Specter says he's switching from GOP to Democrats
WASHINGTON (AP) - Veteran Republican Sen. Arlen Specter disclosed plans Tuesday to switch parties, a move intended to boost his chances of winning re-election next year that will also push Democrats closer to a 60-vote filibuster-resistant majority.
"I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans," Specter said in a statement posted on a Web site devoted to Pennsylvania politics and confirmed by his office. Several Senate officials said a formal announcement could come later in the day or Wednesday.
Specter, 79 and in his fifth term, is one of a handful of Republican moderates remaining in Congress in a party now dominated by conservatives. Several officials said the White House as well as leaders in both parties had been involved in discussions leading to his move.
"I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans," Specter said in a statement posted on a Web site devoted to Pennsylvania politics and confirmed by his office. Several Senate officials said a formal announcement could come later in the day or Wednesday.
Specter, 79 and in his fifth term, is one of a handful of Republican moderates remaining in Congress in a party now dominated by conservatives. Several officials said the White House as well as leaders in both parties had been involved in discussions leading to his move.
posted by BP News Bureau | 12:42 PM
6 Comments:
Arlen Specter switching parties today. Actually, that should read 'Arlen Spector has decided to stop lying about what he is and limps home.'
From Hot Air:
I’m in the good-riddance category here. Normally I argue for a big tent and the need to woo moderates by focusing on core values. Specter betrayed those values in his Porkulus vote and cloture cave. He could have forced Obama, Pelosi, and Reid to start negotiating in good faith with his Republican colleagues, but instead allowed them to shove a bad bill down their throats.
Yahoo. I think this is great news. Now a couple other RINOS need to jump ship. There needs to be a clear distinction between the parties and this goes a long way to helping that.
At some point any big spending lib with an R after their name needs to get the hell out
Good bye & good riddance to Sen. Specter from the Republican Party. His fate was sealed when he voted for that stimulus bill. I wish the two other Republicans who voted for that bill, Snowe & Collins out of Maine, would jump ship too. The only reason he's switching is because he was going to be crushed by Pat Toomey in the GOP primary next year. Specter only cares about one thing, and that's himself. Specter feels that this country will not survive if he's not in the Senate. He'll be 80 years old next year; it's time for him to retire and enjoy his last years on this earth.
From National Review Online:
Senator Arlen Specter next faces the voters a little over one year from now, on May 18, 2010.
We don’t know what the mood of the country will be in one year. Two weeks ago, few people had heard of swine flu. Like the guy suing Chuck DeVore says, in a New York minute, everything can change.
But we can reasonably assume that unemployment will remain high for the remainder of the year. And quite a few economists think unemployment will remain high in 2010. (By the way, swine flu is already hitting the tourism and travel sectors and the Mexican economy. If the outbreak gets worse, the economic impact will be worse.)
President Obama’s approval rating is still pretty darn high, averaging at 62 percent and ranging from 56 percent to 68 percent in recent polls. But it seems reasonable to assume that if the country has something resembling double-digit unemployment in 2010, Obama’s approval rating isn’t likely to be higher a year from now than it is now. President Obama will have a harder time arguing that the country's economic problems are the fault of his predecessor; some of those who voted for him will begin to wonder when they'll start to see tangible improvements in their lives.
The one scenario we can probably reject is the idea that in May 2010, President Obama and the stimulus bill will be popular with GOP primary voters. Thus, Pat Toomey was always going to have a key winning issue against Specter.
Arlen Specter has made the right decision to win reelection right now; the problem is, he doesn’t face the voters right now. He faces Democratic voters in May 2010, and he faces Pennsylvanians as a whole in November 2010. Right now, being a Democrat and being affiliated with President Obama is a winning hand in Keystone State politics. Today, Arlen Specter bet his next term that the political environment won’t significantly change in the next 18 months.
We will see. But it is very, very rare for a political environment to remain in stasis for an eighteen-month period.
Specter stops pretending he's a conservative and limps home to the Democrat Party. Question: Can he take McCain, Graham, Snowe and Collins with him please? Good riddance to him and every other liberal who's been masquerading as a conservative for far too long. And btw, it's no coincident Specter makes this decision less than two weeks after the tea parties.
Congratulations everyone. Nothing changes with this. Ignore all the stories about how awful this is for the GOP. Specter is a liberal and has been carrying Urkel's water, now he'll simply be doing it with a "D" after his name.
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