A POLITICICAL WEREWEASEL - ARLEN SPECTER

Tags: Politics, Arlen Specter, U S Politics, U S Conservative Movement, Moderate Conservative
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@ebrown p,

Quote:

As far as the ability to break filibusters and pass legislation in the coming year... this is quite a big deal

Indeed.

If Specter is true to his word (a ridiculous notion to begin with) and he doesn't attempt to curry favor with the Democrats, nothing has changed. Why would this appeal to the Democratic party and voters in PA?

The first time he sides with the GOP to kill a Democratic initiative his whole scheme falls apart, unless you believe that the PA Democrat (old and new) is not quite so devoted to the party platform as liberals might hope.

If such is the case then these voters remain in play and subject to a solid political marketing effort. Hardly the sign that Republican ideas have been rejected on their face.

Specter knows he can't win the PA GOP primary, but he doesn't know he will win the PA Dem primary.

If he becomes a full blown liberal to secure the support of the Dems and is defeated in a race against a Repub opponent it will belie the notion of a political sea change in PA. If he remains a Republican Lite and on one or two issues sides with GOP -- as he has promised-- and he wins the Dem primary, that too will belie the notion of a sea change. This can be thrown out of kilter though if the Dems don't allow anyone to oppose him in the primary, but why would they do that unless they felt a PA liberal can't beat a PA conservative?

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@edgarblythe,

Thanks for the comic relief edgar.

I look forward to you popping back in in another six or seven posts with another of your "What about...?" comments.

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@Thomas,

Quote:

Save his chances from what? Specter is popular in Pennsylvania

Says who????

Quote:

Posted Mar 06, 2009 at 9:28 AM
Maurice Berger, Political Director, PollTrack

According to a new poll, GOP US Senator Arlen Specter from Pennsylvania may be the latest northeast Republican in danger of loosing his seat: "53% of Pennsylvanians -- and 66 percent of Republicans -- want someone to replace Specter. "Asked whether they think Specter, a Philadelphia Republican, has done his job well enough to win re-election or whether they'd prefer a 'new person' in that job, registered voters by a 53-38% said it's time to give someone else a chance, according to the poll by Susquehanna Polling and Research. 8% were undecided."

http://www.polltrack.com/post/793-pa-gop-senator-arlen-specter-lagging-in-popularity

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@kuvasz,

[Quote="kuvy"I don't think a lot of you Republicans understand what is happening right now...[/quote]

I think many conservatives know precisely what is happening right now. The recent corrupt idiots in the GOP as well as the fruits of Wall Street greed run rampant have combined to damage the Republican brand.

As you should remember, something similar happened to the Democrat brand (or more precisely the Liberal brand) not that long ago. Obviously some of you Libs didn't give up on your brand, and yet you now suggest conservatives should give up on theirs. I can appreciate why you would want conservatives to go off and hide in a corner, but spare me this shite about how the world has changed forever.

Better yet, don't. The more cock-sure you are of ideological dominance, the sooner we can expect a correction.

Maybe Liberals, this time, can restrain themselves and adhere to their actual principles, but I'm doubting it. They couldn't in the past but neither could the Conservatives, which is why these cycles are assured.

Please, please, please...assume that either conservatism is dead or that you can kill it. The more arrogant you are, the less time in power you will have. Please don't heed the recent lesson of the GOP.

Obviously, this pleading presupposes that you can't avoid political contamination of your principles. Pretty safe bet, don't you think?

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

If Specter is true to his word (a ridiculous notion to begin with) and he doesn't attempt to curry favor with the Democrats, nothing has changed.

I am saying that he no longer has any reason to curry favor with the Republicans (this is not the same a starting to curry favor with the Democrats). I claim this, in itself, is a significant change.

2 Replies

@Finn dAbuzz,

As the GOP becomes more Libertarian, we see that their big tent is losing some partcipants.
Whatever the party faithful have to say, this is certainly not a desired outcome. I listened to Limbaugh yesterday and he was trying his damndest to spin the news.

Maybe thats all to be forgotten once Hannity gets waterboarded for charity.(you guys are a laugh a minute)

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@ebrown p,

Quote:

I am saying that he no longer has any reason to curry favor with the Republicans (this is not the same a starting to curry favor with the Democrats). I claim this, in itself, is a significant change.

The correct action would be to cut Specter off at the kneecaps, for neither party to allow him any subcommittee assignments, nor any pork to give to his constituents. Same should go for Lieberman. If the good people of pa want something from Washington then it is up to them to present and individual who can make one of the three choices, GOP/DEM/IND. This fudging back and forth when ever the mood strikes and when ever it seems there is something to be gained personally by the representative has to be ended.

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@hawkeye10,

As a resident of Pa, I would say no to that suggestion. You can understand why I hope?
SPecter has made it as a "party soldier" through the Reagan , BushI and Bush II years and has voted a goodly majority with his (then) party. Hes done what he thought was in the best interests of PA. Specter keeps in touch with all the voters and he keeps us informed before the votes. Hes making a good schmoo doll right now because the GOP is coming undone and this didnt help. The nation is becoming more diverse and not (as Limbaugh makes you wanna believe) more "pure of essence".

However, just as what happened in Reagans time and in 1994, the Dems can get waay too confident and fuck themselves in the head.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

kuvy wrote:
I don't think a lot of you Republicans understand what is happening right now...

As you should remember, something similar happened to the Democrat brand (or more precisely the Liberal brand) not that long ago. Obviously some of you Libs didn't give up on your brand, and yet you now suggest conservatives should give up on theirs. I can appreciate why you would want conservatives to go off and hide in a corner, but spare me this shite about how the world has changed forever.

This from the guy who a year ago was positing hopefully that the end of the democratic party was near because Hillary was losing to Obama in the primaries.

Talk about comic relief.

Shit, even Fox News is starting to move away from the far right idiocy they've been shoveling mercilessly for the past several years. Yesterday I saw Sean Hannity being openly dismissed as a wack-job by Geraldo Rivera, of all people, for his ridiculous ideas about Obama. Someday that pseudo-news organization might even become a real live member of the "liberal gotcha media!" Can you imagine how bad that would suck for the cjhsa's and H2BlowMan's of the world? If only.

2 Replies

@kickycan,

kickycan wrote:

Shit, even Fox News is starting to move away from the far right idiocy they've been shoveling mercilessly for the past several years. Yesterday I saw Sean Hannity being openly dismissed as a wack-job by Geraldo Rivera, of all people, for his ridiculous ideas about Obama.

Fox News hasn't moved one way or the other, what you are seeing
is the extreme far left media starting to move closer to the center.
Viewers have had their fill of the liberal media giving O Boy a pass
on every issue. The honeymoon is over, the citizens want the truth.

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@hawkeye10,

Do you understand how ridiculous your argument is hawkeye?

Your suggestion is to punish the citizens because they aren't serving the parties.

Putting the interests of the political parties over the needs of the citizens on PA is just plain wrong.

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@ebrown p,

Quote:

Do you understand how ridiculous your argument is hawkeye?

You are free to make that argument if you care to try me. I will however point out that we punish/reward citizens as SOP for having either powerfully connected or weakly connected representatives. That baby, is how they system works. Power is the name of the game, not fairness. You sir are living in a fantasy land.

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@farmerman,

Farmerman wrote:

As the GOP becomes more Libertarian, we see that their big tent is losing some partcipants.

You think the GOP is becoming more libertarian? The last time I checked, the libertarian candidate, Ron Paul, seemed pretty marginalized among the party establishment candidates.

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@Thomas,

I was going to comment on this to....

I think the proper word (rather than "Libertarian") is "Wacko".

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@kickycan,

kickycan wrote:

Talk about comic relief.

This is funny as shit!

Fox beats networks without Obama

1 Reply

@farmerman,

Rush, yesterday I think, referenced "the crackup of the conservative movement". Somehow, the argument he was mounting required this observation in order to demonstrate to a caller how vital the movement is.

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@Thomas,

I meant Libertarian in its "cult" sense. Libertarians hold much of the conseravtive views except that they, like Lyndon Larouche, just leave the planet every so often and report to the Mother SHip.

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@H2O MAN,

H2O man wrote:

This is funny as shit!

What's so funny about feces? Your standards of funniness appear to be fairly lax.

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The kicker is going to be how Specter votes on Souter's replacement and any future SC replacements. In the past, he's faithfully voted to confirm pro-life judges despite his own pro-choice views. Now that he's joined the Dem hordes, I would expect him to vote in accordance with his new party and own beliefs. Therefore, republican filibuster of supreme court nominees could be now considerably more difficult....

Of course, its always been the Dems that have held for a litmus test for SC judges...and enjoyed periodic success at sabotaging a president's nominees. The usual (and very frustrating for me) position of Republicans is to honor the wishes of the sitting president and basically confirm them with little opposition.

To me, this is the most troublesome aspect of Specter changing parties.

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@slkshock7,

slkshock7 wrote:

Of course, its always been the Dems that have held for a litmus test for SC judges...and enjoyed periodic success at sabotaging a president's nominees. The usual (and very frustrating for me) position of Republicans is to honor the wishes of the sitting president and basically confirm them with little opposition.

You may want to try paying attention to the world around you more often. Or even once.

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A POLITICICAL WEREWEASEL - ARLEN SPECTER

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