A native of the Keystone State, I have been ambivalent about Senator Arlen Specter for many years. While his natural tendency to wobble down the path of least resistance has been infuriating at times, Specter has done what few have done - successfully navigated a successful career as a Republican Senator while his home state became decidedly more blue. The more partisan and dogmatic Rick Santorum did not survive this change. (Of course, Santorum was far less bright and an arrogant bully, too.)
So, I was surprised to see Specter do something truly inspired today. Facing the odious and ambitious Pat Toomey in a bruising Republican Primary election contest next year, and attacked by Rush Limbaugh and the other leaders of the national Republican Party, Specter became a Democrat.
It was a brilliant move. He won good will in his new party by becoming the 60th Democratic Senator, he very effectively stuck it to all the wack-jobs calling for a "purge" of the GOP (like the nutcases blaming RINOs for the defeat of McCain last year), and he entered his re-election campaign with a huge lead in voter popularity as a Democrat.
If he doesn't die first, Specter will crush Toomey who is now the all-but-certain Republican candidate for the Pennsylvania Senate seat. Toomey is one of the GOP purists who believe that more religious and free-market fundamentalism is the key to future Republican victories.
That strategy, scream "socialism" at every opportunity, proved to have very little appeal in the Commonwealth last Fall.
Specter also dramatizes the death of the Republican Party in its former strongholds. There are three Republican senators north of the Mason-Dixon line, and one is retiring at the end of his term. The yahoos of the contemporary Christo-fascist right seem to have no knowledge about the historic roots of the Republican Party in New England and the Middle Atlantic States.
I hope they continue to forget.
Here is the news story in which Olympia Snowe (one of "the three") talks about the failure to include moderate voices in the GOP.
"The smallest political tent in history"
Two Republicans Blame Conservatives
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Comments: 14
Here in RI, our own moderate Republican crash victim, former Senator Lincoln Chaffee, is thinking about returning to public life. After the Rove/Cheney machine trashed his re-election campaign in 2006, virtually guaranteeing his loss to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, Chaffee left the Republican party and returned to life as an academic. Now he's contemplating a run for governor as an independent in 2010. He's got a vote here!
Roy, I failed to add my appreciation of Oluympia Snow to your comment.
It is hard to believe that progressive moderates once dominated the Republican Party.
But on the positive side, he did get "that frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex" named after him.
Times have certainly changed.
I love that they are their own worst enemies, constantly whining, finger pointing and lying. Not a good political strategy.
Times have changed, and it began when Republicans moved to capture the angry white men of the south who blamed the Democrats for the Civil Rights Act.
I agree, Roy.
In my parent's generation, New England was strongly-identified with forward-looking, "good government" Republicans.
Itis hard to believe that they are all gone.
Here we preserve your thoughtful political analysis, Charles.
I must note that your record of forecasts is laughable.
Brian T
" Republican Party has become the party of hate, fear, fear mongering, idiot christians, racists, and knuckle dragging dullards."
Spartan
I could not agree more.
It sure surprised a lot of folks here in the mid-west when Indiana went to the Democrats.
When political parties are repudiated in the way the GOP has been rejected, it usually takes a few years to effect changes in party communication and party leadereship and to develop new party structures.