Posted on 03/12/2009 5:48:07 AM PDT by IbJensen
Ronald Reagan once observed that “a recession is when your neighbor loses his job; a depression is when you lose your job.” U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter said recently we are on the “brink of a depression.” Perhaps that is because he may be about to lose his job.
For months it appeared Pennsylvania’s senior U.S. Senator would cruse to easy re-nomination and likely re-election. The only candidate capable of defeating him in the primary, former Congressman Pat Toomey, was busy with plans to run for governor. Democrats appeared to be without any big name candidates, certainly none with statewide appeal.
Then came the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act, more commonly known as the stimulus bill. It proposed the biggest expansion of government spending in U.S. history. Worse, much of the spending had little to do with stimulating the economy and much to do with expanding the social agenda of a newly minted liberal Democratic President.
Fractious Republicans in Congress united in opposition to the stimulus package. Every Republican in the House and all but three in the Senate voted against the bill. Mr. Specter was one of the three. His vote for the stimulus plan ignited a firestorm of protest at the grassroots of the Republican Party. Mr. Specter’s apostasy caused Mr. Toomey to rethink his plans, and he now appears likely to challenge Mr. Specter in next year’s Republican Primary.
All of this has turned Mr. Specter into a political homeless person. His vote for the pork-laden stimulus package has made him persona non grata in the Republican Party. Even the new national GOP Chairman, Michael Steele, has suggested the party might back someone else in the primary. This has given rise to speculation that Mr. Specter might switch parties and run as a Democrat, but there is little reason to believe he would be welcome there.
Mr. Specter has always been vulnerable within the ranks of the GOP. He came within a whisker of losing to Mr. Toomey in the Republican Primary five years ago. Much has changed since then, all to Mr. Toomey’s advantage.
After leaving Congress, Mr. Toomey went on to head the national Club for Growth, helping to elect conservatives to both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate. He has become one of the most prolific fundraisers in Washington.
Last year, over a quarter million Republicans — mostly so-called moderates — left the party to support Barack Obama. Those were Specter voters, and they aren’t coming back. Thus, the Republican Party is even more conservative now than it was five years ago, when Mr. Specter eked out a 17,000 vote win over Mr. Toomey.
Sensing Mr. Specter is among the walking dead as a Republican, many pundits are predicting he will switch parties and run for re-election next year as a Democrat. But, Mr. Specter remains anathema to the Democratic Party’s dominant left-wing activists who remember his brutal handling of Anita Hill during Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ confirmation hearings.
Mr. Specter had done an amazing job over the years straddling the ideological fence. The problem is those who sit on a fence usually end up getting shot at by both sides, and that is what is happening today. Conservatives in the GOP will grind him up over the stimulus; liberals in the Democratic Party will oppose him because of the Hill and the votes he has cast over the years to try and appease Republican conservatives. His best chance might actually be to take a page from Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman’s play book and run as an independent.
And, Mr. Specter’s biggest test of all lies ahead: his vote on the deceptively-named American Free Choice Act, or “card check.” A vote in favor of allowing card check to go to the floor of the U.S. Senate, would seal his fate within the GOP. Business groups would make Mr. Specter public enemy No. 1.
The combination of an enraged conservative base and a vengeful business community would make it impossible for Mr. Specter to win an election for dog catcher in the GOP. A vote against card check would animate the labor unions, whose support Mr. Specter has always had, and doom him in the general election.
All of this leaves Mr. Specter without a political home. And, after a career in the U.S. Senate of nearly three decades, his next stop could be the retirement home.
Dump the RINO!
“Last year, over a quarter million Republicans — mostly so-called moderates — left the party to support Barack Obama.”
Kinda like Jews for Jesus.
I love a happy ending.
Adjusted for today's America the end of the Reagan quote is:
And recovery is when Jimmy Carter Barack 0bama loses his.
“Kinda like Jews for Jesus”
ewww. No, more like Jews for Ahmadnutjob
YES! Such a dream....
“He’s dead, Jim.”
“Disgraceful, despicable, seditious liars”. These words describe...BO, Dodd, Frank, Pelosi, Reid, Murtha, Spector and many others both Dem and “Republican”.
When such an assault is waged on so many, not out of ignorance but out of intent, one can only take comfort in knowing that they WILL have to answer to a higher authority one day. No exceptions.
My version of justice would be Arlen hearing the following song constantly until his final breath:
Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?
People’d call, say, “Beware doll, you’re bound to fall”
You thought they were all kiddin’ you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin’ out
Now you don’t talk so loud
Now you don’t seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal.
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
You’ve gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street
And now you find out you’re gonna have to get used to it
You said you’d never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He’s not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And ask him do you want to make a deal?
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns
When they all come down and did tricks for you
You never understood that it ain’t no good
You shouldn’t let other people get your kicks for you
You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain’t it hard when you discover that
He really wasn’t where it’s at
After he took from you everything he could steal.
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people
They’re drinkin’, thinkin’ that they got it made
Exchanging all kinds of precious gifts and things
But you’d better take a diamond ring, you’d better pawn it babe
You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him now, he calls you, you can’t refuse
When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You’re invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
Cruse?
Don’t forget Lugar, Snowe, Collins and a host of others. As registered Republicans we haven’t got a party that reflects our beliefs.
Word on the street is that Swann wants to make another run for Governor once Fast Eddie waddles off into the sunset.
I thought it was going to be Toomey-Specter 2 this time.
curse?
“With the loot this disgusting individual will receive he could spend his final years in the most expensive hotel in West Palm Beach.”
West Palm Beach, maybe. Palm Beach, maybe not.
Isn’t Jesus Jewish anyway?
More like the Rats of Hamlin.
my thoughts exactly...one down, two to get. No room for rino’s!
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