Politics and principles
Arlen Specter's a politician, and his shift from the Republican to Democratic Party yesterday was based on political calculation.
It wasn't higher math, either. Democrats outnumber Republicans by 1.2 million in Pennsylvania. In exchange for his allegiance, Democrats all but guarantee Specter their party's Senate nomination next year and the support of President Barack Obama and Gov. Ed Rendell, plus lots of campaign money.
The question is whether Specter is still a man of principle. He was an independent Republican, who parted with his party when he thought another position was better. Will he be as independent of the Democratic Party, which will count on him to help break GOP filibusters and vote the party line on closely debated issues?
Addressing that question yesterday, Specter promised he will. For example, he said he'll continue to oppose the card-check bill, which is the Democratic Party's biggest payback to the unions for all their election support. On principle, there's no reason for Specter to flip on that issue. It's bad legislation that defies the valued ideal of secret-ballot elections. Besides, as a Republican, he dtidn't owe the unions anything. But much of that campaign money he'll count on as a Democratic candidate next year would be coming from unions. Will it depend on whether he votes for the union agenda? Very likely.
Specter got a hard time from Republicans whenever he deviated from their party line, and he deserved credit for having the courage to withstand it. We'll see how well he does when it comes to bucking the Democrats when his principles don't agree with theirs.
Comments (5)
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"Politics and Principles." An oxymoron, oil and water, day and night. Okay, you get the picture.
So the "principled" Specter changed parties, AGAIN. I guess he has flexible principles with the primary goal of staying in power.
I will admit that he did one great thing for the country when he took on the Clarence Thomas hyenas, and beat the back. For that we should be grateful, no matter the distaste we have for on so many other issues. It's similar to the Bush thing. He's done so much wrong, but we've had no airplanes flying through our office windows for nearly 8 years, and he gave Roberts, and Alito on the Court.
Posted on April 29, 2009 12:11 PM
Political expediency, pure and simple.
Posted on April 29, 2009 1:01 PM
We'll see how well he does when it comes to bucking the Democrats when his principles don't agree with theirs.*Doug
No Problem! The Senator will simply apply the old Magic Bullet trick that he promoted in the Warren Report about the JFK murder......
http://www.slate.com/id/2167466/
Posted on April 29, 2009 1:17 PM
Specter and a handful of responsible Senate Dems joined with Republicans in voting against the $3.4 trillion budget yesterday. But the other Dems prevailed anyway.
Posted on April 30, 2009 8:27 AM
More on Spector's principles from Fox News last night:
"Interesting that you mentioned Jim Jeffords back in '01. There was one senator who took to the Senate floor to say that they should come up with a rule that prohibits senators from changing parties midterm. That senator was Arlen Specter." And here's what he said, "How should these issues be handled by the Senate for the future? I intend to propose a rule-change which would preclude a future recurrence of a senator's changing parties in mid-season, organizing with the opposition to cause the upheaval which is now resulted."
As you may, or may not, be aware Specter changed parties in 1980 to jump on the Reagan and get elected to the senate. While he loves to mention Reagan, I've heard that Reagan could not stand him, and only ever mentioned his name twice, neither time "adoringly!"
Posted on April 30, 2009 9:02 AM