Specter shatters fragile GOP hopes

By Jennifer J. Foster

Published: April 28, 2009

Republicans have long charged that U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) was a “RINO”—a Republican in Name Only.

Specter decided this morning that he agrees.

Specter, one of the most senior GOP senators in Washington, decided today that the man who registered as a Republican in 1966 will affiliate with the Democratic Party, effective immediately.

With Al Franken’s win in Minnesota, which is nearing the end of its labyrinthine journey through the courts and is all but a done deal, Specter’s switch brings Senate Democrats to the promised land of 60 votes and a filibuster-proof majority that renders GOP opposition to President Obama’s legislative agenda all but obsolete.

CNN reporter Dana Bash describes this move as “seismic,“ and she is dead on: It changes everything, everything about President Obama’s agenda and the direction this country will take over at least the next two years and probably more.

Noting in his statement about the switch that more than 200,000 Pennsylvanians left the GOP for the Democratic Party in 2008, Specter said that upon reflection since the stimulus vote, “I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats” than the Republican Party.

In other words, Republicans were right; I was a RINO, after all.

But don’t think for a minute that Arlen Specter has created this political tsunami because of some eureka moment he had after long, solitary moments of personal reflection in some quiet place. On the contrary, in reality, the opposite is actually true.

Bash cited a longtime aide to Specter who told her that in recent visits with constituents and party leaders in Pennsylvania, Specter found GOP opposition to the stimulus vote still so entrenched that it has “caused a scism that is irreconcilable” among party leaders.

That’s code for, “He couldn’t win a GOP primary if he was the only candidate on the ballot.“

Specter was looking down the barrel of a tough primary battle with Pat Toomey, who came very close to beating Specter the last time around. Toomey is polling well and raising plenty of cash, and conservative opposition to the stimulus—and Specter’s support for it—is only helping his case.

So Specter’s switch, then, is more utilitarian than philosophical; as a Democrat, he has access to party cash that he wouldn’t had he stayed with the GOP.

And then there’s this: Specter will now be assisted in his showdown with Toomey by a president whom he campaigned against and for whom he (presumably) did not vote just months ago.

How’s that for strange bedfellows?

Actually, it’s not all that strange. The lion’s share of things that happen in politics have nothing to do with philosophy and everything to do with opportunism.

And in that way, Arlen Specter’s announcement this morning is actually rather ordinary.