GOP senator Arlen Spector switching to Democrat

[melensdad]

He's been voting with the Democrats for years, so this is no surprise, but it does give the Dems the filibuster majority and that is bad news for all people who favor their rights, individual responsibility and accountability. Big Government has been running strong since the elections, this will speed things up even more.

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter will switch his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat, according to sources informed of the decision.

Specter's decision would give Democrats a 60 seat filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, assuming Democrat Al Franken is eventually sworn in as the next senator from Minnesota. (Former senator Norm Coleman is appealing Franken's victory in the state Supreme Court.)

Specter as a Democrat would also fundamentally alter the 2010 calculus in Pennsylvania, as he was expected to face a difficult primary challenge next year from former represenative Pat Toomey. The only announced Democrat in the race is former National Constitution Center head Joe Torsella, although several other candidates are looking at the race.

Continue reading at The Fix»​

 

[Buckaroo]

It is all about staying in office. He, as many others, will do what it takes to keep his seat. At least he has admitted no longer being a Republican.

Buckaroo

 

[melensdad]

It is all about staying in office. He, as many others, will do what it takes to keep his seat. At least he has admitted no longer being a Republican.

Buckaroo

I keep waiting for Dick Lugar to admit that that too.

 

[Fletch]

From the article:

Because of the shrinking Republican vote in the state, Specter was seen as a dead man walking politically in the primary with polling showing him trailing Toomey by ten or more points. The bar for Specter to run as an independent was also extremely high due to the rules governing such a third party candidacy.

That left a Democratic candidacy as Specter's best option if he wanted to remain in the Senate beyond 2010.

In other words, Mr. Career Politician is afraid he's unemployable in the private sector, since he's been a pig at the trough for almost 30 years, and he sees that he's getting his ass handed to him by the young upstart, so he's making one more valiant effort to lock onto the taxpayer's teat.

 

[Dogman]

He's been a RINO for years. jmo Most likely been getting the cold shoulder since he voted for the stimulus bill with the Dems.

 

[Dogman]

I keep waiting for Dick Lugar to admit that that too.

When that happens I'll buy you a beer.

 

[Fletch]

On the good side of things, there are pro-gun Democrats who have vowed to fight the party tooth & nail over gun control. Every time I get depressed about the Democrats, I go to Jon Tester's page. He's still socialist-lite, but the pols in the rest of the country would call him a Republican.

 

[Flintlock]

From the article:




In other words, Mr. Career Politician is afraid he's unemployable in the private sector, since he's been a pig at the trough for almost 30 years, and he sees that he's getting his ass handed to him by the young upstart, so he's making one more valiant effort to lock onto the taxpayer's teat.

He's already locked onto the taxpayers teat... for life. He's got his pension for the rest of his life.

 

[whiskeytangofoxtrot]

Homeboy here is terrified of the man coming up in the next election to challenge him. Pat Toomey is his name I believe... I'll get a link.

Toomey poised to take on Specter | Philadelphia Inquirer | 03/23/2009

Posted on Mon, Mar. 23, 2009


Toomey poised to take on Specter

By Thomas Fitzgerald
Inquirer Staff Writer
CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. - Democrats in Washington are bent on "lurching the country to the left," Pat Toomey was saying, with their "serial bailouts" favoring big government over individual freedom and responsibility and, of course, the $787 billion stimulus and its "pig odor."
Murmurs of assent greeted the conservative former congressman as he built his case, but the crowd of 250 at the Franklin County Republican Party's annual spring dinner burst into applause only when he called out Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.) as the Democrats' chief enabler.
"The fact is, Arlen Specter made this happen," said Toomey, president of the national limited-government activist group Club for Growth. "I think a Republican senator from Pennsylvania ought to govern based on the conservative ideas at the heart of the Republican Party, and that's why - Arlen, are you listening? - it is very likely that I will become a candidate for the United States Senate."
Toomey came within 17,000 votes of beating Specter in the 2004 Republican primary, and he had been laying the groundwork for a campaign for governor next year - until Specter provided one of only three Republican votes for President Obama's stimulus bill, and landed back in trouble with his party's right wing. Then Toomey changed his goal.
In his first Pennsylvania appearance since he announced March 7 that he would likely run again for Senate, Toomey previewed a message of unfettered capitalism, faith, and family Thursday night as keynote speaker to the most active Republicans in one of the state's reddest counties. Franklin County gave 66 percent of its vote to Sen. John McCain in November, while Democrat Obama was carrying Pennsylvania by more than 10 points overall.
Instead of spending on government programs and infrastructure projects to spur the economy, Toomey believes in deep cuts in the corporate and capital-gains tax rates and suspension of a regulation that makes it harder for banks to lend money.
"For the money they spent on the stimulus bill, you could have done amazing things on the tax front," Toomey, 47, said in an interview. ". . . You could have suspended payroll taxes entirely for an extended period, so that every single worker would have more cash in his pocket."
With about a quarter-million Pennsylvania Republicans having switched their registration to Democratic in the last two years, analysts say the GOP primary electorate is smaller and more conservative than it was when Specter won his fifth term in 2004. That augurs well for Toomey, who also is to Specter's right on abortion and other social issues.
But if Toomey, who has experience in banking, wins the nomination next spring, it is an open question how his laissez-faire economic philosophy would play amid the populist outrage at Wall Street for destabilizing the economy. In addition, polls show that most Americans want the government to help.
Specter usually does not comment about potential opponents, but earlier this month he took a shot at Toomey's philosophy on a Wilkes-Barre talk-radio station, saying, "Well, he's been totally in favor of deregulation, letting Wall Street run its own affairs, which has been a tremendous factor in bringing us into this current mess."
Democratic strategists believe that Specter, who has inroads with some of the party's key constituencies, such as organized labor, would be tougher to beat in November 2010 than Toomey.
"He's out of step," David Dunphy, a Democratic political consultant in Philadelphia, said of Toomey. "Republicans seem intent on moving to the right, but to win elections in Pennsylvania they have to reach beyond the base, to exactly those voters who abandoned them over the last two [election] cycles."
Toomey disputes the notion that he is at odds with the political zeitgeist, saying that support for the Obama administration's program in polls "depends on the question you ask and how you ask it." As for electability, Toomey cited his own history as a congressman from the Lehigh Valley.
"The Democratic candidate has carried the 15th Congressional District of Pennsylvania in the last five presidential elections - and yet during the middle of that period I won that seat, and was reelected twice by increasing margins," Toomey said in the interview. "A message about fiscal discipline and reducing government spending and encouraging free enterprise - I think that's going to resonate."
It certainly did inside the Family Traditions Lighthouse, site of Thursday's GOP dinner.
In 2004, Specter carried Franklin County in his match with Toomey, 55 percent to 45 percent, but several attendees at the dinner said the stimulus vote had eroded the incumbent's standing in the area.
"I think Sen. Specter has always been liked here, but that vote changed things just like that," said Lowell E. Carey Jr., who owns a photography studio downtown. "People are mad. This is a blue-collar, conservative area. People work hard for what they've got."
County GOP chairman Jim Taylor said he invited Toomey to speak several months ago, well before the stimulus vote, and was delighted at the timing of the visit.
"I figured Specter would do something to make people mad again," Taylor said. "Every three months he does something outrageous."
But Specter, 79, also visits each of the state's 67 counties regularly, distributing federal grants that are not exactly unpopular in Pennsylvania. His roots could be his strength.
While a flood of votes in Specter's Southeastern Pennsylvania base saved him last time, he also carried about 30 rural counties against Toomey.
"Not all conservatives hate the guy," said pollster G. Terry Madonna of Franklin and Marshall College. "He knows the state. And nobody campaigns harder."
In 2004, though, Sen. Rick Santorum and President George W. Bush, who was still popular among Republican primary voters, urged conservatives to back Specter. He cannot count on such help anymore. On the other hand, antiabortion activist Peg Luksik said last week that she, too, would challenge him; she could split the anti-Specter vote with Toomey, if he runs.
It is 14 months until the GOP primary, and the outcome is likely to hinge on the health of the economy then, and how voters perceive it. Specter maintains he did the right thing to prevent a meltdown, while Toomey is convinced the stimulus and bailout programs will not work.
"That's the acid test," Madonna said.

 

[bft131]

THEY ALL NEED TO GO!!!

 

[CarmelHP]

Specter and Lugar voted almost in lockstep though Specter was a tad more conservative. Good riddance and take Dick with you.

 

[Truckerman79]

Is anyone really suprised by this?

 

[whiskeytangofoxtrot]

I'm just suprised it took him only 30 years to realize what he was...I do believe he will get beat either way in the next election.

 

[4sarge]

Ending the Republican Tranny Act: Arlen Specter Comes Out of the Democrat Closet




By Debbie Schlussel

So, the big news of the hour coming out of Washington is that liberal Democrat U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania Arlen Specter is finally coming out of the closet and announcing he's proud to be gay, er . . . a Democrat. Until now, this political transvestite has been posing as a Republican--and doing a pretty bad job of it. But now, he's ending his cross-dressing act, throwing off the boxer shorts, and putting on the Dem bra and panties for all of us to see.
What you may not know is that Arlen Specter was originally a Democrat in the first place. Then, he switched to the Republican Party. And now he's going back.
Hmmm . . . In and out. In and out. Isn't that what got Bill Clinton and Gary Hart into political trouble?

A refresher on Specter: he was bad on most issues, including
* Immigration--he supported open borders and the decriminalization of the Immigration and Nationality Act and didn't want employers of illegal aliens to be criminally charged as felons.
* Priorities--he hauled in NFL owners and NFL Network execs for hearings on stupid sports business matters in which government shouldn't be involved, like whether an NFL team cheated and whether the NFL Network charged Time Warner too much to carry the channel.

 

[INRanger]

From the article:




In other words, Mr. Career Politician is afraid he's unemployable in the private sector, since he's been a pig at the trough for almost 30 years, and he sees that he's getting his ass handed to him by the young upstart, so he's making one more valiant effort to lock onto the taxpayer's teat.

OMG! We agree! I think I just threw up a little......

 

[bigg cheese]

I'm just irritated that they continue to be distinguished by party lines....

Seriously, what makes Republicans so different than Democrats? They're both too stinking liberal for my taste.

I wish they'd just refer to them as liberals and conservatives. That's still a good measure.

 

[CulpeperMM]

I keep waiting for Dick Lugar to admit that that too.

yep

 

[gunrunner0320]

i hope they will vote him out any way just to show him it didnt matter what side hes on

 

[IndyGunworks]

I dont get how you can just one day up and change your political views

 

[Joe Williams]

Spector would already have voted with Dems to end filibusters, so no loss there.

This means nothing, really, except that the premier RINO in the Senate is revealing his true stripes.

That, and he realized that he was going to lose the Republican primary. He didn't have a chance of winning. In order to stay in his seat, he only needs to carry Pittsburgh and Philthydelphia. The rest of the state effectively has no, or at best a very limited, voice in general elections. Both are heavily Democratic welfare queen areas, guaranteed to go Dem no matter who is running. If he stay Republican, though, his favorable ratings in those cities would do him no good in the primaries, since there are few Republicans there. He would have been gone even before the general election.