Penn Statists

In Pennsylvania's Senate race, both sides are running for the middle

David Weigel from the November 2006 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

But as angry as social libertarians and economic libertarians were at the candidates, in the end, they caved. Michelman passed on her run, and no contender emerged to punish Santorum's apostasy.

"Democrats really want to beat Santorum," Madonna explains. "The activists and Club for Growth people who were angry at Santorum have come around. There's kind of a classic squeeze play going on, and both sides are pretty practical about the choices they have."

The immediate effect of this squeeze play has been to transform the Santorum-Casey race from an ideological clash of the titans to a battle of dull and duller. The long-term effect could be, as John Baer speculates, the blueprints from both campaigns getting trotted out by Republicans and Democrats across the country. It's already happening in other states. In August, California's Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, an avowed disciple of Milton Friedman, approved a $1.25 hike in his state's minimum wage. His philosophy was expendable; the chance to head off a popular Democratic idea and save his job was not.

In many of the swing districts they need to take over the House of Representatives, Democrats are being counseled to dial back their support of abortion and gay rights while soft-pedaling their criticism of the Bush administration's domestic war on terror. As Republicans inch away from their libertarian stances, Democrats are inching just as hastily away from theirs.

The victor in Pennsylvania will play a major role in the direction his party takes. If Casey wins, the lesson for Democrats will be to cede the moral ground to Republicans, and abandon any litmus test of support for social liberties. If Santorum holds on, Republicans will have learned that the most dogmatic social conservative can survive if he's willing to spend big and abandon classically liberal economic policies.

"If you're a libertarian and you're in this thing," Madonna says, "you don't have a lot of choice. If you're looking for a ray of hope, I don't know where you find it."