Arlen Specter, no longer bi-partisan, now a flamming Dem!

The Washington Post is breaking the story. Arlen Specter the moderate Republican whom the Republicans love to hate (and try and unseat) is SWITCHING PARTY AFFILIATION, from now on he'll be a Democrat, with Al Franken expected to eventually get seated over Coleman in the still legally unresolved Minnesota Senate race the Democrats will have a FILIBUSTER PROOF 60-SEAT MAJORITY. Well a fillibuster proof majority on SOME issues, in a statement released today Specter made clear he wasn't giving Dems a carte blanche on their entire legislative agenda:

My change in party affiliation does not mean that I will be a party-line voter any more for the Democrats that I have been for the Republicans. Unlike Senator Jeffords’ switch which changed party control, I will not be an automatic 60th vote for cloture. For example, my position on Employees Free Choice (Card Check) will not change.

Specter announced he will run to keep his Senate seat in 2010 by taking part in the Democratic primaries.

Why the change? Specter, faces a Liebermanesque dilemma for 2010, with a candidate more palatable to the base of his affiliated party planning on challenging the long-seated incumbent. The main challenger right now, Pat Tommey, lost by just one point in the 2004 GOP primary against Specter, and the lastest polling data shows Specter trailing Tom mey by 21 points. If Tommey wins Specter would have to run as an Independant or Democrat anyway. This way Specter has a fighting chance at keeping his seat.

Of course underlying this pragmatic decision is the ideological tumult that is threatening to hobble the GOP for years to come. Last week I described two moderate republicans as part of the "centrist fringe" of their party. Specter's statement on his decision to change parties shows my hyperbole may not be as exagerrated as I though:

I have decided to run for re-election in 2010 in the Democratic primary...Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans...When I supported the stimulus package, I knew that it would not be popular with the Republican Party. But, I saw the stimulus as necessary to lessen the risk of a far more serious recession than we are now experiencing...I am unwilling to have my twenty-nine year Senate record judged by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate. I have not represented the Republican Party. I have represented the people of Pennsylvania.

Speaking of Lieberman, I bet the Dems are glad now that they didn't strip him of his committee appointments as recompense for his McCain support. It wouldn't be a stretch of the imagination to see a powerless Lieberman abandoning the party that abandoned him to join the GOP in the name of a "loyal opposition."


Specter (first on the left) with Schumer (D-NY) and Leahy (D-VT), his new party colleagues.