Specter to Republicans: Moderate or Die

April 29, 2009 by blackgirlgrown
Filed under politics

Yesterday, Republican Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania made big news by announcing he is now Democratic Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. In avoiding a nasty primary challenge from the Republican right in Pennsylvania who insist on ideological purity over substance, Arlen Specter opted to become a Democrat. This morning, he was welcomed with open arms by President Obama and Vice President Biden. What a nice gift for his first 100 days in office!

Sophia Nelson, GOP political stratregist, writes in TheRoot.com on how Republicans are really feeling:

Publicly, GOP leaders and operatives are slamming Republican Sen. Arlen Specter for being an “opportunist.” In a scathing statement released soon after the Tuesday announcement that Specter is becoming a Democrat, GOP chairman Michael Steele charged that Specter “only cares about furthering his personal political interests because he knew that he was going to lose a Republican primary due to his left-wing voting record.”

Privately, however, Republicans are grimacing, stunned, angry and thrown off-kilter, by Specter’s defection.

The real issue here is not so much about Arlen Specter but more about what his abrupt departure from the GOP says about the Republican Party and its ever-shrinking political base in American politics.

As a moderate Republican, Sophia goes on to say:

What the GOP needs right now is for solid and sensible Republicans such as Sen. Specter, Chairman Steele, Sen. Olympia Snowe, Sen. Susan Collins, former New Jersey Gov. Christine Whitman, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Sen. John McCain, Gen. Colin Powell, Rep. Eric Cantor, Gov. Bobby Jindal, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and my good friend Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin to work to bring the GOP back to the center and work with their conservative colleagues to build a new unified GOP coalition dedicated to national security, smaller government and fiscal responsibility. Only when this happens will the GOP become a “big tent” national party.

Read her entire column.

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Tags: politics and policy, republicans

Eric K. Foster

As a result of Specter's switch, Jeff Sessions has moved up to ranking on Judiciary. So, we got Specter but his replacement is a cat against the voting rights act, called the NAACP and ACLU communist oriented as well as saying the KKK was a decent group of guys until he found out some of them smoked weed.
Reaganite Republican Resistanc

Everybody knows he did it because he was down 21% in the polls leading-up to the GOP primary for his seat- and Joey Pluggs made a deal with him- he already admitted as such. The sad truth is that this hack has spent three decades in the Senate... while accomplishing little.

And Barack and him have a lot in common- as unprincipled political opportunists- I'm sure they'll get along just great.

Actually, I would vote for PHIL Spector over Arlen- seems like a more stable and trustworthy individual, lol.

Just a little over a month ago, the Senator said in an interview that he wouldn't switch parties due to the importance of checks and balances.

And back in 2001, Sen. Arlen Specter, then a Republican, proposed a rule forbidding party switches... her was upset when Vt Sen. Jim Jeffords’ left the GOP to become an independent.

Who knows what the truth is with this guy, you'll never get it from him.

With all due respect, Senator- don't let the door hit your butt on the way out. Nobody on our side's going to miss you.