4 days ago
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
One Less Non-Evil Republican
Arlen Specter, one of the few remaining reasonable Republicans, has now defected to the Democrats. Part of me says 'Welcome!' and part of me feels a bit bittersweet that that party has one less beacon of hope in it. (Of course, one can easily see where Specter was in practice based on the voting and legislation cosponsorship records. In fact, my collaborators and I have a couple of plots in our papers that convey it reasonably well.) On the other hand, there is something to be said for being filibuster-proof...
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You considered Specter a beacon of hope? Granted he's far less bad than most Rs, but he's a spineless wanker much like Chafee was. "He's with us except when we actually need him." (I think that's a Harry Reid quote, but I'm not sure). Not sure about the non-evil label. Less evil than most, but he did vote for the Military Commissions Act, the Bankruptcy bill, and the FISA Amendments Act (those are the three quick evil-testing votes I thought of first).
The thing to say about being filibuster-proof is that it would be nice to get there. In practice I doubt we'll see it even in the next Congress. Current projections look like another ~4 seat gain, but you have to figure on ass-clowns like Nelson-NE, Bayh, Lieberman, Specter, Landrieu, and so forth bailing on anything important. Or demanding arbitrary concessions to weaken a bill and stroke their own "centrist" egos, as Nelson-NE, Bayh, and Collins did on the stimulus - notably Collins zeroing funding for pandemic flu preparedness. Better than a truly filibuster proof majority would be a return to historical norms such that filibusters are exceedingly rare and momentous events rather than a routine obstacle placed before every single bill where it's allowed...
My take on the Specter move is that it's surprisingly sensible for him (people predicted this a few months back, then figured he'd decided to go down fighting in the R primary when he hadn't switched) but overall not a good thing. Any D beats Toomey in PA, so at the cost of another 18 months of Specter-R we could get a real Democrat into that seat. Maybe Specter-D will pull the full Jeffords and be a regionally appropriate liberal now that he's switched, but I'm expecting more of a Lieberman. He's old, so it's not crazy to expect an open seat in '16, at least. And this move does seem to make Rs unhappy, so there's that silver lining. :-)
I suppose all beacons are relative. :) But I don't consider him evil and I think it is problematic in the long-term for the more moderate members of a party to all leave when that party continues to get lots of votes. If it completely marginalized their influence, then I could just be happy as they go away.
Don't count on a return to historical norms. Those days seem to be solidly over.
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