I wish I could be happier about the whole Specter switcheroo. Honestly, I think it is bad for us ("us" being the forces of truth and justice) in the long run. Sure, it's a great media narrative today, and I love reading articles about the permanent demise of the Republican Party as much as anyone else.
But.
Let's think about the practical consequences. First of all, Specter is going to vote more or less the same way he always has, which is to say, as a conservative with brief moments of sanity. He's apparently still going to oppose EFCA, and hold up Dawn Johnson's nomination. I suspect that if Anita Hill were to show up in front of the Judiciary Committee today, he'd still do his best to browbeat and humiliate her.
Secondly, this means that it is going to be a lot more difficult to replace Specter with a real Democrat. Until this, there were two scenarios in play. Option A, Specter is defeated by Toomey in the primary, and just about any Democratic candidate wins in the general. Option B, Specter loses in primary, runs as an independent, a fairly strong Democratic candidate wins the divided vote. Now, we're stuck with him for the forseeable future: the Democratic machine from Rendell up to Obama has pledged to campaign for him.
The thing about Specter is that he could care less about his "ideals" and his marginalization within the Republican Party. I mean, the Republican Party has been in its current ideological state arguably since Gingrich and Company circa 1994, and certainly for the last nine years. In his last primary, conservatives were trying just as hard to unseat him. The Republican Party has not changed in the last decade; the only thing that has changed is that political conditions have aligned to finally push him out of office.
Now, Olympia Snowe on the other hand...that would be cool.
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