Moderate Republican Senator Arlen Spector of Pennsylvania has switched his party affiliation to Democrat.His unstated-but-obvious reasoning for his switch was simple: He was too moderate a Republican to survive his upcoming primary fight against the very immoderate Pat Toomey. What is left of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania has moved so far to the right now that polls showed they prefer as their candidate someone who toes the Republican party line over somebody with 30 years Senate experience. As a Republican, Specter would have been voted out of office by his own party in the election primary, even if the entire voting population of the State of Pennsylvania would have easily reelected him in the general election.
Senator Specter can see what is obvious: He faces a better chance of winning a primary challenge by taking his moderate record into the ring against a Democrat primary challenger with Democrat primary voters... and then fighting Toomey in a general election that involves all Pennsylvanians.
Also, although Senator Specter gave the usual party-switcher pablum about "not being an automatic vote for Democrats", we all know better: If his next stop is Pennsylvania's Democrat party senate primary, he better show up with at least a pretty big pocketful of "I'm-one-of-you-isms" to throw out to doubtful Dems.
To sum it up: The filibuster has officially been broken*. The job of governance can now move forward at its proper plodding pace.
Let the party begin.
Oh... Quote for the day goes to John Cole at Balloon Juice:
"At this point, the GOP might want to re-introduce the Schiavo legislation, just replacing the name "Terri Schiavo" with Republican."And Republican leaders are telling the GOP faithful to clap louderIn the play "Peter Pan", the audience is told that Tinkerbell will die if they don't clap louder. "Clap louder" is now a quip for the misplaced expectation that poor outcomes can be avoided merely by optimism and empty gestures., that Arlen Specter's departure is a good thing. (Or, to parapharse one commenter at SadlyNo, "Republicans on their sinking ship: 'Yay! No more rats!'")
* once Al Franken shows up.
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