It’s been all over the blogosphere, so I’ll just summarize it for you. Arlen Specter switched to his actual party today, and is now a Democrat.
Oh, he blathered about how he left because the Republicans moved too far to the right, which is an absurd conclusion after eight years of W. He did as much admit the fact that his vote for the $787 Billion dollar non-stimulus stimulus had caused a schism in his base, which is probably why he switched sides. Still as opportunistic as ever.
The Democrats probably have their 60 now, so it’s time for what good news can be had from all of this:
- Specter was useless, and now he’s a junior Democrat. That means he’s doing less damage than a senior Republican.
- The Democrats have no cover. All of their damage, and they will be doing a lot of damage, is now their own. I suspect they might pull the lib twins from Maine from time to time on an issue, but nothing more.
- There’s nothing keeping us from cleaning out the rest of the backstabbers. Cornyn can’t say “We have to retain a filibuster-proof majority” as a scare tactic and have any hope at all that it will work. There was nothing for it but to rebuild an opposition party anyway, and there was no point in doing that as long as they were the Other Democrats.
- Yes, I’ve heard screams of “your ideological purity drive will destroy you” and “the Democrats are a big tent”. It’s a load of bunk. The Democrats are monolitically liberal, and those that get elected as moderates or conservatives find out quickly that they don’t get to do things like think. As for the Republicans or any other party that might have to become the new opposition party should they fail, there is no party without core principles. One less Republican lack of core principles is now gone.
I wish he had done this in 2004.


