The Specter Defection

On April 28, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania switched parties from Republican to Democratic. The Senator has been encouraged for years to defect by Harry Reid, Joe Biden and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell. But the tipping point came after 161,000 Republicans registered as Democrats to vote in the Hillary-Obama primary in April 2008. Specter feared he lacked the moderate votes to win the upcoming GOP primary and promptly changed allegiances. Specter's calculations were derided by GOP chairman Michael Steele:

Arlen Specter committed a purely political and self-serving act today. He simply believes he has a better chance of saving his political hide and his job as a Democrat. He loves the title of Senator more than he loves the party--and the principles--that elected him and nurtured him.

But it is telling that a sitting senator felt that he had to switch parties to win. Does it not show how out of favor the Republican Party is?

The switch, along with Al Franken's eventual seating, will give the Democrats a 60-seat supermajority, theoretically enough to override a filibuster. The last time the sitting president's party had enough Senate seats and enough cohesion to regularly achieve cloture was 1937.

Which raises the musical questions: Will Specter vote with the Democrats? Does the switch really matter? Specter, after all, has not changed his ideology; he has merely gone from a liberal Republican to a conservative Democrat.

It will change things, just not as dramatically as one might hope. Since 2007, 158 motions for cloture have been filed. Specter's defection undermines Republicans' (perceived?) ability to filibuster. For low-profile issues, the GOP might save face and not even try.

Also, Specter may face an opponent in the Democratic primary, Joe Sestak. The threat from Sestak may push Specter to the left to prove his Democratic bona fides. If he does not, he may well lose the Democratic primary, and irony will have the last laugh.

Headlines: 24 April 2008

• In Surprise, Ford Swings to Profit
  

  Just not in the North American market.
  

• U.S. envoy says Zimbabwe's Mugabe lost
  

  Finally, someone in the U.S. government tells it like is.
  

• Patrick: Democrats will rally behind Obama
  

  Mass. governor downplays Obama's PA loss and repudiates pollsters' conventional wisdom.

Post-Pennsylvania Primary Political Parsing!

You know you love alliteration.

Yes, Hillary Clinton won the Pennsylvania primary by a margin of 10%, gained 12 delegates on Barack Obama, and is now only behind by 133, according to CNN's estimates. But keep these three things in mind:

1. Districts are weighted according to previous Democratic performance. This largely helps Obama. For instance, Obama won Philadelphia County by 30%; in 2004, Kerry won there by 62%. Clinton took Fulton County by 34%; Bush won that county by 52%.
2. There is speculation that, even though Clinton won Pennsylvania, her victory may be a Pyrrhic one, and that Obama's real strategy was to limit his margin of loss, while forcing Clinton to spend money she could not afford to waste.
3. Calls are getting louder and louder for both campaigns to drop both their increasingly negative tones and obsessions with trivial non-issues and for Clinton to drop out of the race.

Headlines: 18 April 2008

• An Earthquake Rattles the Midwest.
  

  The New Madrid Fault reminds us that it's there.
  

• It's Getting Close to Over.
  

  Let's hope so.
  

• Clinton fixes the video board, Edwards wants a jet ski, and Obama puts distractions on notice.
  

  Boy, did I miss a good one. ($%#&!ing 8 a.m. exams!)
  

• I own the front page.
  

  Ha!

Bitter Pennsylvanians

You know how Barack Obama said that working-class voters cling to guns, religion, and anti-immigrant sentiment when they lose their jobs? Pennsylvanians react:

Shawn Erfman: "It's fucking true. Everybody's bitter for one reason or another. So they're crucifying him because he spoke the truth? Cause he's not saying something that's going to suck up to people and kiss ass? Because, what, he slipped and accidentally spoke the truth, instead of kissing butt?"

Iona White: "It's a bad time in the world. People are bitter."

The ultimate irony: People who do "'cling' to wedge issues involving God and guns because they've lost faith in our political culture's ability to solve problems" have to watch a debate that focuses more on trivialities (like not wearing a flag lapel-pin, associating with people who have said bad things, saying something that's true but somewhat inarticulate, and embellishing a trip to war-torn Bosnia) than the real issues.

P.S. Hillary is going negative in PA. Perhaps she's bitter that she's losing to Obama.

Update: MoveOn.org has a petition admonisihing ABC News for the debate's obsession with "trivial questions about gaffes and 'gotchas' that only political insiders care about." You can sign it here.