Not too many people can make that statement. Back in the ‘90s when I lived and worked in DC, I joined the Capitol Hill Squash Club to work out. In the locker room I’d encounter such notables as Specter, David Boren (the former Oklahoma Senator) and others. From time to time, I would chime in to their political (and other) discussions.
Specter didn’t look too good undraped, but who does? He doesn’t look too good now in the eyes of some Republicans after the Big Switcho yesterday. But you could say, watching the press conference, that he didn’t hesitate to bare his soul about what caused him to change parties.
After all those Senate years, the guy doesn’t want to quit by losing the next Pennsylvania primary. And he has the public service twitch, still. And, “his party has left him.” The switchers all say that, don’t they? I think these reasons are all valid, and Specter is nothing if not a pragmatic politician.
Will he help the Dems? It’s hard to see this prickly pol voting the party line, so the 60-vote majority still doesn’t mean that much. Still, his defection should give the Republicans great pause, for obvious reasons. As Politico pointed out, Specter is the last in a line of big-city Jewish liberal Republicans, like New York’s Jacob Javits.
But, we can predict, he won’t be the last to leave the Party of No.
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