What If You Don’t Fly – Superdrag
So I wrote a month and a half ago that Arlen Specter might be switching parties, and mused that it could turn out to be a pretty good deal for the Democrats. Well, here we are. And as far as I can tell, he didn’t even extract any major concessions in terms of sweet deals for it, either.
In the end, I’m not sure it’ll make that much difference. He’ll probably be a relatively reliable Democratic vote, and it might marginally increase the odds on health care. And even if that’s the only effect, I think it’s probably worth it. Health care is tremendously important and I really do think that the next six months is the best chance we’re going to get for a LONG time. So even if the Specter switch only increases the odds by a little bit, that’s still a pretty huge deal.
But there’s other smaller things too, like all the tiny filibusters the Republicans try to run, on stuff that doesn’t make the front page. With Specter and Franken, we’ll actually be at 60 and it will significantly decrease the chance for them to obstruct the tiny stuff. And once you add up a bunch of little things, and give them less ability to gain power through obstruction, I think the result will be an easier path to the entire Democratic agenda.
Add in the fact that Specter is probably going to end up being a relatively middle-of-the-road Dem, and I’m more than willing to take the hit of losing out on a potentially more liberal Democratic challenger. Bird in the hand, two in the bush and all that.
publius also makes an insightful comment on the broader issue here: “Today’s flip further vindicates Clinton’s decision to fight it out to the bitter end in last year’s primary. Looking back, nothing but positives came out of that contest. As I’ve explained before, the primary had an “anti-Tasmanian Devil” effect – rather than chaos, it left stronger party organization and big increases of registered voters in its wake. And it’s that structural shift that doomed Specter. He couldn’t afford to lose hundreds of thousands of moderate PA Republicans.”
I wasn’t happy about it at the time. I thought she hung on too long when it was obvious that she couldn’t win. I never went over the ledge into anti-Hillaryville or anything, but I definitely wasn’t happy about it.
But in retrospect, I was completely wrong. I’m glad she stuck around. I’m glad she let every state have a meaningful primary. I’m glad every state got organized. I’m glad Obama had to beat an actual bona fide candidate in order to win the primary – compared to her, McCain was a patsy. I’m glad that she didn’t feel obliged to back away simply because some people on the internet were angry.
(I feel obliged to point out that Superdrag actually has a new album called Industry Giants. I can’t say it really did much for me, but man I still love Regretfully Yours)