After reading and watching quite a few pundits and general folks try to dissect the reasons for Specter's decision, I've come to a basic conclusion that even when someone says what they mean, it doesn't mean anyone will know what was said.
This entry is x-posted from my blog Everything in Its Own Time.
To be fair, at least one was paying a little bit of attention, and keyed into a very important point. No matter how much the purists in the GOP may wish it otherwise, there must be a place for moderates in the party if the party wants to survive. And the GOP is not winning the hearts and minds of the few moderate party members who didn't already leap to the Dems last year by running around calling Specter a traitor. If anything, the GOP is the turncoat by ostracizing the moderates.
As a Pennsylvanian, I've long known that Specter was losing his love for the GOP for quite some time. So, any analysis of the situation that implies that he made this move to save his seat is disingenuous at best. Again, I can't comprehend how hundreds of supposed political experts didn't really hear what Specter was saying.
"I was unwilling to subject my 29-year record in the U.S. Senate to the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate," he said. "But I am pleased to run in the primary on the Democratic ticket and am ready, willing and anxious to take on all comers in the general election."
For the benefit of those who have failed to understand what he meant - explicitly and between the lines - I'll go over this statement. Specter is by no means a stupid person. He fully understood that the GOP had every intention of helping his opponent, Toomey, in the primary because Toomey is aligned more clearly with the radical right. Specter also knew that a large portion of his base - the moderate republicans - had left the party last year anyway. There was no reason for him to put himself up for consideration by the part of the PA GOP that wanted nothing to do with him in the first place. It wasn't about losing - it is about being judged by foes.
Now, if you accept that the majority of his supporters regardless of how they were registered before last year are now registered Democrat, it doesn't seem like such an unpredictable leap anymore. By placing himself on the Dem ballot, he is letting more of his constituents - the ones who put him in office in the first place - decide whether or not he deserves to stay. Remember, PA does not allow voters to cast ballots across party lines in the primary.
"As the Republican Party has moved farther and farther to the right, I have found myself increasingly at odds with the Republican philosophy and more in line with the philosophy of the Democratic Party,"
Now here's the really important statement that has been trivialized by most. Specter didn't change - the GOP did. There are little indications out there about how Specter has been agreeing with the DNC. What most won't dare to whisper is that the radical shift right by the GOP caused the entire scale to move. Radical left today would have been considered "left leanings" at best when I was born at the beginning of the seventies.
So much of politics is centered on semantics, context and perspective. It has been disappointing to me that so many seemed to have missed all three on this one. Hoping that changes next time around. Regardless this is just part one of what looks to be a rather long epic - the demise of the American political landscape as we know it. Change is in the air.