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Showing posts with label ArlenSpecter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ArlenSpecter. Show all posts
Sestak makes it official, will challenge Specter next year

Sestak makes it official, will challenge Specter next year

The question is whether Sestak is too liberal for Pennsylvania. U.S. Congressman Joe Sestak (D), who represents Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional voting district and most of Delaware County, has one of the most politically liberal voting records in Congress.

On the right, the American Conservative Union says Sestak voted conservatively zero percent of the time. According to the Americans for Democratic Action on the left, Sestak voted liberally 95 percent of the time. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), also on the left, has given Joe Sestak an overall grade of 100.

Sestak votes down the line with unions. The American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, people who work for the government, said that Sestak supported them 100 percent of the time in 2007. The AFL-CIO gave him just a slightly lower rating, saying he voted with them 96 percent of the time in 2007. A conservative business orientated group such as the Club for Growth gave him a rating of just 2 percent.

The League of Conservation Voters said that he voted every single time for more environmental restrictions in 2008.

With the national debt no exceeding $10 trillion, people on both sides of the aisle may be troubled to learn that Sestak is given an “F” by the National Taxpayer’s Union because he voted virtually always for more spending.

The Washington Times has his announcement that he is running here.
What did Specter get by switching parties?

What did Specter get by switching parties?

Moving the Democrats to 60 votes seems to be an extremely valuable gain for them. A loss of his seniority and the prospect of a tough Democrat primary makes wonder why he switched. However, the Hill reports:

Despite promises from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.) would retain his seniority after switching parties, Specter will be put at the end of the seniority line on all his committees but one under a resolution on the floor late Tuesday.

Under the modified organizing resolution, Specter will not keep his committee seniority on any of the five committees that he serves on and will be the junior Democrat on all but one — the chamber’s Special Committee on Aging. On that committee, he will be next to last in seniority. . . . . .


The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has two prominent Democrats predicting that Specter will face a tough Democrat primary next year.

"I'm pleased that he saw the light and decided he would be a better fit for the Democratic Party and I think you have to allow for his political views to evolve," said former DNC chairman Howard Dean in an interview with the Huffington Post. "But he won't win the Democratic primary by taking the position that you should not have [the Employee Free Choice Act] or a public option for health insurance... If he takes these kinds of views, of course there is going to be a Democratic primary."

In a separate interview with the Huffington Post, Democratic strategist James Carville was equally sour on Specter's recent party switch, calling the defection a potential "major event in terms of how the Senate conducts its business," but "a relatively minor event in political history."

"[Specter] was the least reliable Republican. So he will just switch to become the least reliable Democrat," said the longtime Clinton confidant and author of the upcoming book, "40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation." "I wouldn't try to make much more out of it than the political survivor comes up with one more act in a long running play of political survival... The one thing I will give him is I will give him some points for candor for being so upfront about [his switch]."

"I'm not sure this is going to have a great ending," added Carville, who has worked extensively in Pennsylvania politics. "He could get primaried, you know... If [Rep. Joe] Sestak runs, [Specter] will have to fight."


The strange thing is that the Democrats were courting Specter.

In the Democratic Party’s courtship of Arlen Specter, no one may have played a bigger role than Vice President Joe Biden.

Biden has been trying to convince Specter to switch parties for at least the past five years, but those efforts were stepped up once he was sworn in as vice president, a senior White House official said.

Biden has met or spoken on the phone with Specter an average of once a week since the Inauguration. And after Specter became one of three Senate Republicans to support the administration’s stimulus package, those conversations were increased.

In the past 10 weeks, Biden has spoken with Specter 14 times — six in person and eight on the phone, according to the senior official.

Biden said at a fundraiser in Houston Tuesday that he's been trying to convince Specter "that he is really Democrat" for over two decades.

But, he added, "I have been working on that in earnest for the past four years and double-time for the past 100 days."
The problem with Arlen Specter

The problem with Arlen Specter

Senator Specter's explanation for becoming a Democrat is embarrissing -- it is for self preservation, not principle. Just so that he can win election, not to achieve a policy goal.

I am unwilling to have my twenty-nine year Senate record judged by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate.


This is also pretty funny.

Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right.


Does anyone believe that the party has moved further to the right since Ronald Reagan?

Specter apparently also switched without a promise that he would get any chairmanship of any committees. Given that his switch likely gives the Democrats a filibuster proof Senate, one would think that he had gotten a better deal.
Arlen Specter Switching Parties, Toomey's run caused him to run in Democratic Primary

Arlen Specter Switching Parties, Toomey's run caused him to run in Democratic Primary

Specter realized that he couldn't win the Republican primary and has apparently switched to being a Democrat. The Democrats promised him that they will do what they can to clear the primary field for him.

The LA Times has this:

Reporting from Washington -- When a Senate Republican left his party in 2001, elevating the Democrats to majority status, one member of the GOP was especially vocal about his displeasure: Arlen Specter.

Specter said then- Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords' decision to become an independent was disruptive to the functioning of Congress. He proposed a rule forbidding party switches that had the effect of vaulting the minority to majority status in the middle of a congressional session.

"If somebody wants to change parties, they can do that," Specter said at the time. "But that kind of instability is not good for governance of the country and the Senate."

Now it is Specter switching parties, proclaiming himself a Democrat. While the move won't throw one party out of power, it could potentially hand the Democrats a 60-vote majority and deprive the GOP of the ability to block legislation through a filibuster.

Eight years ago, Jeffords' decision cost Specter his chairmanship of the Veterans Affairs Committee. Specter said at the time that he wanted the rule change to prevent a party switch that could decisively swing the balance of power in the Senate overnight, disrupting U.S. domestic and foreign policy. . . . .
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