The source of this article is Phillynews.com: http://tinyurl.com/3ll3q

Posted on Thu, Oct. 28, 2004

Specter ads stress stem-cell stance
The senator seeks to separate himself from Bush but may alienate some voters.
By Carrie Budoff
Inquirer Staff Writer

In the final days of the U.S. Senate race, Arlen Specter's TV campaign has veered into lonely territory for a Republican candidate: supporting stem-cell research.

With polls showing strong support for such studies, Specter is trying to reach moderate voters by highlighting his six-year role as a leading Senate advocate on the issue. Making stem-cell research 50 percent of his TV message, Specter appears to be one of only two GOP Senate candidates nationwide raising the topic in commercials.

The issue gives Specter a subtle opening to separate himself from President Bush and blunt the central accusation from his Democratic opponent, U.S. Rep. Joseph M. Hoeffel, that he is too supportive of the administration. But he also risks alienating some conservative voters who have ethical concerns about the science, political analysts say.

"This is Specter being Specter," said Jennifer Duffy, a Senate analyst with the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan Washington newsletter. "He is not easily dragged by the party platform."

One ad running statewide features actor Michael J. Fox, lauding Specter for his role in helping double biomedical research funding through the National Institutes of Health. Fox has Parkinson's disease and has been campaigning for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. A second ad spotlights a sick child helped by stem cells derived from umbilical-cord blood. It is being broadcast only in the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh regions.

Neither ad mentions the most controversial form of stem-cell research - embryonic - even though Specter has publicly urged Bush for years to expand his 2001 executive order that limited the research to lines of cells already in existence, citing ethical concerns about destroying new embryos. Yet federal health officials say only 19 of those lines, about a fourth of what was originally estimated, are available to researchers, and even those are contaminated.

When asked why he is pushing the theme, Specter said, "Believe it or not, every now and then, decisions are made on principle, not on counting votes."

Specter became a proponent of the new research in late 1998, after reading about its potential benefits. He has since held two dozen hearings as chairman of an appropriations subcommittee on health, proposed bills, and helped bring together dozens of senators on letters asking Bush to relax the federal restrictions.

Hoeffel also supports lifting the restrictions on federal funding. But his campaign rapped Specter for not specifically saying in the ads that he supports embryonic stem-cell research.

"The only difference is Joe Hoeffel will tell you he is for it, period, while Arlen Specter - even on the issue of stem-cell research - equivocates and panders," said Kristin Carvell, Hoeffel's spokeswoman. "It is purposely playing on voters' inability to distinguish while at the same time appealing to people who do notice."

James Clymer, the state's only antiabortion Senate candidate, an opponent of embryonic stem-cell research, said he equates the science with abortion.

The emergence of this issue in the Senate race also rests on several other factors.

It has received heightened attention with the deaths this year of former President Ronald Reagan from Alzheimer's disease and actor Christopher Reeve, who believed that the science could lead to a way to reverse his paralysis. Kerry has embraced embryonic stem-cell research to draw contrasts with Bush. And many nationwide polls have shown that a majority of Democrat and Republican voters favor it.

"When the election is behind us, I think those political pressures will produce some more flexibility on government funding for embryonic stem-cell research," Specter said.

Other than Specter, GOP Senate candidate George Nethercutt of Washington ran an ad saying he favors stem-cell research, and has urged Bush to ease his limits on federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research, but says he doesn't support it without restrictions.

"A bunch of Republicans would say they only go as far as the Bush proposal," Duffy said, "but they are not putting it on TV."


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Contact staff writer Carrie Budoff at 610-313-8211 or [log in to unmask]

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