Arlen Specter's Party Switch

Of course, the major political news today was Pennsylvania's former-Republican Senator Arlen Specter changing parties.

I listened to a host of pundits bantering with each other about the change.

How, if Norm Coleman loses in Minnesota, the Democrats can block a filibuster. That this is another sign of the Republican party imploding. That Pennsylvania is turning bluer, and the GOP won't get this seat back.

I guess I come away with the sense that what should happen, usually does. Specter hasn't been a reliable Republican for years. Nor, of course, for that matter are Susan Collins or Olympia Snowe. Or, to be honest, even John McCain.

Who really knows if Mitch McConnell could have whipped Specter into supporting GOP filibusters? Who knows if Harry Reid can get him to vote for cloture?

Anyway, the Senate Democrats have threatened to abuse the 'budget reconciliation' process for any bill on which they don't care to compromise.

If the Senate Republicans had held firm on the stimulus bill, it would at least have been a partisan split.

Maybe it's time the American voters learned, again, just what uncompromising liberal Democratic rule will be like for a few years. It seems that memories of the costly, inflation-ridden 1970s and failed social legislation of the 1960s are gone, or significantly dimmed.

It's well understood that Arlen Specter, aged and gaunt-looking, has been and intends to remain a career Senator. He was trailing his primary challenger, and probably would not have made it to the general election in 2010. His blather about the Republican party having veered to the right on him is a lie. He's been a liberal Republican, which is also known as a Northeast Republican moderate, since he was first elected.

I tend to feel that, if we must have parties, then let's have them mean something. Frequent defectors like Snowe, Specter and Collins make life difficult for the GOP. Despite the chortling of various liberal pundits that the Republican party is washed up, in trouble, in disarray, or any number of other phrases to celebrate its current Congressional weakness, parties naturally ebb and flow in power.

If a more honest culling of Republican Senators results in more focus on just what the party represents, maybe that's a good thing. There's nothing like dissatisfaction with the party in power to make the other party suddenly look a lot better, even if you don't agree with them on everything. The Congressional Democrats could pull that off yet next year.