Specter is toeing the party line, hoping to avoid the attacks. But, like the Dems on national security, the attacks will come anyway.

Yeah, but this way, so will fat-cat money.

The worst thing about politics is that most of the people who want the job are just politicians.

It's time Arlen flipped to the Democratic Party. get on board with the "right" side of politics.

I admit this is fascinating me and I'm interested in how it will come out. Specter will never run as a Dem. His best chance now is running as an independent since he doesn't have the decency to retire, but how will that shake down?

It's time Arlen flipped to the Democratic Party. get on board with the "right" side of politics.
Posted by: George

You think Dems'll have him now? He burned the bridge; everything he does from this point will come across as cheap, I-wanna-keep-my-job patronizing. The only thing Specter's good for now is as a living definition of the term, "Catch-22."

Hell can be a very cold and lonely place---and Arlen Specter is only at the very beginning of that very long lesson....

Oh, if only Long Dong Silver could cast aside his Robes of Injustice, and ride north to save his toady. Karma, Arlen, dear, Karma can be a tad bitter, eh?

This is where Repubulican moderates keep making the same mistake, over and over again. The Club for Growth gang will still primary Specter the right.

Specter had a chance to gain critical labor support that might help him in both the primary ( remember those Reagan Dems ) and in the general election. Labor understands loyalty.

I'd like to believe that Arlen simply screwed this up, that because he's 100 years old and sick, he miscalculated on the card-check announcement and no longer understands PA's shifting demographics and party affiliations. This would mean a Dem against Toomey in 2010, and another Dem senator for PA. But given his cockroach-like ability to survive, I just can't convince myself that he won't get the nomination - most likely by splitting the crazy jeebus vote between Toomey and the other woman running, and likely the general election.

Start with the premise that Specter won't switch parties. Given that he's at least trying to stick with the GOP, then a vote for EFCA doesn't work; the issue is now existential for that party.

Those imagining Specter as something other than a Republican first were deluding themselves. He's made the only choice he had, which was to stick with his party. Good, let's get rid of him next election; we have enough DINO's already.

even if specter's position on the EFCA had impressed his far-right detractors and he somehow gets through his primary challenge, this probably dooms him in the general election. it's very hard to win this state without at least some union support. specter has pretty much burned that bridge.

It's time Arlen flipped to the Democratic Party.

Sen. Not Proven is an egomaniacal weasel and a hack. Why would the Dems want him?

Specter had a chance to gain critical labor support that might help him in both the primary ( remember those Reagan Dems )

PA has a closed primary so Specter will get no help from Dems.

Snarlin' Arlen's only hope is that Toomey and Luksic split the crazy vote in the primary and Dems and labor go the "forgive and forget" route in the general.

And never underestimate the ability of PA Dems to blow elections.

.

Come on, we all knew Spector likes to see his name in print and on TV. After all look at all the time he wasted on the NFL and "Tapegate" with the Patriots because he felt his beloved Eagles (or was it Steelers?) lost to the Patriots several years earlier because because of it, not because the Patriots were the better team.

> Club for growth
That's "club" as in "bludgeon" remember.

when the Republican base continues to blast Specter's "centrism," he'll also get blasted from the other side for betraying labor.

That's the burden of being a "centrist". So far, Spector has managed to win the elections while seriously disappointing (at minimum) the left and right wings in his constituency.

You misspelled Arlen Sphincter’s name.

So, in 2011, after Specter loses his primary and Toomey is smashed into a blob of goop in the gneral, and 6-7 other GOP fascists bite the dust and they're finally nothing more than the Party of Southern Treason, we can come in and get a "real" EFCA, without having to water it down for anybody. Yeah, I know, two years is a long time, but we managed to wait 4 years to get rid of Bush. Consider that getting rid of 40 years of fascism non-violently is hard, because there's no event - like cities in ruin and a defeated army - to completely discredit the fascists, as there was at the end of World War II. Thus, substantial numbers of people can continue to be in support of the movement, and others still have a mindset that is conditioned by 40 years of the fascist propaganda.

We have to continue fighting between now and 2010 even if we lose things in the short term, so we can demonstrate to the sleeping beast that has recently awakened, known as the American Public, where their real interests lie and who supports them. After the "final housecleaning" in 2010, the Republicans will be the irrelevant scum they are in public fact as well as actual fact, and we can get on with cleaning up their disasters.

I think Arlen can reform his positions a bit, stop pandering to extremist right views and join on as a centrist Democrat. I think he would be welcomed into the party.

I think he would be welcomed into the party. -George

No.

He can be welcomed into retirement, and Toomey can lose to whatever actual Democrat runs against him.

We've already got plenty of conservadems lining up to stop progress. Why the hell would we welcome another one?

Any concession to the far Right is like chum for sharks, not satiation.

Isn't Specter another of those urban ReTalibans who used to be a Democrat? Just wondering.

I thought his only hope of re-election was the Lieberman Limbo -- run as an "Independent ReTaliban" He's burned that bridge, along with the bridge of jumping to the Democrats. I can only think he has Chemo Brain (a real malady by the way).

Specter's vote on the "stimulus" doomed him in PA no matter his vote on EFCA. His stand against EFCA is window dressing at this point.

Like most of our long-term politicians Sen. Specter doesn't make many miscalculations.