Anita Hill Fight Echoes in Pennsylvania Senate Race : Republican Arlen Specter’s grilling of sexual harassment witness upset many. Challenger Lynn Yeakel may be able to cash in on that anger.

In the Year of the Woman in politics, Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania may be the Senate’s most unwanted man.

Democrat Lynn Yeakel certainly hopes so. And based on the latest polls in one of the nation’s most closely watched Senate races, she has a solid chance of getting her wish.

Yeakel, a wealthy Philadelphian and political neophyte, emerged as Specter’s reelection foe when she tapped into simmering public anger over his questioning of Anita Faye Hill during last fall’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on confirming then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. A TV advertisement featuring Specter’s relentless grilling of Hill on her sexual harassment charge against Thomas propelled Yeakel from an unknown to the surprise winner of a five-candidate Democratic primary.

Now, she’s attempting to maintain that momentum through November and thwart Specter’s bid for a third term.

An independent statewide poll conducted in mid-July gave Yeakel cause for encouragement: It showed her leading Specter by 6 percentage points, with 20% of the voters undecided.

She’s also expected to hold her own financially in what many observers predict will be the most expensive race in Pennsylvania history; combined spending by the two campaigns may reach $10 million. Along with her own money, the 51-year-old Yeakel is garnering contributions from women’s groups around the country, such as the Hollywood Women’s Political Committee.

However, Specter long has been known as a hard-working campaigner, and no one is counting him out.

Once described derisively by a defeated opponent as a “super-congressman” for his emphasis on serving constituents, Specter, 62, takes pride in knowing what voters want and delivering. Over the years, he has visited every one of the state’s 67 counties again and again.

He already has responded aggressively to Yeakel’s challenge.

To try to defuse the animosity stemming from the Thomas hearings, he has aired a radio ad that details his legislative accomplishments on behalf of women’s causes. He is also taking aim directly at key components of Yeakel’s base, courting support from Jewish voters, blacks and labor.

The effort has enjoyed some early success--the Philadelphia AFL-CIO and Democratic state Sen. Hardy Williams, who is black, recently endorsed Specter.

The Specter forces think that Yeakel may be vulnerable among black voters because her father, former Virginia Rep. Porter Hardy, was part of the core of Southern congressmen who opposed the civil rights bills of the 1960s. Also, Yeakel’s husband, Paul, belongs to a country club that has no black members. Yeakel’s husband is retaining his membership in the club, but she said she will stay away from it because of the flap.

Yeakel called Specter’s tactics in wooing black voters “desperate moves” aimed at stirring up “a whispering campaign and all kinds of fabricated innuendo.”

But Specter’s success in taking the offensive has caused some to wonder if Yeakel’s campaign is up to the task.

One state Democratic leader, quoted in the Philadelphia Inquirer, recently expressed concern that Yeakel and her aides “have almost gotten their heads turned by Lynn’s national popularity, and they have sort of forgotten about what they’re supposed to be doing. They are completely reactive at this point.”

In a real sense, Yeakel already ran against Specter in her primary campaign, when she focused on attacking him rather than her Democratic opponents.

Her last-minute barrage of TV ads-- which in five weeks took her from a 1% rating in the polls to her winning 44% vote total--stressed the need for more female senators (“98 to 2 just won’t do”). Her best-known ad showed Specter interrogating Hill and ended with Yeakel’s voice asking, “Did this make you as mad as it did me?”

It will be an irony of politics if Specter’s treatment of Hill--credited with helping raise enough doubts about her credibility to allow Thomas to win confirmation--costs him his job. Before the contentious Judiciary Committee hearings, his political headaches usually emanated from his party’s right flank.

Specter’s liberal record on many social issues--he supports abortion rights--made him a frequent target of attacks from within the GOP. Those attacks intensified five years ago when he broke ranks to oppose the Supreme Court nomination of Robert H. Bork. His defection, much praised by liberals, helped doom Bork’s appointment and left many conservatives enraged.

The Thomas hearings reversed those reactions. His prosecutorial approach toward Hill especially angered feminists; columnist Ellen Goodman took to calling him “Arrogant Arlen.” And Yeakel, previously known only to a few Pennsylvanians for her work on behalf of a variety of charitable organizations, became the lightning rod for that anger as her primary campaign evolved.

It won’t be so simple for Yeakel in the fall, said Chris Bravacos, a state Republican leader. To take the primary, he contends: “Yeakel had to radically disguise what her agenda is. She won by essentially saying, ‘I’m for Anita Hill.’

“She’s a tremendously liberal candidate in a moderate state. When she says what she’s for, people are not going to like it. They’ll say, ‘She’s not what I’m like.’ It’ll be a real different race.”

On the surface Pennsylvania would not seem to offer fertile ground for Yeakel, who, according to exit polls, won most of her support in the April primary from professional women, highly educated voters and liberals. The state’s large rural population is conservative. Its cities are full of moderate working-class Democrats and surrounded by suburbs of socially liberal Republicans.

Still, its voters can be surprising. Last year, they caught the national eye by electing Harris Wofford to the Senate. He is a 1960s-vintage liberal Democrat who upset Republican Dick Thornburg, who had served as the Bush Administration’s attorney general, in the race to fill the seat of the late John Heinz.

A question looming in the Specter-Yeakel contest is how large a role Hill will continue to play in it.

Specter, who views himself as lawyerly, thoughtful and independent, told the editors of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette recently that the reaction to his questioning of Hill remains “the most significant problem” he faces.

But Neal Oxman, Yeakel’s media consultant, insists that the Democrat has moved beyond Hill as a campaign issue.

“Anita Hill is not the issue,” Oxman said. “The issue is Arlen Specter and whether the people in Pennsylvania think the quality of life has gotten better in the last 12 years (during Republican control of the White House). By every measure it hasn’t.”

Noting that Yeakel does not mention Hill in her standard stump speech, he said that she instead spotlights four issues--jobs, the economy, health care and education.

Her main message, Oxman said, is that “Congress isn’t working. The Senate isn’t working, and Arlen Specter is not making it work. The economy isn’t working. It’s time for a change.”

Senate Showdown

Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter helped save Clarence Thomas’ nomination to the Supreme Court with his tough questioning of Anita Faye Hill last fall. But the issue of his treatment of Hill is casting a long shadow on Specter’s reelection bid.

Democratic nominee Lynn Yeakel

Born: July 9, 1941, Portsmouth, Va.

Education: Graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in 1963, degree in French.

Family: Married, with two children.

Career highlights: Volunteer for numerous civic organizations, including the Junior League of Philadelphia and the Family Planning Council of Southeastern Pennsylvania. In 1976, helped found Women’s Way, a coalition of agencies serving women and children in Philadelphia. Served as executive director of the group from 1980-1990 and currently serves as its president. Also is president of Women’s Way USA, founded in 1991 with affiliates in 15 states.

Republican Sen. Arlen Specter

Born: Feb. 12, 1930 in Wichita, Kan.

Education: Attended the University of Oklahoma 1947-1948, then transferred to University of Pennsylvania and graduated with a bachelor’s of arts in 1951. Graduated from Yale University Law School in 1956.

Family: Married, two children.

Career highlights: In 1964, appointed assistant counsel to Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Elected Philadelphia district attorney in 1965. Served two four-year terms before losing reelection bid in 1973. Won a close race for the U.S. Senate in 1980, was reelected by a much wider margin in 1986.

Pennsylvania Breakdown Democrats: 51% Republicans: 44% Independents and other: 5% Democrats: 2,719,389 Republicans: 2,362,748 Independents and other: 249,919