in Name Only] legislature and start over...

...Yet the Specter presence at PLC gatherings or monthly conservative strategy sessions is invisible...

...M ARCH, 2006...

...If Pinchot and his followers were taking their cue from the progressive Theodore Roosevelt of 1912, Rick Santorum and the conservative movement rising in Pennsylvania today are unabashedly the political descendants of the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s...

...I am his follower no less today, as his great soul still leads this people on the road to do better things...

...Sure," Santorum responds...