Arlen Specter has just announced he will be switching has switched parties and will be running in 2010 as a Democrat.
And here I thought the 59th Senate Democrat was gonna be Al Franken… Looks like he’s gonna be the much sought-after (but not magical) 60!
UPDATE: It should be emphasized that there is nothing magical about 60 votes. As Specter put it,
My change in party affiliation does not mean that I will be a party-line voter any more for the Democrats that I have been for the Republicans. Unlike Senator Jeffords’ switch which changed party control, I will not be an automatic 60th vote for cloture.
So this move is more symbolic than anything, but it is a heck of a symbol!
Please share widely!
Guess he saw the writing on the wall re: Pat Toomey’s primary challenge. I figure he has a few months to prove that he deserves our party’s nomination, and he can start with EFCA.
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p>Turns out that sometimes it backfires if you use primaries willy-nilly against centrists due to insufficient purity.
Reiterated his opposition today.
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p>Of course, Obama and Rendell have already decided he deserves the Democratic nomination. Hey, he has a “D” next to his name! What more do you want?
Hmm, nationally known, seasoned Republican in a perrennial swing state bailing out? Not a good sign for the GOP.
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p>Pity Al Franken, though. By the time he gets seated, he will be in the middle of a campaign for re-election.
The Republican Party’s purity patrol is reducing it to a regional party, based in the South, focused primarily on religious conservatives, with a rump of codependent libertarians.
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p>One way to view this eventuality is as the inevitable outcome of the Southern Strategy.