Will Specter leave the GOP?

[Stratocaster]

Interesting column in the Inquirer today:

Senator, most of the remaining Pennsylvania primary voters lean strongly rightward. Last month, 66 percent of statewide Republicans told a pollster that they want you gone. They think of you as “Benedict Arlen,” and one top conservative group, mindful of your vote on the economic-stimulus package, dubbed it “the ultimate act of treason” and named you “Comrade of the Month” - a nickname that demonstrates that Red-baiting has survived the fall of the Soviet Union.

So perhaps you should consider whether it’s worthwhile to drain your campaign coffers and put up with this grief. The Republicans seem determined to reduce themselves to a state of powerless purity, so, fine - let them nominate a conservative Senate candidate who would get waxed statewide. And you’d do the waxing, buoyed by the fact that Democrats in Pennsylvania now outnumber Republicans by 1.23 million, more than double the margin of 2004, when you last ran.

[DSeid]

If he does change party affiliations when does he do so?

[UltraVires]

@DocCathode

As a liberal Democrat, I’ve proudly voted Specter. Republicans would risk losing the general elections if they didn’t pick Specter as their candidate.

This is very telling. So what exactly have the Republicans “lost” if they lose the general election? A Senator who bails on them on every important vote? A Republican in name only who a self-proclaimed liberal Democrat has “proudly” voted for?

If Rush Limbaugh put a “D” after his name, should your party welcome him with open arms so as to be seen as inclusive?

[DSeid]

jtgain - is Specter not at all constrained now by the R after his name? Will he be more likely to be more consistently and reliably supportive of Obama’s proposals once he’s thrown his lot in with the other side?

As I said in my op, I think for both Snowe and Collins you are right, there votes are unlikely to change by virtue of party affiliation. Specter OTOH I think is constrained some by the R and would be more reliable for Obama with a D. Just my WAG.

[Simplicio]

@DSeid

If he does change party affiliations when does he do so?

Soon I’d think. He’d still have to win the Dem primary. If he switches now then he can start working to get the Dem party machinery behind him (the DNC will presumably support him in return for his changing his affiliation), scare off some of the potential challengers before they commit to running, change some of his voting to help his standing with Dem primary voters and start fund raising (since I can’t imagine he’d raise funds for one primary and then switch to another, if that’s even legal).

If he waits too long, then he just looks like a desperate opportunist and Dem primary challengers can paint him as a GOP member whose just switching because he’s scared of loosing. I’d say if he hasn’t switched in six months, he’s not going to.

[mswas]

He should just run Independent so as not to offend those Republicans who still want to vote for him.

[nani]

It would be interesting if Specter and Snowe and Collins all split off from the GOP and formed their own center-right party. Bring in other New Englanders like Lincoln Chaffee, disaffected Republicans in the West, and some of the more independent-minded blue dogs, and you’ve got a nice little party going on. Even if it doesn’t have staying power beyond the original members, I think it would do a lot to change the pattern of government.

I don’t really like Sen. Specter much, but if his constituents do, then he should try to find a way to serve them as best he can.

[Captain_Carrot]

@jtgain

This is very telling. So what exactly have the Republicans “lost” if they lose the general election? A Senator who bails on them on every important vote? A Republican in name only who a self-proclaimed liberal Democrat has “proudly” voted for?

Except that in the last Congress, Specter was known as a WINO - Waverer In Name Only. He’d make noises about disagreeing with Bush, but when it came time to vote, he’d cast his lot with the likes of Coburn and Thune over and over again. He hardly bailed on them on every important vote.

@DocCathode

As a liberal Democrat, I’ve proudly voted Specter.

Why? Seriously, why? Specter fit your positions better than the Democrat? Really?

[Voyager]

@Simplicio

Soon I’d think. He’d still have to win the Dem primary. If he switches now then he can start working to get the Dem party machinery behind him (the DNC will presumably support him in return for his changing his affiliation), scare off some of the potential challengers before they commit to running, change some of his voting to help his standing with Dem primary voters and start fund raising (since I can’t imagine he’d raise funds for one primary and then switch to another, if that’s even legal).

If he switches now, once Franken gets seated the Dems would have the magic 60 in the Senate. If the Republicans have two brain cells to rub together, they’d guarantee Arlen no real opposition in the primary. But since that would mean having to accept some degree of diversity in the party, that’s not likely.

[ElvisL1ves]

He’s in the best possible position now (so are Collins and Snowe and, frankly, Lieberman). The party has no hold over any of them; they control the agenda with their cloture votes. The parties can’t threaten them in any meaningful way, the parties have to suck up to them. The GOP can’t even threaten to withhold funding from one of its senior members without all kinds of backlash, and especially not in a year when they’d be fighting a rear-guard action at best.

And even if they covertly support some Son of Santorum - so what? Is that guy going to win a primary? If he does, is he going to win the general? The party’s best bet to keep that seat in 2010 still has got to be Specter, despite all of his moderation and sanity.

[BrainGlutton]

Here’s David Frum’s take on what the GOP needs to do:

Look at America’s public-policy problems, look at voting trends, and it’s inescapably obvious that the Republican Party needs to evolve. We need to put free-market health-care reform, not tax cuts, at the core of our economic message. It’s health-care costs that are crushing middle-class incomes. Between 2000 and 2006, the amount that employers paid for labor rose substantially. Employees got none of that money; all of it was absorbed by rising health-care costs. Meanwhile, the income-tax cuts offered by Republicans interest fewer and fewer people: before the recession, two thirds of American workers paid more in payroll taxes than in income taxes.

We need to modulate our social conservatism (not jettison—modulate). The GOP will remain a predominantly conservative party and a predominantly pro-life party. But especially on gay-rights issues, the under-30 generation has arrived at a new consensus. Our party seems to be running to govern a country that no longer exists. The rule that both our presidential and vice presidential candidates must always be pro-life has become counterproductive: McCain’s only hope of winning the presidency in 2008 was to carry Pennsylvania, and yet Pennsylvania’s most successful Republican vote winner, former governor Tom Ridge, was barred from the ticket because he’s pro-choice.

We need an environmental message. You don’t have to accept Al Gore’s predictions of imminent gloom to accept that it cannot be healthy to pump gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. We are rightly mistrustful of liberal environmentalist disrespect for property rights. But property owners also care about property values, about conservation, and as a party of property owners we should be taking those values more seriously.

Above all, we need to take governing seriously again. Voters have long associated Democrats with corrupt urban machines, Republicans with personal integrity and fiscal responsibility. Even ultraliberal states like Massachusetts would elect Republican governors like Frank Sargent, Leverett Saltonstall, William Weld and Mitt Romney precisely to keep an austere eye on the depredations of Democratic legislators. After Iraq, Katrina and Harriet Miers, Democrats surged to a five-to-three advantage on the competence and ethics questions. And that was before we put Sarah Palin on our national ticket.

This from his Newsweek article attacking Rush Limbaugh – which at this point looks like it’s going to get him read out of the conservative movement, or so say the Freepers.

[mswas]

The GOP internal struggle is ugly right now.

[jayjay]

@mswas

The GOP internal struggle is ugly right now.

I don’t know. My popcorn supplier’s having a great year so far…

[ElvisL1ves]

@mswas

The GOP internal struggle is ugly right now.

It’s for their own good. Everyone’s, actually.

[mswas]

@ElvisL1ves

It’s for their own good. Everyone’s, actually.

I agree. If David Frum’s vision wins out I would probably be GOP faithful.

[BrainGlutton]

@mswas

I agree. If David Frum’s vision wins out I would probably be GOP faithful.

But it probably won’t. The wingnuts are running the show – reinforced by the RW media outlets like Fox News and talk radio, where a message of moderation never plays.

As a liberal I should be glad to see the GOP working so hard to remain irrelevant, but it’s still a sad thing to watch.

[mswas]

I hear you. I personally believe that a tension between the two parties leads to a healthier situation. If we had two parties led by their rational cores rather than their extremists it would be the best scenario. The GOP of today would toss Buckley out.

[waterj2]

@mswas

I agree. If David Frum’s vision wins out I would probably be GOP faithful.

From my perspective, if that vision wins out, we’d have a great opposition party. I think that the best chance of that, the way things are going, is that the current version of the Republican Party has to fail. So, in the interest of getting to a more stable situation as quickly as possible, I’m rooting for the failure of the Republicans, and the quick reemergence of a new version. A brief reign of one-party rule is better than giving a big seat at the table to those trying to out-Hoover Hoover.

[flickster]

Specter’s already gone as far as most conservatives are concerned (and has been for some time), and if Frum has his way the Republican Party is as well.

The only reason this is of mild interest the the present time is due to the balance in the Senate.

[The_Tao_s_Revenge]

@nani

It would be interesting if Specter and Snowe and Collins all split off from the GOP and formed their own center-right party. Bring in other New Englanders like Lincoln Chaffee, disaffected Republicans in the West, and some of the more independent-minded blue dogs, and you’ve got a nice little party going on. Even if it doesn’t have staying power beyond the original members, I think it would do a lot to change the pattern of government.

I don’t really like Sen. Specter much, but if his constituents do, then he should try to find a way to serve them as best he can.

That’d be nice. We’d have a swing party so one party couldn’t dominate on everything so easy.