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Specter's Shocking Defection
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The Pennsylvania senator's jump to the Democratic Party may be good for Specter and good for the Democrats. But John Avlon says it's bad for the country. Avlon is the author of Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe Is Hijacking America.
Sen. Arlen Specter’s defection to the Democrats sent shockwaves through Washington that will be felt for months, if not years, to come.
It’s a good day for President Obama, a wake-up call for Republicans, and a bad day for American centrists who believe in checks and balances. Because with Specter and the likely seating of Al Franken, Democrats will reach a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority.
For President Obama, this action on the eve of his 100th day in office reinforces his aim to build a realigning center-left coalition. The groundwork was laid by moderates' and independents' rejection of the Bush administration’s red vs. blue play-to-the-base politics. Obama’s patented “not red states or blue states but the United States” appeals enabled him to win virtually every swing state in the 2008 election. But when a respected five-term Republican Senator of one of those states, Pennsylvania, jumps ship—well, that’s a sign of a swing state becoming Democratic and a once-in-a-generation realignment under way.
Before Specter’s defection is automatically written up as a new chapter in Profiles in Courage, there is reason to question whether the braver, better course of action would have been to stick out another primary fight as a Republican.
But it’s not all due to President Obama’s broad popularity outside the conservative base. It’s due to Sen. Specter’s increasing isolation in the Republican Party. Centrists have been forced to the margins in the Party of Lincoln, even as the party itself has been forced to the margins of American politics. The two dynamics are directly connected.
A decade ago, Republican congressmen dotted the party’s historic home of New England. Now there are none. The trend is continuing across the Northeast, exacerbated not only by Bush-era red-state policies that alienated the moderate majority of voters, but by the party’s penchant for pitting conservative primary challengers against centrist incumbents that ended up aiding only the Democrats. Specter offered up a litany of such self-inflicted losses, from Lincoln Chafee to Wayne Gilchrist to Heather Wilson. “They don’t make any bones about losing elections so long as they purify the party,” he said. “I don’t understand it…There ought to be an outcry.”
Specter was facing another primary challenge from the leader of one such heretic-hunting group, Club for Growth chairman Pat Toomey. The conservative calls for Specter’s head turned to howls when he worked with Maine Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe along with 16 Democratic centrist senators to cut $118 billion of pork from the stimulus bill, enabling its ultimate passage. Seeing the absurdity of the centrist Catch-22, and motivated by his own political survival, Specter realized that he had a better chance of winning a general election than a low-turnout, hard-core partisan primary. And so he leaped.
But before Specter’s defection is automatically written up as a new chapter in Profiles in Courage, there is reason to question whether the braver, better course of action would have been to stick out another primary fight as a Republican. Specter had the support of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which understood that his primary victory was the GOP’s best hope of holding on to the seat. Independent voters appreciate Madison’s vision of checks and balances—that’s why they so often split their tickets, especially in states like Pennsylvania. But the aim of checks and balances—so vociferously defended by Democrats when Republicans tried to invoke the so-called nuclear option over judicial confirmations in 2005, and salvaged by the centrist Gang of 14, including Specter—Is now under threat from the left. Don’t expect many Democratic warnings of the same dangers. In Washington, where you stand is a matter of where you sit. Partisanship trumps principle.
Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America. By John Avlon. 304 pages. Beast Books. $15.95.
Now the hope for checks and balances will lie almost exclusively with the newly formed Centrist Democrat Coalition, led by Evan Bayh, with whom Specter might logically caucus. Specter took pains to repeatedly say “I will not be an automatic 60th vote” in his press conference and seems to identify most with independent Sen. Joe Lieberman as a political soul mate. He is essentially declaring independence from the insanity of hyperpartisan primaries, wanting to be judged by a jury of all his fellow state citizens.
Today, Specter not only confirmed but compounded the Republican Party’s increasingly isolated right-wing activist tilt. By jumping while he was being pushed, he has undercut the already besieged centrist Republican tradition he tried to steadfastly defend for 29 years. He has reinforced as well as reacted to the dynamic he despises—“the extremes of both parties are taking over.”
John P. Avlon is the author of Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics. Avlon was director of speechwriting and deputy director of policy for Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign. Previously, he was a columnist for the New York Sun and served as chief speechwriter for then-Mayor Giuliani.
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Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
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John Avlon’s new book Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America is available now by Beast Books both on the web and in paperback. Advance orders can be placed here. He is also the author of Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics. Previously, he served as chief speechwriter for New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and was a columnist and associate editor for The New York Sun.
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John Avlon’s new book Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America is available now by Beast Books both on the web and in paperback. Advance orders can be placed here. He is also the author of Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics. Previously, he served as chief speechwriter for New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and was a columnist and associate editor for The New York Sun.
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John Avlon’s new book Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America is available now by Beast Books both on the web and in paperback. Advance orders can be placed here. He is also the author of Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics. Previously, he served as chief speechwriter for New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and was a columnist and associate editor for The New York Sun.
ncc81701
In my opinion, there has already been a failure of checks and balances, but the failure is within the Republican party. I don't know how they did it, but they manage to have their party hijacked by the social conservatives who has no check on their power within the party and all traces of balance removed by ridiculing and slamming members of their only party when they do not conform to the strict conservatism backed by the social conservatives.
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n--Y--joebloeThis user is no longer registered.
n--Y--joebloeDocinPA
I am one of those in PA who is highly critical of Specter. It's not because of any social cause. (I don't give a crap about abortion or gay marriage and I'm not in the least bit religious.) It's because he's spending money that we don't have. He is bankrupting my children and grandchildren with his statist agenda. There's a lot more like me, too. Massive spending and borrowing is NOT what made America great. Thriftiness did. (Remember Franklin?)
muddog
Do not blame Mr Spector. He has taken a lot of SH&^%T from his own party because he does not "tow" the narrow wingnut view of the world. Spector did not leave the Republican party, it left him.
"But before Specter's defection is automatically written up as a new chapter in Profiles in Courage, there is reason to question whether the braver, better course of action would have been to stick out another primary fight as a Republican".
Are you joking?. Blame the G.O.P, Spector has been a voice of reason in a room full of nut jobs, I'd say he has held out a hell of a long time as it is. The best thing to happen @ this stage is let the G.O.P. implode and then and ONLY then will it POSSIBLY reemerge as a viable party in the future. It has been held hostage far to long by the FOX noise, Limbaugh, Anne Coulter crowd to long and to lay ANY blame on moderates like Spector is passing the buck.
G.O.P. = R.I.P.
tiotom77
Spectre voted for the $787 billion stimulus without reading it... the writing was on the wall...he's a big spender spectre
jonnylee
Lose the cliche. Spectre was one of only three Republicans who actually took time to constructively work on the stimulus. Even this article references his work in cutting $118 billion from the bill and its plain that to make those cuts, he would need to read what was in the bill - maybe you shouldn't comment on an article "without reading it."
mindlessmissy
He was spending to SAVE your economy ...
That is what he was elected to do ...
Grundy
mindlessmissy-
Wrong on both counts
wrightsrong54
Actually you are 100% correct "not so" mindlessmissy!
Everyone who voted for BHO knew his plans in Nov.
that's why hisjob approval ratings remain in the 60% range!
nemlas
wrightsong54- Better take a look 60% rating in after 100 days is one of the worst showing in our history. As for midless (name fits) what part of the economy is doing better now that Obama has in a mere 100 days tripled Bush's spending? Hosung? Unemplyment, Stocks, Manufacturing? WHAT PART??
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n--Y--joebloedoko84
hahaha this was announced only a few HOURS ago and already there's an article trying diminish it's importance? That's rich!
I feel sorry for the GOP...
SteveStone
Sometimes the stables just need to be cleaned out, thoroughly.
Munodi
So if that's the case, is all that'ts left are shit stains and a bad odor?
Grundy
Munodi-
SteveStone was talking about the Repubs cleaning out their stables but you confused that with the situation at the Democratic stables of donkey & trainers
photoshock
To say that the defection of Sen. Arlen Specter, is bad for the country and for the centrists of the Grand Orgy Party is an oxymoron.
Sen. Specter is and has been the one of the most respected centrists on the 'Hill,' he has a reputation of logical and reasonable thought. But his actions have drawn the ire of the Far Right Wing Nuts of the Grand Orgy Party for the last 8 years.
Now with his defection, he has a real chance of making a difference in the life of this country.
Checks and balances, a priority of the founding fathers, has been abandoned by both parties as a outdated and outmoded concept, that belonged in the past.
We the people, must demand of our elected servants, more of the ideals of the founding fathers, one of which is unity in the face of adversity. We will not long live as a nation, when the elected representatives cannot agree on any simple things, much less the major things like the 'torture' issue.
Thank the powers that be, that Sen. Specter, has the guts to own up to his principles and move his allegiance to the party that best suits his own ideals and ideas.
ebbolles
This account is way too in the moment. Take a longer view of what is going on. The Republican Party has become the party of the white southerner and those who sympathize with Senator John Calhoun's intellectual justifications for the white southern cause. That cause is now so dead. By the end of the Obama years the Republican Party will be doing about as well as the Dixiecrats did in 1948 and getting the same votes. Meanwhile, the Dems will become too large to agree and will split with the Obama/Specter wing holding the middle (which by the old Reagan standards will be center left) versus a more economically left party. This enormous reversal has been gaining momentum since FDR's day, and was fully foreshadowed in the 1964 election when Goldwater carried only the once solidly Democratic South and his home state. By now the process is in its last stages, but still staggers the imagination. Somehow the abolitionist/union party has become the southern/states rights party.
mredder4
You can moan about "checks and balances" but the truth is that if Spector wins re-election, it will be the majority of citizens deciding that the GOP is no longer a valid political party about to check or balance anything. Yeah, that will mean some turmoil for America for a while, but things will even out. Conservatives won't just become Democrats, after all. But the conservative bias of this story that Democrats can't be trusted with a filibuster-proof majority just doesn't stand on two legs.
areukidding
This is very bad for PA democrats. Apparently Ed Rendell and Joe Biden have selected their pal as our next Senate candidate, without asking us, the voters. What about Rep. Joe Sestak -- a real Democrat, with proven electability in a Republican district?
Arlen Specter is interested in one thing: Arlen Specter. He made a lot of noise the last eight years, got press for being independent, then voted with Bush all the way. See today's Glenn Greenwald column over at Salon for a nice summary. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/28/specter/
The Republicans may be wandering in the wilderness, but they can take comfort in the fact that Harry Reid and the Dems will always find new and creative ways to shoot themselves in the foot. Why take a really good shot that a Democrat can beat Pat Toomey in the Senate election in 2010, when you can have Arlen Specter, a Republican who doesn't even promise to vote for cloture, let alone vote for their issues. Brilliant plan, Harry!
I am a PA Democrat, but I will not vote for Arlen Specter. I will sit out the election if I am stuck with him as my candidate.
Just when you think there is hope for your party, they go ahead and prove again that they are HUGE losers!
davidwaters
It's good to see a politician willing to stray from party platforms, even if it means actually joining another party. I think that there should be much more communication and dialogue between the parties and party members to tackle some of the most difficult situations that we face such as global malaria, measles, and malnutrition.
The Borgen Project has good info on the estimated cost of ending global poverty:
$30 billion: Annual shortfall to end world hunger.
$550 billion: U.S. Defense budget.
tiotom77
He voted for the stimulus without reading it...the writing was on the wall
baseballguy2001
The truth is, GWB and his wing nut 'values voters' are the ones responsible for this. Nation building, medicare prescription drugs, NCLB, bailouts, all liberal ideas, and all implemented (mostly) by Bush and the Republican Congress. If the Republicans had been more Libertarian, and less the religious party, America would be in much better shape. All I'm saying is, The Republicans under Bush extended the reach of the Federal Govt instead of limiting it, and empowering the states. If the state of California wants to let folks smoke pot for medical reasons, fine. In my state, folks here wouldn't like that. My point is, abortion, gay marriage, most social issues should be decided by the states, not the feds.
muddog
Should Civil rights been "Decided" by the states?.
How about Women's right to vote?.
roger37
Civil Rights WERE decided by the states. The document is called the Bill of Rights, and it's appended to the friggin' Constitution.
Female suffrage (look it up in the dictionary--you can get them in paperback) was also decided via a Constitutional amendment--and ratified by the states.
roger37
Muddog--Sorry. I took your post completely out of context and my reply was snotty.
Abdiel
The last line of Mr. Avlon's article ignores the significant differences between the Republican realignment and the overall Democratic shift in Congress. The GOP's run to the right has been an internal coup orchestrated by a small division of the party since the 1960s that artificially cannibalized its own moderate seats and squeezed RINOs like Specter out. Conversely, moderate Dem Blue Dogs like Evan Bayh have gained significant power.
I agree with the notion that the country is shifting, but this change is very much a correction to the center after thirty years of largely conservative rule, and does not represent a "taking over" by the liberal left.
lindumsh
The writer's argument that Sen. Spector's decision to change parties is "bad for the country" echoes that of the Senate's minority leader. But its an obtuse argument.
First off, the conservative Republicans had promised to challenge Specter in their primary. We heard no defense of Specter from the Senate minority leader in the face of opposition to a Republican moderate by the right-wing Club for Growth.
Second, we've heard nothing from the Republican right but attacks on the two Republican New England moderates for their votes on the stimulus bill. Perhaps it is only a matter of time before they are driven out of the Republican party.
Third, in light of the growing monolithic conformity among Republicans, under the growing dominance of Rush Limbaugh's yelling, the Democrats have become the only party in the country capable of embracing differing opinions and solutions to the country's problems.
It is the Republican Party's demand for conformity that is bad for the country. Isn't it remarkable that the party that constantly shouts about capitalism and individual freedom is the party demanding absolute conformity? What they are achieving is the conformity of the political graveyard.
Third,
qalnor
No offense, but I think the analysis in this article is way off.
With reference to the suggestion that it's 'bad for the country' to have 60 Democrats, I don't really see how that makes any sense. The idea that there is a huge difference in the Senate between 59 and 60 democrats is complete fiction. The Senate isn't like the House, there aren't large numbers of Senators in each party who are hardcore partisans, and that's especially true of democrats.
I also disagree with your analysis on what this means for the republican party. I don't think that it is necessarily true that it will damage republican 'centrists'. I actually think it will do them a favor, especially if Specter wins in 2010, because it will demonstrate to the party that their left-libertarian/moderate wing isn't going to take a back seat to cristofascists and defense hawks forever.
I will admit though, you could be right about that end of it. If the republicans take this the way Limbaugh wants them to, they'll continue to curl up in a ball and wait for Democrats to piss the public off again.
pauldeman
John, Sen. McConnel pretty much said the same thing and I don't think anyone would call him a centrist. I don't mind hearing from conservatives, just don't care for faux analysis.
If u care for checks and balances, observe the Dem party. That is where the real action will take place.
Thank you.
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