Monday, May 4, 2009
Crazy Crap / Hannan Pirate Phil Valentine Says: Arr-len Specter Be Nothin' More Than a Traitorous Scallywag
Posted by Caleb Hannan on Mon, May 4, 2009 at 10:50 AM
Comments (6)
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I clicked the link and actually read one of his editorials. I think the guy is so blinded by partisanship that he doesn't realize how ridiculous he comes across. Here's a little snippet:
"First, there's the matter of Specter's motivation. If he was down by 15 points against his potential GOP primary rival, that alone speaks volumes about where Pennsylvania Republicans are heading. Conservatism is dead? Hardly. Pennsylvania may be the proverbial canary in the coal mine. Specter didn't jump from the GOP ship. He was shoved overboard."
That's one way to spin it. The truth is that as the Republican party continued to move to the right on social issues and elevate the culture war, many Pennsylvania Republicans switched their registrations. What remains of the Penn Republicans is heading towards a cliff and Specter didn't want to go with the herd. Truth be told, Valentine was right about one thing, that the herd was going to dump him on their way to the cliff anyways and so he jumped off. Whoever is their nominee will make people like Valentine jump for glee but will lose in the general by 20 points or more. No wonder the Republicans are in such trouble: their leaders are seen as people like Valentine. But all I've got to say is: Keep up the ridiculously bad work Phil!
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Specter started out as a Democrat long ago and switched to the Republican party when he perceived it to be in his own self-interest to do so.
Now he's switching back for the same reason.
And that's all there is to that.
No doubt Gilbert. But the real question here is why are the Republicans causing such trouble for the only members of their party who can win? Pennsylvania is a blue state. The guy who Specter was losing to in the polls had virtually no chance of winning the general. Democrats have done this kind of thing in the recent past (i.e. Lieberman) but they have gotten much better about being a big-tent party. Republicans need to tune out the likes of Valentine and Limbaugh and the religious right and start trying to appeal to more people or they will be a minority party for a long time to come.
To put a few numbers on it:
Between 1998 and 2008, Democratic registration in Pennsylvania was up 860,552 while Republican registration rose by just 96,895.
Here's the trend in percentages:
2008 - Dems 44, Reps 37
2004 - Dems 42, Reps 38
2000 - Dems 40, Reps 40
So movement from even to +7 Dem advantage in just eight years.
Source: http://tr.im/kslS
I think industrial state voters just traditionally place putting food on the table as a higher priority. They spent 15 years dabbling with fundamentalism, only to find out that bagging on things like gay marriage won't pay for Missy's braces or keep the cupboard filled with mac and cheese. When Indiana even votes for a black guy, you know someone's come to a revelation.
But the other difference between Tennessee and the Rust Belt is that up north the Democratic Party is always banging the populist economic drum. Down here, we just have the far right (the Republican Party) and the moderately right (the Democratic Party). If you're a health and hearth voter, there's not a horse to ride.
The critics of Specter are doubtless right in one regard: Had he not been hopelessly trailing in the polls and money-raising, he would surely still have an "R" beside his name. It's probably more about survival than ideology. One clue is that Specter, unlike Lieberman, changed parties instead of simply running as an independent after he lost in the GOP primary and taking his chances in a 3-way race.
But the critics miss a larger point. The fact that Specter was so far down tells you a lot about how the GOP has changed from the days when Ronald Reagan issued his 11th commandment (Thou shalt not criticize a fellow Republican in public.) It has changed from the comparatively big tent of the Reagan days, when Reagan said that anyone who agreed with him 70% of the time was welcome.
Where the GOP and Phil Valentine are delusional (among the many places where Valentine is delusional) is in thinking that this purged and refined GOP has any more chance than a fiddler's bitch of winning the general election next year. But they can at least feel more pure about losing.
