Arlen Spector to change to dem party

Mottleydude said:
The only problem with that analysis is that PA is mostly a mushy middle right of center State. Specter has served his state well as a moderate Republican and he will do so as a blue dog Moderate Democrat. What's the difference between Specter and PA's other Democrat Senator? Not a dimes worth.
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BS, Casey is a regular Liberal Democrat who votes 92% of the time for the Liberal side, he is far from a moderate, like most current Democrats in power.
http://www.acuratings.org/2008all.htm#PA
 
Socrtease said:
Funny you mock the Dem party for it's low moderate membership in the senate, but the Republicans are doing everything they can to chase out and minimize their own moderates. I am surprised that Snow didn't go too. The republican party HATES moderates, and even Graham from South Carolina today was warning of the republicans become a purely regional party. This bed was made by the uber right in the republican party.
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I have to organize my thoughts on this more, but it occurs to me that while there is a compelling interest in having moderates in the Republican Party, many so-called moderates were contributors to the "success" of the Bush years.

If anything, we've just got the wrong kind of moderates. If someone is called a Moderate Republican, the real question to ask might be: "moderate about what?".

It seemed to me that too often D.C. Republicans were moderate about questioning what the hell George Bush was doing to their party. There were some notable exceptions, and I will give credit where it is due to Specter that he did ask some questions of the administration that few other Republicans did.

And I know the natural inclination from the base is to look at this from the opposite: whether guys like Specter should be given a pass for being fiscally liberal or pro-choice as long as they cheer on the war, etc. But this is why it gets complicated for me.

Sometimes moderate doesn't mean better. Sometimes moderate means we get more of everything awful.

Rudy Giuliani was considered socially liberal, and therefore a moderate who could appeal to a broad base of support.

But how socially liberal can you really be when you don't believe in civil liberties for your own citizens or the right of sovereign countries not to face preemptive war?

I wouldn't give Rudy Giuliani a pass in a million years just because I have more in common with him on abortion and same-sex marriage. I have about nothing else in common with him.

I guess it's a mixed bag. I'd trust some hard-core conservatives on certain issues and some moderates on other issues.
 
I'm with Adam for once, republicans need to let the hell go of the same sex marriage phobia. If we depend on laws against gay marriage to uphold the value of family, we're already lost.

But of course, the controllers must keep the parties equally powerful so they can tip it either way on any given election. Republicans must keep shooting themselves with idiotic phobias about gay marriage so they don't upset the balance of manipulation.
 
Dungheap said:
PA is a closed primary state and a lot of people switched to Democratic to vote in the Democratic presidential primary leaving the PA Republican Party fairly hardcore "conservative" types. Given the change in demographics among the Republican primary electorate and the close call back in 2002 when challenged by Toomey, he didn't stand a chance.

What bothers me most about this is that the PA Democratic machine will accept him with open arms so instead of having a real legitimate liberal Democrat pitted against the insane Toomey we get more mushy middle Specter.
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BINGO

You win the prize.

The mushy middle is the order of the day .. and Obama is its King.
 
Adam Weinberg said:
I have to organize my thoughts on this more, but it occurs to me that while there is a compelling interest in having moderates in the Republican Party, many so-called moderates were contributors to the "success" of the Bush years.

If anything, we've just got the wrong kind of moderates. If someone is called a Moderate Republican, the real question to ask might be: "moderate about what?".

It seemed to me that too often D.C. Republicans were moderate about questioning what the hell George Bush was doing to their party. There were some notable exceptions, and I will give credit where it is due to Specter that he did ask some questions of the administration that few other Republicans did.

And I know the natural inclination from the base is to look at this from the opposite: whether guys like Specter should be given a pass for being fiscally liberal or pro-choice as long as they cheer on the war, etc. But this is why it gets complicated for me.

Sometimes moderate doesn't mean better. Sometimes moderate means we get more of everything awful.

Rudy Giuliani was considered socially liberal, and therefore a moderate who could appeal to a broad base of support.

But how socially liberal can you really be when you don't believe in civil liberties for your own citizens or the right of sovereign countries not to face preemptive war?

I wouldn't give Rudy Giuliani a pass in a million years just because I have more in common with him on abortion and same-sex marriage. I have about nothing else in common with him.

I guess it's a mixed bag. I'd trust some hard-core conservatives on certain issues and some moderates on other issues.
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Some good thoughts here.

My observation is that a moderate Repub is someone who is deemed to be moderate on both fiscal issues and social issues, which is unfortunate as there doesn't seem to be any Libertarian moderate Repubs in the senate.

While all a Dem has to do to be labelled a moderate is to vote different on just a single issue, like guns, abortion or war, or even they only have to sound moderate like Obama in order to be given the label by the media and look more palatable to the electorate.

What decides more than anything who is deemed to be a moderate is the media, which leans left.
 
Dungheap said:
ACU rating are garbage. If you really want to know where a particular senator ranks as compared to other senators you should use these:

http://voteview.com/sen110.htm
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They are not garbage, in fact the Liberal rating site I saw before pretty much matched up with the ACU.

Your site (which you probably googled in the time this thread has been up) is stupid because it only looks at ranking rather than rating and by what I saw probably just for the given year and not lifetime.
 
Grind said:
you're a fucking idiot. You can't call 37 senators far right extremeists when they are the bulk of the republicans in the senate. Too fucking bad for you watermark, but they are simply right, not far right.
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Yeah but take a look at where most of those come from. It is not like the country over voters are voting for hard core righties. Christ the dark red at the top of the map are republicans the party wishes would leave. I do too. Maybe if we saw the kind of defection like we saw when Ben Nighthorse Campbell left the Dems it would wake up the Republican party. Maybe there would be a RLC that would encourage the election of Fiscally conservative socially moderate candidates. MAYBE things like homosexuality and abortion would quit being wedge issues. But probably not.

400px-111th_US_Senate_composition.svg.png
 
KingCondanomation said:
Some good thoughts here.

My observation is that a moderate Repub is someone who is deemed to be moderate on both fiscal issues and social issues, which is unfortunate as there doesn't seem to be any Libertarian moderate Repubs in the senate.

While all a Dem has to do to be labelled a moderate is to vote different on just a single issue, like guns, abortion or war, or even they only have to sound moderate like Obama in order to be given the label by the media and look more palatable to the electorate.

What decides more than anything who is deemed to be a moderate is the media, which leans left.
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I think this is the Guy to watch in 2012 http://sclp.us/blog/
 
Dungheap said:
There is plenty of difference between Bob Casey and Arlen Specter. Now, maybe Specter will vote more along the lines of Bob Casey on a going-forward basis but they are not the same by any stretch of the imagination. You will not find a Democrat that will introduce flat-tax legislation. That's the sort of shit that's right up Specter's alley. In the 110th Congress Casey was the 36th most liberal member of the Senate. Specter ranked 56th.

PA isn't all that much of a mushy middle state. It is trending liberal. The way I figure it, for putting up with Rick Santorum the liberals of PA deserve to have at least one bonafide liberal representing them in the Senate. Instead, they get Bob Casey, more moderate than liberal and Specter and firmly entrenched member of the mushy middle.
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I think your missing my point. PA is a mushy middle moderate state or they wouldn't be electing moderates to office like Casey or Rindell. If Specter wins the election it will be because the State of PA values his seniority, his independence and his moderation.
 
uscitizen said:
I believe when MN crowns Frankin that will be 60 considering Spectors move.
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Yup, that's what really counts here and the Republican party will have reaped it's just desserts for becoming the party of extremist. I mean what has to happen for Republicans to lear that the vast majority of Americans want nothing to do with their far right agenda. How low do they have to fall before this sinks in?
 
Jarod said:
No, you have it wrong... The electorate has made a sharp left turn and is much more liberal than it was, Spector has seen that and is moving to keep up with it! Many left the Republican party to vote for Obama, its a closed primary and so he cant get elected in the fring right Republican party of PA!
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You're full of crap too. American still is a center right country. Problem for the Republicans is that they are no where even close to the center and a center left or moderate democrat is far more appealing to the American public then the right wing conservatives are. Rush and those like him are leading there party to ruin is the moral of this story.
 
Socrtease said:
Funny you mock the Dem party for it's low moderate membership in the senate, but the Republicans are doing everything they can to chase out and minimize their own moderates. I am surprised that Snow didn't go too. The republican party HATES moderates, and even Graham from South Carolina today was warning of the republicans become a purely regional party. This bed was made by the uber right in the republican party.
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DISCO!
 
Southern Man said:
"Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out" is pretty much my sentiment. What an asshole. This traitorous act will hopefully give Toomey what he needs to toss Spector out for good.
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Were you calling all those southern Senators traitors when they switched from Democrats to Republicans back in the 70's and 80's?
 
Mottleydude said:
You're full of crap too. American still is a center right country. Problem for the Republicans is that they are no where even close to the center and a center left or moderate democrat is far more appealing to the American public then the right wing conservatives are. Rush and those like him are leading there party to ruin is the moral of this story.
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America is not a center-right country unless by center-right you mean to the left of almost every single Republican elected to national office.
 
AssHatZombie said:
I'm with Adam for once, republicans need to let the hell go of the same sex marriage phobia. If we depend on laws against gay marriage to uphold the value of family, we're already lost.

But of course, the controllers must keep the parties equally powerful so they can tip it either way on any given election. Republicans must keep shooting themselves with idiotic phobias about gay marriage so they don't upset the balance of manipulation.
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These polarized issues are the only thing that get some voters to the polls.
They had to do the marriage issues with the last President election to get out the vote for the Republicans. Or did you think the timing was just coincidence?
 
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