(* RINO = Republican In Name Only)
The last few week’s news has been abuzz with the Democrats victory in the “bidding war” over Senator Arlen Specter, and he is no longer a member of the Republican Party. The move handily increases the Democrat majority in the US Senate to a filibuster-proof 60%, further weakening any leverage the Republicans might have had in the Senate and, combined with the heavy majority enjoyed by the Democrats in the House, guarantees the most liberal President in the history of the country pretty much anything he wants. So much for Separation of Powers.
This business with Specter has far too familiar a ring to it; wasn’t it just a couple of years ago (2001, actually) that Jumpin’ Jim Jeffords pulled much the same trick by going independent? I remember that much too well because I got myself in some hot water over a Letter to the Editor I submitted to the Argus Leader, which got published and included some, um, unkind words about then-Senator Tom Daschle that our neighbor — a big fan of Daschle — didn’t appreciate. My letter pointed out Daschle’s inconsistency in the matter; he was instrumental in encouraging Jeffords’ defection, which was no surprise because he had much to gain from it. Jeffords’ move to the left side of the aisle also moved Daschle to the position of Senate Majority Leader. Contrast that to Daschle’s criticism of Ben Nighthorse Campbell when he made a similar move left the Democrat Party & became a Republican just a few years earlier.
To my neighbor, Daschle was a model of humanity, and my sin was pretty much unforgivable; things went pretty cold between our families after that, and it wasn’t long before her kids were not allowed to play with ours. She tried to explain it away with imagined issues between the kids, but I knew then that there was more to it than that. I still get dirty looks from those kids, even with eight years distance. I must be a terrible, terrible person.
The Republican Party didn’t miss Jeffords much, and probably won’t miss Specter at all either. His votes tended to align more with the Democrats than the Republicans, and I doubt his party affiliation will change that much at all. Specter’s move was purely political; he and his staffers have decided that there was no way he could win the upcoming primary as a Republican, so now he’s going to take his chances running as a Democrat. I’m sure they’ve calculated the odds of his winning as a Democrat, but now that the voters of Pennsylvania can truly see what kind of man they’re dealing with, his chances might be slightly deflated.
The bigger question that comes out of this defection is what he stands to gain in the Senate for switching sides. Jeffords gained the chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works; at first I was sure that Specter’s prize would be just as princely, but that doesn’t seem to be the case, as he hasn’t even been able to keep his seniority in the Senate, so isn’t eligible for any chairmanships. Serves him right.
I think in the long run this will be a good thing; Specter is a liberal and his voting record shows it. His membership in the Republican Party seems to have always been about political expediency and perpetuating his position in Washington rather than serving his state and its people. This move will be an excellent demonstration to his state’s voters not only that Specter is looking out for number one, but also exactly who number one is. He cannot be trusted, and needs to be voted out. I’m thinking that the next couple of years will wake up a lot of people to the fact that it’s a really, really bad idea to have nutjobs like Pelosi, Reed & Obama running the show in DC in the accountability vacuum that exists there now. We can only pray that in the next two years the long-term damage to the economic and social fabric of the country