Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania announced an unexpected switch of political loyalties on Tuesday, saying that he was leaving the Republican Party because it had shifted far to the right of his views. This along with the fact that he did not think he could overcome a primary challenge next year. Mr. Specter acknowledged that his decision to change parties was driven by his intense desire to win that sixth term.
Specter claims he will bring a centrist approach to governance that will be about solutions to problems such as health care, climate change, immigration, and fiscal balancing. However before super specter can solve the world’s problems he first needs to win over democrats. Specter has mentioned that he is "comfortable" with how Mr. Obama is conducting his presidency and apparently Obama is just as comfortable with Specter.
In a brief conversation with Specter, the president said, “You have my full support”. The president added that Democrats are “thrilled to have you.” As a democrat, “thrilled” wouldn’t exactly be the word I’d use considering his many positions that put him at odds with democrats such as voting to authorize the war in Iraq, backing President George W. Bush’s Supreme Court nominees, and favoring school vouchers. How is it that a Republican Senator of nearly three decades suddenly feels he doesn’t belong to that party? I question his loyalty to anyone but himself.
However I wouldn’t throw him under the bus just yet. In all fairness, Mr. Specter was one of just three Republican senators to vote in favor of the stimulus package this year. He is a supporter of abortion rights and expanded embryonic stem cell research, and he opposed a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. It seems as though he is making an effort to earn his democratic stripes.
President Obama is not the only White House official to welcome Specter with open arms. Vice President Biden had been at the center of the effort to persuade Mr. Specter to change parties. Mr. Biden and Mr. Specter had spoken 14 times — six times in person and eight in telephone conversations. In each case, White House officials said, Mr. Biden argued that the Republican Party had increasingly drifted away from Mr. Specter since the election and that ideologically, he was closer to the Democratic Party.
This defection by Specter creates the potential for Democrats to control 60 votes in the Senate if Al Franken prevails this summer in the court fight over Minnesota Senate election, in which recounts show a slight edge over the Republican incumbent, Norm Coleman.
Many Republicans were far from heartbroken by Specters political switch. Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, did not hold back when he claimed Specter “left to further his personal political interests because he knew that he was going to lose a Republican primary due to his left-wing voting record.”
Republican Senator Snowe of Maine is part of the small group of moderates that understand Specter’s decision. In an op-ed piece for the New York Times, she expressed her unhappiness with the way the party has been marginalizing its constituents. Conservative Republicans have created a harsh political environment in which moderates no longer feel welcome. She argues that the party can not survive without moderates and that an expansion of diversity within the party would broaden its appeal.
"http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/opinion/29snowe.html?_r=1&bl&ex=1241150400&en=408e0c2fd77cf45c&ei=5087%0A"
It seems that a reevaluation of the Republican Party is in order. Is their room for moderates in a conservative party?
