It Just Doesn't Matter

[WilliamPitt]

Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pennsylvania) announced that he is switching parties and will now be a Democrat. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

It Just Doesn't Matter
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Columnist

Wednesday 29 April 2009

As the news of Arlen Specter's defection to the Democratic Party rolled across the news waves yesterday, I kept hearing Bill Murray from the movie "Meatballs" in my head: "It just doesn't matter! It just doesn't matter! It just doesn't matter!"

Which is not entirely true, of course. The fallout after Specter woke up on the left side of the bed on Tuesday has been entirely entertaining, largely hilarious and just significant enough to warrant a little serious attention ... but that's just politics, which is also the entire reason Specter jumped. "I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans," claimed Specter, but that's a lot of hooey; as a Republican, Specter consistently supported several of the most extreme right-wing pieces of legislation ever presented before the Senate.

No, Specter flipped for one simple reason: He was facing an insurmountable primary challenge from his right flank, in the guise of conservative House member and former Club For Growth president Pat Toomey. Down by double digits in the polls, Specter did the simple math, figured his chances of re-election were far stronger if he campaigned under the Democratic banner, and ran into the waiting arms of his colleagues across the ideological aisle.

For the GOP and its supporters, the defection brings yet another shock to an already decimated Republican system; this was rough news for them and no mistake about it. A parade of long Republican faces and clenched Republican jaws have been marching across television screen since the announcement to denounce Specter, the Democrats, President Obama, and pretty much anything else that came into their sight.

"A lot of people said, well Specter, take McCain with you, and his daughter," growled Rush Limbaugh after the news came out. RNC Chairman Michael Steel said in a statement, "Let's be honest. Senator Specter didn't leave the GOP based on principles of any kind. He left to further his personal political interests because he knew that he was going to lose a Republican primary due to his left-wing voting record."

With Specter's departure, goes the media refrain, the last vestiges of so-called "moderate" Republicanism are on the verge of being swept away entirely. But is Arlen Specter actually a moderate, and does his departure actually change anything? "Consider Specter's most significant votes over the last eight years," wrote Salon's Glenn Greenwald on Tuesday, "ones cast in favor of such definitive right-wing measures as: the war on Iraq, the Military Commissions Act, Patriot Act renewal, confirmation of virtually every controversial Bush appointee, retroactive telecom immunity, warrantless eavesdropping expansions, and Bush tax cuts (several times). Time and again during the Bush era, Specter stood with Republicans on the most controversial and consequential issues."

"Arlen Specter," continued Greenwald, "is one of the worst, most soul-less, most belief-free individuals in politics. The moment most vividly illustrating what Specter is: prior to the vote on the Military Commissions Act of 2006, he went to the floor of the Senate and said what the bill 'seeks to do is set back basic rights by some 900 years' and is 'patently unconstitutional on its face.' He then proceeded to vote YES on the bill's passage."

Specter's ideological inconsistency even extends to the act of switching parties, as evidenced by his reaction when James Jeffords (I-Vermont) dumped the GOP in 2001 and briefly handed majority control of the Senate to the Democrats. "Specter said then-Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords' decision to become an independent was disruptive to the functioning of Congress," reported The Los Angeles Times on Wednesday. "He proposed a rule forbidding party switches that had the effect of vaulting the minority to majority status in the middle of a congressional session. ' If somebody wants to change parties, they can do that,' Specter said at the time. 'But that kind of instability is not good for governance of the country and the Senate.'"

Pretty funny stuff right there.

The supposedly big deal for Democrats is the fact that, once Al Franken finally wends his way past Republican roadblocks and takes his Minnesota Senate seat, the addition of Specter to the Democratic caucus lifts their majority to the much-ballyhooed number 60, which is the number of votes needed to thwart GOP filibusters and pass legislation unimpeded. This would seem to be an important victory for the Democrats - for the first time in 30 years, one party controls the White House and Congress with a supermajority in the Senate - but really, it's just a little more theater for the masses to enjoy and the media to misinterpret.

"While the move would create what is likely to be the Senate's 60th Democratic vote, potentially enough to withstand Republican filibusters," reported The Boston Globe on Wednesday, "it would not necessarily change the chamber's legislative dynamics. Democratic successes at expanding their caucus have made it less unified ideologically, and Specter - one of only three Republicans in Congress to back Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus bill - said he expected to defy his new party as readily as he did his old one."

Thus, the idea that Democrats have achieved some lofty threshold of power is almost entirely chimerical; Specter is no more likely to caucus with the Democrats just because he is one than he was likely to caucus with the GOP back when he had an "R" after his last name. Even if Specter took some kind of blood oath to always provide that 60th vote for the Democratic caucus, the threshold itself is largely a media/right-wing confabulation.

For decades, the filibuster was considered a weapon of last resort; the use or threatened use usually only came into play when the Senate had a controversial Supreme Court nominee up for consideration. During George W. Bush's reign of error, the Republican-controlled Congress was able to pass all kinds of insanely anti-constitutional legislation between 2002 and 2006 needing just a simple majority to win, because the Democrats never took the filibuster club out of their bag.

Only when majority power in Congress changed hands after the '06 midterms did the filibuster become a daily part of governance on Capitol Hill, because the GOP used it against everything that moved. The news media, with its absolute lack of context and inability to remember anything more than a day old, has acted and spoken ever since with the incorrect idea that only a 60-vote majority can get anything done in the Senate. This is simply nonsense.

No, the Democrats have had the power to pass just about whatever they want with 51 votes ever since 2006, but have only recently begun to make noises about doing so now that health care reform is on the table. President Obama, unwilling to deal with the 60-vote-threshold fiction, is pushing his allies in the Senate to do away with the rules that give a 41-member minority the power to gum up the works. Senate Democrats could have done this three years ago, and adding Specter to the equation does not change that arithmetic one bit.

Besides, what does it say about a Democratic Party that is so willing to embrace a former Republican who has voted with the far right on so many occasions? "The idea that Specter is a 'liberal' Republican or even a 'moderate' reflects how far to the Right both the GOP and our overall political spectrum has shifted," continued Glenn Greenwald on Tuesday. "Reports today suggest that Democratic officials promised Specter that the party establishment would support him, rather than a real Democrat, in a primary. If true, few events more vividly illustrate the complete lack of core beliefs of Democratic leaders, as well as the rapidly diminishing differences between the parties. Why would Democrats want a full-blooded Republican representing them in the blue state of Pennsylvania? Specter is highly likely to reprise the Joe Lieberman role for Democrats: a 'Democrat' who leads the way in criticizing and blocking Democratic initiatives, forcing the party still further towards Republican policies."

Senators Bayh, McCaskill, Nelson, Lieberman and now Specter represent a core problem within the ranks of the Democratic majority in the Senate. These individuals amount to a cadre of faux-"centrists" who have been, and likely will continue to be, the main line of resistance against Obama's legislative agenda and the improved welfare of the American people. They are the ones most empowered when everyone inaccurately believes the Democrats need 60 votes to pass anything. The annihilation of this fiction will go a long way toward removing these obstacles from the path of progress. Let them vote their consciences, if they have such a thing, without allowing them to hold the entire process hostage.

But then again, maybe that fiction can be made into something useful in the end. Franken will be seated sooner or later, and that 60-vote supermajority will be reached. Once that happens, the Democratic majority will have no more excuses for failing to do what needs to be done. That, in the end, may prove to be the most important part of Specter's defection. But in the main, and despite all the noisy political theater, it really just doesn't matter. Yet.

http://www.truthout.org/042909A

[bigtree]

1. "no more exuses" will certainly be the refrain

. . . but, as you pointed out, that 'super-majority' threshold hasn't yet been met in any way which would ensure that level of unanimity on important issues at voting time.

[Occam Bandage]

2. Why would you draw a distinction between,

"I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans," and "He was facing an insurmountable primary challenge from his right flank?" They're the same thing. The entire moderate contingent of the PA Republican party left for the Dems or Indies, and the remaining teabaggoids strongly believe that any deviation from the hard-right line (such as his stimulus bill vote) constitutes treason. As a result of the Republican shift to the right, and the expansion of the Democratic big tent, his political philosophy and his support base are both now found in the conservative wing of the Democratic party. The claim that Specter left because of political reasons, and the claim that Specter left because his political principles are incompatible with the party, are the same claim focused at different stages of the same timeline: his principles are incompatible with the party, so the party refused to support him, so he switched parties.

This is admittedly a small thing, but it is part of a bigger problem with your article, and indeed most liberal complaints about Specter: the aura of ill-thought-out inconsistency that pervades it. It goes back and forth between suggesting that Specter is a right-wing hardliner, and between proclaiming that Specter is a weak weathervane who goes wherever his party and his polls demand. Never mind that both cannot be true, and never mind that it would actually be fantastic for Democrats if Specter were a weak weathervane, as that would imply he would be as much our lickspittle as you believe he was the Republicans'.

[mikelgb]

8. If he could have one with 1% margin as a Repub he would have.

All he does is prevent a real Dem from getting the seat.

Polls showed the Dem would easily win the seat, so Arlen becomes the dem.

[The Magistrate]

3. Indeed, Sir: At This Point It Is 'Conserva-Dems' Who Are The Real Problem

And Mr. Specter is at best just one more of them....

[WilliamPitt]

5. Thank you, sir.

Excellent to see you.

:toast:

[TahitiNut]

10. Yup. It's hard to say Specter doesn't "belong" when Ben Nelson has cozied up to the GOP even more.

:shrug:

[Dr.Phool]

11. Turning the Dem party into the Repub party, one Senator at a time.

I want people in government who will represent the people's interests, not TPTB. Arlen has always talked a good moderate game, but when the votes came, he went strictly with the wingers in his party.

It's way past time for him to chalk it up as a career, and retire.

[Reterr]

14. Couldn't agree more.eom

[BuyingThyme]

4. I take exception with your thesis.

What Bill Murray was trying to say is that the good guys can do their best but it just doesn't matter because all the good looking chicks will still go out with the guys from Mohawk because they've got all the money. But that no longer applies to the Democrats. We already have far more money than the Pukes and our chicks are the hottest. Just look at George Soros and Stephanie Miller. Arlen can only bring in more cash and more babes.

[WilliamPitt]

6. *snerk*

:rofl:

:)

[JVS]

13. Footage here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3S_k1dRbXY&NR=1

[MyOwnPeace]

7. Specter - not really a gift....................

Yes, it's nice to see him slap the Pugs in the face, but it's only a face-saving move on his part.

Worth asking - is he really what Dems from PA want representing them? I, for one, know that we can do better. Besides, I'll never forgive him for his part in giving us Clarance Thomas!!!:grr: :grr:

[Jackpine Radical]

9. The problem, of course, is that the "center" has shifted so far right

that Specter can actually make a reasonable case for being a moderate in today's climate. Greenwald's list--"the war on Iraq, the Military Commissions Act, Patriot Act renewal, confirmation of virtually every controversial Bush appointee, retroactive telecom immunity, warrantless eavesdropping expansions, and Bush tax cuts--" is one on which a lot of Democrats soiled themselves every bit as much as Specter did. And no, the "talk left, vote right" thing was not lost on me either, but I could envision a case in which Specter was forced to vote against his articulated ideals by a Republican Party dominated by thugs who could have qualified for supporting roles in the Godfather movies.

Interesting things have happened in the past in the minds of people who jumped like Specter did. Suddenly, without the counterweight of Republicanism, they vind their hearts and votes drifting steadily leftward.

And remember, too, that Specter was elected in '92 largely on the basis of talk about health care reform legislation. This may not be the worst time to have him on our side.

[EFerrari]

12. I wonder how many of us put that scene in our back pockets

for later. lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3S_k1dRbXY

[blue neen]

15. 200,000 Pennsylvania Republicans changed their registrations to Democratic last year.

Many of them did that so they could vote for Obama in the primary...I actually helped some of them with their registration forms.

These former Republicans were part of Senator Specter's "base". They cannot stand the idea of right-wing nutjobs like Pat Toomey and Peg Luksik representing PA in any way, let alone the Senate.

Will Sen. Specter vote now to keep his constituents happy or keep up his old Bush-era ways? Time will tell, but I hope that he has truly wised up. Who knows? He is a politician, after all.

[KoKo]

16. Gonna' be a Long Hard Slog...I loved this quote from your post:

"Arlen Specter," continued Greenwald, "is one of the worst, most soul-less, most belief-free individuals in politics. The moment most vividly illustrating what Specter is: prior to the vote on the Military Commissions Act of 2006, he went to the floor of the Senate and said what the bill 'seeks to do is set back basic rights by some 900 years' and is 'patently unconstitutional on its face.' He then proceeded to vote YES on the bill's passage."

Just Saying.......
As one of the "Legacy DU'ers" you've watched that POS poseur (Bluff & Bravado, Specter) and so you know how he works. He's a good catch...sort of like a 100 lb TUNA! It's DEAD...and you don't see the value until it's "cut up and served as SUSHI! Tastes good...but you might be up all night if you bought and consumed it in the "wrong place." If you get my drift.

Great Post...K&R!

[Dr.Phool]

17. Specter flunks his first test. Votes with repukes on budget. Budget passed.

The Budget Passes Both Houses--Specter, Republicans Vote No
By Brian Beutler - April 29, 2009, 6:02PM

The Senate has passed the President's budget by a vote of 53-43.

Just as earlier this month when the Senate passed it's version of the resolution (and just as in the House earlier today) not a single Republican voted for it. And just as last time, they were joined by Sens. Evan Bayh (D-IN) and Ben Nelson (D-NE). And just as last time, Sen. Arlen Specter voted against it, too. Except last time around he was a Republican.

I'll post the full roll call when it becomes available.

Late update: Statements from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell below the fold.

Late late update: Here's the roll call. Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) also voted with the Republicans, presumably over the issue of reconciliation.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/04/the-budget-passes-both-houses.php?ref=fp3

------------------------------------------------------

As I said before, Specter talks a good moderate talk. But, he votes with the right wing 99% of the time.

Full roll call at

http://senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=1&vote=00173

[WilliamPitt]

18. Evening kick

[wcast]

19. Email

I contacted Specter today by email through his web site. I basically told him that if he wants my Democratic vote, he needed to act like a Democrat. And for me, the first step would be supporting Card Check. I told him he was for it two years ago, he could be for it today. If Specter doesn't get on board, labor in this state will not support him and it will be the end to his re-election, because republicans are going to vote for Toomey.

[tomp]

20. the fact that he's been "welcomed" (read: a deal was made)...

...the party (obama)is saying we don't want a more progressive senator from PA. It does matter in what it exposes about the democratic party and obama for those who want to see.

[Laurab]

29. And you surely "want to see".

I took a break, come back, and see you're still always right there to bash Obama - does it EVER get tiring? You're reaching pretty far here - of course they're going to welcome a repug switching over, that doesn't mean "(obama) is saying we don't want a more progressive senator from PA". Wouldn't Arlen have to win a primary first to be re-elected? Who's to say there won't be a progressive Dem to put up a strong challenge? Well, you, I guess.....

WTF were they supposed to do - say "no"?

[tomp]

33. a number of things to address here:

1) "bashing" (or not) is in the eye of the beholder. you could just accept that we have different views on obama, but you and your ilk raise it to the personal level.

2) why would it get tiring? i see what i see, i believe what i believe. responses like yours are what gets tiring.

3) "...of course they're going to welcome a repug switching over, that doesn't mean "(obama) is saying we don't want a more progressive senator from PA"..." It's the "of course" that is the problem. Except for making the republican party look bad, I fail to see how this switch helps the u.s., pennsylvania, or progressives in any way. Please don't try to tell me that the democratic party and obama specifically were not informed or that deals were not made before he switched...really, please don't.

4) we'll see what happens in the primary. i will definitley contribute to virtually any primary challenger to the left of specter. let's agree to wait and see what obama and the party do in the pa primary.

5) yes, they were supposed to say "no", not that i would ever expect them to. politics in the u.s. is a shitty game that should properly be called "the process by which both major parties attempt to fool the people into allowing the corporations to get away with murder." i believe this is historically indisputable and that if you haven't figured it out yet, you're part of the problem--and that's why i'm here.

6) i do not wish to personally offend you or anyone else, but neither am i immune to taking offense. i am a leftist who is forced by political reality to engage with the democratic party and its constituency at some level. my agenda is simple: push the party to the left with all my might. i find very little good in the party (particularly leadership), and less and less good about obama (he virtually lost me completely with his embrace of colin powell. I can just hear you say, "What was he supposed to do, reject the endorsement?" guess my answer, then think about your own views on politics, the war, and torture). my views are very closely alligned with dennis kucinich who suggested during the primaries that he would not support obama if his foreign policy strayed too far right and is right now saying he will not vote for the budget with military expenditures as is (bashing?). there are strong differences within the party. deal with it. the basic question is: if the party or obama does not represent my interests, why should i support it/him? but you can be sure the party will be asking for my vote in 2012 "(because we're better than__________". blank could have been filled with specter's name a couple of days ago).

[Laurab]

34. It's not really worth the time it takes

to argue with you. This is the United States - there is no way in hell a person like Kucinich will be elected to the Presidency any time soon, and he is far from perfect, as you probably well know. He's not adverse to doing little flip-flops of his own to keep the "far leftists" on his side. I really don't care much for Kucinich - in fact I don't find him impressive in the least.

You were the first person I put on ignore several weeks ago. Then I decided an ignore list was stupid, and emptied it. I took a break from here for a while, and the first thread I read today was by Will Pitt, who I happen to be a fan of. And, there you were doing the same thing again. Yes, it's bashing, and you apparently don't miss a chance to do it. I guess you're free to continue because the admins don't seem to mind. I just don't understand what you intend to accomplish.

There's no need to respond, as I won't read it. I'm just going to take another break - I was a much happier person when I wasn't seeing constant bashing of our Democratic President, and the only place I see it is here. DU is an addiction that I'm well on the way to beating.

[tomp]

35. well, even if you're not going to read it...

...at least others can see who is serious about addressing issues and who just wants to label people and dismiss them.

the only thing we seem to agree on is the use (not) of the ignore feature.

will pitt has written some wonderful stuff here and some pure hokum. it's the fan attitude that's the problem.

[EmeraldCityGrl]

21. Outstanding post. Chris Mathews

suggested tonight on KO that Obama may have promised support in exchange for Specter's vote on Healthcare.
Everything Obama does is strategic and methodically detailed. If Specter get's to hang a "D" next to his name as
a last ditch effort to remain in office in exchange for the smooth passage of healthcare reform, I'll put up with him for
a couple more years. After that marginalize him for the rest of his term. He deserves nothing more.

[scentopine]

22. It's a slippery slope...

We all see the radical shift in fundamentalism and extremism that has occurred in the republican party. The democratic party has moved in to fill the vacuum. Why should we Dems become the new conservative movement? We won't have change until we chop heads over the mess on wall street and over torture and people start going to jail for these crimes. Now, Specter makes that change (and justice) even less likely. Arrrgggh.

[Truth2Tell]

23. My first ever Will Pitt thread recommendation.

This appears to be a change of heart Mr. Pitt. Nice post.

[Toucano]

24. It has huge symbolic value.

The defection has media bobble heads asking, "Is the Republican party viable?", "Are Republicans too conservative for America?", and "Did George W. Bush ruin the Republican Party?"

All this can be very helpful.


Plus, I rather enjoy it.

[Fumesucker]

25. What does it say about the Democratic party though..

That Arlen Specter feels the Dems are right wing enough to join them?

Nothing good in my book.

[Toucano]

30. I have not seen that interpretation outside of DU.

The Democrats look like the winning team now. Who doesn't want to be on the winning team?

Specifically, the "right-wing" votes cited in the OP are votes that would not have passed without Democrats voting for them. Democrats like Kerry and Clinton.

Specter fits in fine as another conservative Democratic senator.

[Fumesucker]

31. Of course you haven't seen that interpretation in the M$M

Specter will pull the Democratic party even further to the right, which is where the M$M wants it..

Richard M Nixon would be considered a flaming liberal by the standards of today.

Wage and price controls?

The EPA?

[Senator]

26. They Don't Need Excuses For Failing.

At least nothing any less pathetic than their rationalizations for http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Senator/10">failing to impeach war criminals.

But this can be made to matter. If the Small-D Dems in PA and around the country decide to tell Ed Rendell where he can stick his Sphincter Specter deal (especially his wife's Supreme Court ambitions) and elect an actual Democrat in the PA Democratic Primary.

And this time the "Lamonting" of Specter would hold. Since PA has a Sore-Loserman law that prevents the DC-Dem Analstocracy from overriding the will of the rank and file.

If I were running Greenwald's Accountability Now PAC, I'd be looking to put everything into the Dem primary there to attempt a splashy debut. Send someone to sound out a self-financing and/or famous name who could walk over that old Sphincter sorry Specter -- or if they're able to fund it, resurrect Chuck Pennacchio.

Possibles include Bill Cosby, Kevin Bacon, Julius Erving, Michael Keaton, Sharon Stone, Jerome Bettis and Franco Harris.

===

[kentuck]

27. Well said, WillPitt.

It seems to me that Specter is playing the Democratic Party in PA as fools. He thinks he can continue to vote with the Republicans and the Democrats will vote for him just because he has a "D" behind his name? I don't think they will. I heard this morning that Rep Joe Sestak is thinking of running in the primary against Specter? Why would we give up an almost guaranteed Democratic seat for a hardcore Republican like Arlen Specter?? That baffles me..

[ejpoeta]

28. i don't know why anyone thinks just because he changed the letter after his name

doesn't mean anything as far as voting. he still has the same ideas about things and is still going to vote with the republicans. just like with the budget vote. I think his switch was a wake up call for the GOP because they are pushing their reps away, but Spector shouldn't get the dem ticket unless he is a DEM... and while he is a moderate and sane republican who is at least willing to try to work with the dems, he is still a republican who wants republican things.

[havocmom]

32. his reaction to Jeffers is prime illustration of his 'anything for me- rest can jump in lake' tude

the man is a self serving, lie spouting opportunist and has NEVER been trustworthy. Maybe DEMs on the Hill think they ARE the party and can decide who can and can't run, but the grass roots in PA may have a different point of view about who THEIR candidate should be.

Again, DLC just hasn't noticed that the people lead now. That shortsighted view will land them in trouble not unlike (though to a lesser degree) what the GOP is dealing with.

Keep thinking you are the decider, DLC, and you will find yourselves out of work in about two more election cycles.

WE decide, you work for US.

[Orsino]

36. One fewer Republican is a good thing...

...signaling as it does the increasing shakiness of the GOP's legendary lock-step unity. "It just doesn't matter" that Specter was always on the fringe. "It just doesn't matter" that this flip-flop is largely symbolic, and a cynical ploy by a desperate politician. "It just doesn't matter" that many Republicans are leaving Congress anyway, via various paths.

What is important, if anything is, is that Republicans everywhere are less sure of themselves, more paranoid and readier than ever to turn on each other. The Republican filibuster--if they ever really used it--becomes harder to cobble together. Democrats' window of opportunity to legislate for us just opened a little wider. President Obama has one fewer enemy on The Other Side (whether or not Specter remains an enemy).

It matters, a tiny bit.