On Dana's excellent post at Common Sense Political Thought on Arlen Specter's defection to the Democratic Party, I wrote this:
I think Arlen Specter could give Barack Obama flip-flop lessons. He was a Democrat before he decided to run as a Republican in 1965. He won election for District Attorney in Philadelphia (I think) as a Republican, back when being a Republican actually meant not quite as much government as Democrats want. In other words, I think Specter is a Republican in the Richard Nixon sense of the term.
Specter has a lifetime rating of 44.47 from the American Conservative Union, and has a 60% rating from the ACLU, so, I think that's enough evidence that Specter isn't a conservative, and hasn't ever really been. He was fortunate to ride Ronald Reagan's coattails into the Senate, but has never been a consistent vote for anything, really. He's pro-choice, he voted for the war, for school vouchers, voted for the Porkapalooza, voted against oil and gas exploration incentives, and on and on.
I don't know if Specter can win as a Democrat in Pennsylvania. He's not far enough to the Left for many Democrats. His votes for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will hurt him there, and many might be quite skeptical of him. And I wouldn't be surprised to see a far left candidate run against him. Toomey might have a good chance in the general election under current circumstances.
Hot Air also has excellent coverage here, with the bottom line for Specter's decision being--what else?--self preservation.
He’d have happily run for re-election as a Republican if not for Toomey getting into the race and quickly jumping out to a 21-point lead. Specter tried to make it an open primary so that the left might rescue him but couldn’t, and Pennsylvania’s election laws prevented him from doing what Lieberman did to Lamont three years ago: In PA, if you compete in a primary and lose, you’re done. No independent candidacy. So his choice, essentially, was either to switch to an independent now and skip the primary or go the whole nine yards by becoming a Democrat, giving the left a presumptive filibuster-proof majority (once Franken is seated), and extracting whatever concessions he could from them in return, e.g. committee chairmanships, DNC fundraising, etc.
From Specter's perspective, it's a smart move. But, as I said in my comment, I'm not convinced Democrats are gonna embrace Specter. His votes are all over the map, so he isn't going to be a consistent "yes" vote for them. I'm sure there are those who will embrace him because he does have seniority, which counts in the bringing-home-the-pork category.
Some blame conservatives for Specter's defection, but the fact that conservatives expect Republicans not to cave on important issues is not trivial. If Specter is the sort of Republican we need to be a majority, I'm happy to be in the minority. Yes, I'd rather be right than popular.
There's also a part of me that wants the American electorate to experience the full Obama/Democrat Monty. Given that "change" was the order of the day in November, I'm anxious for those who wanted it to get a whole heapin' helpin'.
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