Senator Specter has officially switched parties. It’s a big deal symbolically, but I don’t expect this to make much difference in policy. I expect him to vote pretty much the same way as a moderate Democrat as he did as a liberal “Republican”.
The biggest difference this would make would be in the 2010 election, where he looked very likely to lose the Republican primary.
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It’s a pretty big deal on multiple levels. It won’t change much in terms of Senator Specter’s policy positions, but it will have enormous policy ramifications for the Senate.
Democrats now have a 60-seat majority. Republicans have lost, and Democrats gained, a Senator with considerable seniority and experience.
We are now, unquestionably, living under one-party rule as a nation. This will have positive and negative effects; history will help us decide whether it was net positive or net negative, but frankly at the moment I think it’s a net positive, and also a good lesson for people who demand ideological conformity in their party.
I wonder what kind of deal the Senator got, in terms of committee leadership?
The magic number 60 is for votes for cloture, not for the size of the caucus. Specter voted for cloture on most of the close filibuster fights so far. So did Snowe and Collins, for that matter.
The better the deal Specter got on committee leadership, the better losing Specter is for Republicans. While Specter was very nearly the most liberal Republican Senator, he’s still to the right of most of the Democratic Senators, and will likely replace someone more liberal than he in the committee structure.
Which party this benefits in the long term will depend on what happens in the 2010 election and on what would have happened if Specter had run for reelection as a Republican.
As an outcome of the 2010 electionL
Senator Toomey (R-PA) is much better for Republicans than Senator Specter (R-PA)
Senator Specter (R-PA) is somewhat better for Republicans than Senator Specter (D-PA)
Senator Specter (D-PA) is also likely much better for Republicans than Senator Chris Matthews (D-PA) or Senator Hypothetical Democrat.
Specter’s party switch increased his chances of reelection, mostly at the expense of other potential Democratic Party candidates. Toomey’s a long shot to win the general election regardless of the opponent — Pennsylvania leans towards Democrats and Toomey is fairly conservative. But Toomey would have had a better chance in an open seat election against a relatively liberal Democrat than against Specter, who would be a moderate incumbant.
Senator Specter is unlikely to buck Democratic leadership on almost any filibuster now, and much less likely to support Republicans even on issues where he thinks they’re right–because that would make him enemies in his new caucus that he can’t afford if he wants to win the Democratic Primary next year.
We can expect him to move in this way, and a few others, further to the left. For example, on the Supreme Court: am I the only one who remembers that Specter was absolutely critical in the fight to confirm Clarence Thomas? He was an absolute pit bull in fighting off those who tried to get Clarence Thomas dumped.
We can now expect him to fully support just about anyone President Obama nominates. And to be just as much of a pit bull if Republicans want to block a nominee.
No, I suspect the Republican leadership feels like they just got kicked in the nuts. Because they did.
Specter will not have to change much about himself, but he just definitely put himself in a place where he needs to ingratiate himself to the Democratic leadership, and has no reason to help the Republican caucus on much of anything. Oh, sure, he won’t be the most left-wing Senator in the Democratic caucus, but this step away from Republicans is going to make it necessary for him to support Democrats all the more. Because he can’t go back. You can change parties once, but twice is almost impossible.
Dean,
not to mention that there’s got to be some kind of psychological change that will happen to Specter as all of the rightward pundits and bloggers decry Specter and call him nasty names, while the leftward pundits and bloggers will laud his intellectual honesty in the face of a party obsessed with ideological purity. It could be like Charles Johnson going from mild criticisms to full-out attacks due to the vehemence of the blowback.
And, yes, I fully acknowledge that were Democrat and Republican reversed things would play out exactly identically. Just look at what happened to Joe Lieberman and he didn’t even go full-out and switch parties.
Specter’s a douche. This gives the Republicans a chance to shed one of their current turds and get a guy who is fresh and has new ideas for restructuring the party. It’s a short term win for the Dems but a long term win for the Repubs. Also, Franken will probably never be seated. They have a whole damn new election before they seat him. So I doubt the Dems will really have their filibuster proof majority. Even if they do, the 2010 election’s coming up soon and the Dems have a chance to lose some seats considering the scandals arising in the Democratic party as of late with talk of approving torture and whoring themselves out to banks… etc.
Even if they get 60 seats they will probably not have them for long. If they manage to seat Franklin and still hold 60 seats after 2010 the Republican party will really need to reconsider their current coalition and probably dismantle it for a new one and restructure from the ground up. Because, at that point it will be difficult to believe many people feel their wishes are truly being represented by the party.
The two major parties are both under control of ideologues respectively on the right and on the left. If you are a Democrat in the US Senate and utter so much as a peep against Obama, or had done the same in support of Bush’s war aims in Iraq, you find yourself facing a primary challenge at re-election time, per Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. If you are a Republican in the US Senate and back off from anti-abortion and anti-stem cell research, then your name for all practical purposes is “US Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania”. In other words, no redemption outside the true church.
Here in south central Wisconsin, the Washington ideological split is mirrored in local politics. I strongly support “Smart Growth” legislation and its mandated comprehended planning, along with creating a Dane County regional transportation authority (RTA) which would be empowered to raise a .005 percent sales tax level to pay for — among other transportation needs — a start-up commuter rail system. I also generally support womens’ abortion rights and insistence that evolution should be discussed as a scientific assertion and that the question of existence of deities be confined to religious affairs. For all that, I was booted off the executive committee of the Republican Party of Dane County (RPDC), which I had served for some ten years.
But when the mainly democrat liberals who inhabit my side of that argument learn that I am the election volunteer coordinator (EVC) of Wisconsin’s 2nd congressional district for the NRA’s Institute of Legislative Affairs, and that I support national organizations such as Grossroots.org, that wants to expel all illegal aliens, and Act for America, which has increasingly strong stances about whom they would allow in this country even as legal immigrants, then they treat me as if I belonged to both the Aryan Nation and an Idaho militia. And when they learn that I am a steadfast zionist of the “screw peace, let’s keep the land and chase them across the Jordan River” variety, then they get positively aploplectic.
And both sides of the political argument, when I tell them about my affiilation membership in the Madison Peak Oil Group, treat me as though I were a deranged and annoying lunatic.
So, senators Lieberman and Specter, I have a pretty good idea what kinds of heat you have faced and will continue to battle against.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Well, maybe they just get aploplectic without the extra c.
(Dean, my man. Whatever happened to the “edit your own weird errors” option they you so nicely made available, once upon a time in good old Dean’s World?)
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Dean,
Specter’s been a Democrat before.
He switched parties after failing to win the Dem nomination for District Attorney.
I voted for the SOB at least twice, while I was registered independent. I wasn’t crazy about it either time, but I definitely considered him the lesser of two evils. It’s not that he’s not “conservative” enough for me. It’s that he is nothing but a weathervane.
IMO, he is a text book professional politician, a poll follower, and a “whatever is best for me first” kind of guy.
I registered as a Republican last year so I could vote against folks like him in the primaries. I say good riddance. He’s NMFP now. (not my f’in problem).
I’d say jrogge got this one just about right.
And yes, Specter is a pathetic political whore. I have always despised the man. Good riddance.
Oh, dude, that was 30 years ago, and in a completely different office. When I say you can only switch parties once, I meant when you’re in a body like the Senate. But you can stretch the example if you have to; I concede that if Specter waits 10 years or so before trying it, he might be able to become a Senate Republican again, although he’d still pay a price. Generally, in a legislative body, nobody trusts an obvious turncoat. You can change parties once and say it’s a matter of conscience, but if you keep flipping parties, no one in either party will ever trust you to do anything more than get coffee.
Yes, it was 30 years ago. But it was for the exact same reasons. He ought not to be trusted *now* to do anything more than get coffee.
But he will.
At least so long as he remains Pelosi’s and Reid’s useful (f/t)ool.
Dude, I don’t think you can back that up. I mean, is just switching parties 30+ years ago, and doing it again today, proof that he “can’t be trusted?”
I’m not trying to give you a hard time but seriously, were you this hard on Joe Lieberman? Would you be this hard on a “centrist, independent-minded” Democrat (say, Zell Miller) who announced he was switching from Democrat to Republican?
I’ll believe you if you say “yes.” All I’m saying is, can we all make sure we’re being fair when someone feels like their party has abandoned them and that they need to make a switch?
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