Obligatory Pennsylvania Blogger Notes That Specter has Switched Parties Post

While I can see as well as any other quasi-poliblogger that Specter faced a probable defeat in a GOP primary just based on the numbers, and while I've snarked in the past about him, I'm going to make a positive statement about this:

When he points out that he doesn't want the GOP primary for 2010 to decide his 29-year career in office, he's talking about having an independence as a member of Congress that the current state of affairs in his former party isn't giving him. I'll also add that because of his years of service to his party and to his constituents, I first of all think that is a tellingly bad state of affairs. It didn't have to be that way. Democrats have Joe Lieberman. We take him grudgingly, but we take him, and Ben Nelson, and Evan Bayh. We have room for dissent.

On the other hand, for the second time he was facing a primary attack from the right, and had been taking heat for his moderate views. Now that Senator Specter has decided to run as a Democrat for 2010, members of his former party, like Michael Steele, talk about "taking him out" in 2010 (not if the numbers say what I think they do--or at any rate, Steele better wager less on that statement than he did on the NY Tedisco/Murphy match for the house seat.) Also, some have gone on about how he "wasn't much of a Republican" or "he was going to switch parties, but he's still a Democrat."

He said it himself--he was a "Big Tent Reagan Republican" back in 1980. He didn't change. He's always been a moderate. The party did. For staying with the party so long and trying to be honorable about it--why not show a little respect?

As for me, I respect his choice.