Specter Won't Switch Parties

[Lunar]

not to mention the ward leaders and their organizing machines.  ain't no Independent organizational leaders..

[Keystone Phil]

Phil, to the extent you are doing so, and maybe you are not, equating Specter to Chafee as functionally co-extensive is really not very accurate in my opinion. Specter plays team politics in a way Chafee never did. Sure he bolts from time to time. But in many critical votes he does not.  This appears to me to likely end up as an exchange of a half loaf for an empty pantry, if the plan to depose Specter succeeds.

Please just play along with Phil and pretend he's a liberal. It's easier.

Thanks, troll.

not to mention the ward leaders and their organizing machines.  ain't no Independent organizational leaders..

Well, he's likely going to vote against Card Check now since he keeps saying he'll be the deciding vote. He probably thinks he has a good chance at the nomination now.

That being said, if he loses and wants to run as an Independent, you're right about him struggling to get on the ballot. He has connections but without a party pulling for you, it's nearly impossible to get the 67,000 signatures to get on the ballot here.

[??????????]

[Lief 🗽]

Why would he vote for the EFCA? Unions are pretty much the only large group still supporting the guy...

[Keystone Phil]

Why would he vote for the EFCA? Unions are pretty much the only large group still supporting the guy...

You mean why would he vote against it?

Well, he's insisting that he's going to be the deciding vote and he's saying he will not switch/will run as a Republican so you'd think that, unless he's senile, he has to vote against it. No way to you brag about being the deciding vote and then do something to piss off the members of the party that you're trying to win over. Unless he's getting very cocky and thinks the unions will get him all of those people to switch parties for him in the primary. Oh, how hilarious would that be...

[Marokai Backbeat]

I think it's pretty clear that unless Specter switches to the Democratic Party he is dead. I don't know how you all manage to find topics to keep discussing it.

[CARLHAYDEN]

Saturday, Mar. 21, 2009

Specter downplays re-election bid scenarios
By PETER JACKSON- Associated Press Writer
HARRISBURG, Pa. — U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter summed up his situation as well as anybody this week, when he all but shot down the most recent burst of speculation - that he might quit the Republican Party and run as an independent.

"It is a possibility in the sense that almost anything is a possibility," he told The Morning Call in Allentown. "But I'm not planning to run as an independent."

"Almost anything" also describes what could happen in this long, nationally watched run-up to Specter's 2010 campaign for a sixth Senate term.

It's well-established that Specter angered fellow Republicans when he cast one of only three GOP votes for the $787 billion economic stimulus plan last month. On a looming vote on "card check" legislation to make it easier to unionize workers, Specter is holding out the possibility that he'll buck his party again and support the measure.

Many conservative Republicans are pinning their hopes again on Pat Toomey, the former congressman who came close to ousting Specter in 2004 - within about 17,000 votes out of 1 million cast. Toomey, 47, who heads the anti-tax Club for Growth in Washington, is said to be seriously considering a renewed challenge to the 79-year-old Specter.

Then there are the huge registration gains Democrats enjoyed in last year's presidential campaign, widening their majority to more than 1 million voters. The new Democrats include many former Republicans, presumably moderates who are inclined to support Specter but will be shut out of the GOP primary unless they change parties again.

It's no wonder political observers are speculating about alternative scenarios for Specter's re-election.

One possibility calls for Specter to rediscover his Democratic roots, defect from the GOP and let Gov. Ed Rendell, who got his first job out of law school as a prosecutor under then-District Attorney Specter in Philadelphia, help him raise money. Specter said he wasn't interested.

After that came the scenario that involved Specter ending his four-plus decades in the GOP, skipping the primary and running for re-election in the general election as an independent.

Specter clearly has his own ideas about how to survive in an increasingly right-leaning party.

In recent days, Specter has quietly lobbied Republicans who control the state Senate to support a proposal that would allow independents to vote in the Republican or Democratic primary. He has called individual senators and spoke before the entire caucus - on that and other subjects - earlier this week.

One senator who attended the caucus said it was tough sell.

"It was apparent that he wanted the support" of the caucus, said Sen. John H. Eichelberger, R-Blair, who supports Toomey. "I could tell from the looks in the room and the comments that were made that there wasn't much support for it."

Specter said Friday that the idea has merit.

"It would obviously help me, but beyond my own situation it would help the party," he said in a telephone interview Friday.

[Keystone Phil]

Yeah, I wanted to post stories about him lobbying State Senators to change our primary system but realized it was just a waste. It's not going to happen here.

I'm not sure what other State Senators (besides Eich and Folmer who are basically twins/best pals from the 2006 victories) are publicly for Toomey yet, by the way.