fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

Specter Flips

As many of you know already, Specter is switching parties. The Democrats will have their filibuster-proof majority. Cunning Club for Growth tactics and the urge to purge have won another famous victory. The upshot is that the now-Democratic incumbent will sail to re-election (Democrats and independents in Pennsylvania actually like Arlen Specter), Republican prospects of […]

As many of you know already, Specter is switching parties. The Democrats will have their filibuster-proof majority. Cunning Club for Growth tactics and the urge to purge have won another famous victory. The upshot is that the now-Democratic incumbent will sail to re-election (Democrats and independents in Pennsylvania actually like Arlen Specter), Republican prospects of shrinking the Democratic majority in the Senate have grown dimmer and Obama’s domestic agenda is that much more likely to pass without effective opposition. It is significant that Specter explained his decision by referring to the backlash against his vote for the stimulus bill:

He said he has experienced a change of heart since the response to his vote for the stimulus legislation.

“Since then, I have traveled the State, talked to Republican leaders and office-holders and my supporters and I have carefully examined public opinion,” his statement said. “It has become clear to me that the stimulus vote caused a schism which makes our differences irreconcilable. On this state of the record, I am unwilling to have my twenty-nine year Senate record judged by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate.”

No doubt, the early polling showing him twenty-odd points behind Toomey in the Republican primary prompted him to make the decision now. However, it does seem worth noting that this is the second major political event since the passage of the stimulus bill over unanimous House Republican opposition and near-unanimous Senate Republican opposition, and it marks the second setback for the GOP (the other being the blown race in NY-20). Of course, this exact turn of events was not foreseen by anyone and has taken everyone by surprise, but if you consider the changes in Pennsylvania’s electorate and the pattern that has developed in statewide races in the last few years Specter’s party switch is not so surprising. In the end, as in NY-20, the candidate who embraced Obama’s legislation will be going to Washington, and the unfounded claim that the GOP was repudiated because of its spending excesses becomes even less credible (if that is possible). The strategy of focusing opposition on that bill now appears to have been more misguided than I ever imagined, as it has now indirectly and unexpectedly added the final piece to a Democratic juggernaut in Congress that will push through legislation far worse and more permanent than anything contained in the stimulus bill. The GOP made their stand at the wrong time on the wrong legislation based on faulty assumptions about the electorate and their own electoral defeats, and they are already paying for it.

Specter’s switch pretty well clears the way for Toomey to win the GOP nomination without much difficulty, so Toomey will have the chance to test his proposition that Pennsylvanians don’t want Arlen Specter’s brand of politics on a grand scale in the general election. The result of that contest will confirm what some of us have been saying for a while: of all the places to try to vindicate support for Club for Growth economic policy and the Iraq war, Pennsylvania is one of the worst places imaginable. If one had wanted to hasten the day when Club for Growth-style economic conservatism appeared to be nothing but a liability for the GOP, one could not have put together a better scenario than this one.

Advertisement

Comments

The American Conservative Memberships
Become a Member today for a growing stake in the conservative movement.
Join here!
Join here