Arlen Specter, The Apostate and Prostitute: NO Surprise

Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania (R, now D) made his apostasy from the Republican party official by changing to the Democratic party.  Specter was originally elected to the Senate in 1980 as a Republican in the same year that Ronald Reagan was first elected President, benefiting from the “coattails” that Reagan used to make the Senate Republican for the first time in 26 years.  Specter never advertised himself as an ideologue; he has been consistently difficult to determine how he was going to vote on the crucial issues.   He has stated that his views are more in line with the Democrats now.  That is certainly true with his vote on President Barack Obama’s “stimulus” package.  I write this article to make one simple point.  One, Specter is nothing more than a political prostitute who changed parties to maximize his chances of getting re-elected.

The evidence that Arlen Specter is a political prostitute is overwhelming.  You could also say that he is a political junkie and needs his next fix which is another six years in the Senate.  He has to be addicted to being in the Senate as he has been there for 29 years now.  In the need for his next fix, he is going to do whatever it takes to get those six years, principles be damned.  His pimp/facilitator for his fix was the Republican Party for the last 29 years.  He is old and thought he could so whatever he wanted and the Republican “johns” would continue to “buy” his “services”.  So Specter (along with just two other “Republicans”) voted for Obama’s stimulus package.  One thing Republicans stand for (at least when they are the minority party) is fiscal responsibility.  Specter ceased being a Republican when he voted for this big spending bill.  The Republicans in Pennsylvania had decided that they had enough of him.  Pat Toomey, a former Congressman, had already announced a second challenge to Specter in the Republican primary next year.  (Toomey narrowly lost to Specter in the 2004 Republican primary.) Toomey would have been heavily favored to beat Specter in next year’s primary.  Knowing that the Republican Party was not going to buy his “services” for another six years, Specter changed his outfit so he could “sell” himself to the Pennsylvania Democrats so he can get elected by the whole state for another six years in the Senate. 

I just cannot see how Specter can be a principled servant of the people.  (If he were a servant of the people, he would have served a couple of terms and returned to Pennsylvania.)  Specter will do what he needs to do to get re-elected.  He is still a political prostitute whether he is a forgetful elephant or just a jackass as he is now.  I hope the people of Pennsylvania will get over their sickness (voting for Specter) and vote for someone else next year.