The AP is reporting that Senator Arlen Specter from Pennsylvania has announced that he intends to leave the Republican party and become a Democrat. If he does, and assuming that Al Franken is confirmed as Senator from Minnesota, that would mean the Democrats would have 60 Senators, a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.I don't think the 60-person majority means the Democrats would do much except whine and dodge and evade, since they only use the theoretical threat of a filibuster by Republicans as an excuse for never doing anything to help American working people. For example, the failure of the Democrats to give American working people the option of having a single-payor healthcare system, or essentially Medicare for everyone, is not because the Republicans prevented it. It's because the Democrats take so many bribes from the health insurance industry, the hospital industry, the doctor's lobbies -- and they're very rich precisely because they so grossly overcharge Americans every single day. So this is one of many cases in which the Democrats sell their votes to the corporations and sell-out the working people of this country. I don't expect 60 corrupt Democrats will bring a big change in the Senate -- just more bribes for the corporations to pay.
But it would make it harder for the Democrats to hide behind the Republicans, and might make it easier for the people of this country to demand the Democrats get up off their lazy corrupt asses and do something for us.
(Pennsylvania's early candidates for Republican Senator primary, 2010)Supposedly the polls were showing that Senator Specter would have a tough fight in the Republican primary in 2010 because Pennsylvania has a hard-core reactionary group in the Republican Party -- Christian Crazies, fundamentalists, racist, gun-loving fans of the drug addict on the radio -- and Specter is just not crazy enough to meet their standards. You've got to be completely insane to get their support, and Specter is more of the traditional old-style moderate Republican, one of the few left in the Republican party. Or should we call it the ReTaliban Party.
Which raises an interesting point. The ReTaliban Party is killing off its own (which is okay with me), destroying the moderates in favor of Sarah's gang, the stupid, the ignorant, the anti-science, the corrupt, the secessionist, racist, fairly crazy Bush-style ReTalibans. Which is fine, except that those people are a minority in this country. So if they kill off their moderates, they will never again be able to win elections except in districts or counties in which they are a majority. Like Utah, for example, or maybe Texas. But in the majority of states, the people fall into a wide variety of political leanings, and many will not vote for the ReTaliban Party.
"A senior White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because no announcement has yet been made, said at 10:25 a.m. EDT Tuesday President Barack Obama was handed a note while in the Oval Office during his daily economic briefing. The note said: 'Specter is announcing he is changing parties.' At 10:32, Obama reached Specter by phone and told him 'you have my full support' and that the Democratic Party is 'thrilled to have you.'
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