Kagan nomination poses new problem for Sen. Specter campaign

Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court presents a new problem to Sen. Arlen Specter’s embattled re-election campaign.
 
Specter (D-Pa.) was one of 31 Republicans who voted against Kagan when President Barack Obama nominated her last year to the post of solicitor general.
 
Specter, who has fallen behind Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) in recent polls for Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senate primary, now must defend that vote.
 
Sestak said the vote shows that voters can’t trust Specter to serve as a loyal Democrat after the May 18 primary.
 
"My opponent, Sen. Specter, has already made his views about the president's nominee clear by voting against her confirmation to be solicitor general, even as seven of his fellow Republicans approved her nomination,” Sestak said in a statement.
 
“I expect Senator Specter may backtrack from his earlier vote on Ms. Kagan this week in order to help himself in the upcoming primary election, but the people of Pennsylvania have no way of knowing where he will stand after May 18,” he added.
 
Specter said in March of last year that he opposed Kagan because she was not forthcoming enough in discussing her legal views.

“It is difficult to cast a negative vote on someone with the qualifications and background of Dean Kagan, but we have a major problem of institutional standing to find out from a nominee what the nominee thinks on important questions,” Specter said, referring to her title as dean of Harvard Law School.

“I have gone to some length to try to find out more about Dean Kagan. In the absence of being able to do so and to have a judgment on her qualifications, I am constrained to vote no,” he said.

Seven Republicans voted for Kagan, including Sens. Jon Kyl (Ariz.), Tom Coburn (Okla.) and Orrin Hatch (Utah).
Specter was also a Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which declined to take up Kagan's nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in the late nineties. Former President Bill Clinton nominated her to the bench in 1999.  

Recent polls show Sestak has pulled ahead of Specter in the primary race.
 
A new Muhlenberg College poll gives Sestak a four-point lead, 46 percent to 42 percent. A new Rasmussen poll shows Sestak ahead of Specter, 47 percent to 42 percent.
 
Sestak has gained political traction by raising Specter’s ties to prominent Republicans such as former President George W. Bush and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
 
Sestak launched an ad earlier this month with footage of Bush praising Specter as “a firm ally” he could “count on.”