A stunning political defection

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter defected to the Democratic Party this week, shocking Washington and bringing Democrats tantalizingly close to a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Specter, a five-term incumbent, acknowledged that he decided to switch when he realized he would likely lose to a conservative challenger in next year’s GOP primary. But he also said moderates no longer felt welcome in the GOP. “As the Republican Party has moved farther to the right,” Specter said, “I have found myself increasingly at odds with the Republican philosophy.”

Specter’s move leaves Republicans with only 40 Senate seats. If the contested Minnesota race is decided in Democrat Al Franken’s favor, which appears likely, Democrats would have enough votes to cut off debate—giving a huge boost to President Obama’s agenda. “This is transformative,” said Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden. “It’s game-changing.” A day after the announcement, Obama hosted the 79-year-old Specter in the White House and pledged to help him win re-election in 2010.

How many “wake-up calls” do Republicans need? said Dan Balz in WashingtonPost.com. “Demoralized, shrinking, and seemingly lacking an agenda beyond the word ‘no,’” now they have to absorb the blow of losing one of their most senior elected officials. Republicans are becoming a party for only the “solidly conservative.” That orthodoxy pleases true believers, but for a national party, homogeneity is a recipe for electoral defeat and powerlessness.

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Republicans need not panic, said Fred Barnes in The Wall Street Journal. Some moderate Democrats have serious “misgivings” about Obama’s liberal agenda and may join Republicans on key votes. Besides, we’ve been here before. In 1977, the GOP looked beaten, but it rebounded, capturing 17 Senate seats in the next two elections. Specter’s defection is an act of personal ambition—not a harbinger of the future.

It’s true that if Specter could win re-election by “joining the Communist Party, he’d probably do that,” said Jonathan Chait in The New Republic Online. But this is also about Obama. During the Clinton years, Democrats were “losing special elections everywhere, and conservative Democrats were switching to the GOP.” But under Obama, Democrats won a special election in New York and have claimed the first defector. The pattern is clear: “Obama is starting to build a self-sustaining psychology of success.”