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?

But he will.

At least so long as he remains Pelosi’s and Reid’s useful (f/t)ool.

And yes, Specter is a pathetic political whore. I have always despised the man. Good riddance.

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).

He switched parties after failing to win the Dem nomination for District Attorney.

(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

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

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.

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.