Arlen Specter switches parties

[keelap]

I'm surprised no one else has made this thread yet.

What do you all think of Specter's decision to leave the Republican party and become a Democrat? How do you think it fits into current political trends?

[keelap]

Ok, I'll start. I think it's pretty obvious that the Republican party has been taken over by extreme social conservatives who are making moderate Republicans (like Specter) and libertarian-ish Republicans feel excluded. What I'm not sure about is what the end result of this trend will be. Will the Republican party shrivel and die without the support of moderates? Or are there enough extreme social conservatives in the US that the Republican party will be able to survive even without the support of moderates? Or will moderate Republicans get fed up and take control of the party away from the far right?

And if the GOP does continue to drift right, will the Democratic party drift right as well to try to attract moderate conservatives?

[MoneyJungle]

This is a blatant political ploy because he is not conservative enough to win another Republican primary. The Republican party hasn't changed on social issues since the Reagan era began so much as greater society is moving towards social change and they are behind the times. He was never much to toe the party line, anyway, but his timing and lack of stones to man up and become an independent are typical of a politician. I don't see the Democrats drifting right because at this point they don't need moderate conservatives to push their agenda through. In the end, I view this as quitting McDonald's to work at Burger King. The difference is negligible.

[Ferrus]

But it does reflect a Republican party that is ideologically 'purging' itself which is a very dangerous thing for any party in a modern democratic system to do.

Also - in Reagan's time, the social conservatives were less the dominant party, and thus were less shrill and less demanding of ideological purity. It is less that the party's position has changed, rather it is a change in the degree towards which the two wings of the party can accomidate each other.

[30footsmurf]

This is a blatant political ploy because he is not conservative enough to win another Republican primary. The Republican party hasn't changed on social issues since the Reagan era began so much as greater society is moving towards social change and they are behind the times. He was never much to toe the party line, anyway, but his timing and lack of stones to man up and become an independent are typical of a politician. I don't see the Democrats drifting left because at this point they don't need moderate conservatives to push their agenda through. In the end, I view this as quitting McDonald's to work at Burger King. The difference is negligible.

Well Put.

[avolkiteshvara]

It does bring up questions of where the Republicans will turn.

People jumping ship, leaderless, taking cues from Rush Limbaugh.

Will they go more conservative. Will they go more liberal. Will they blow up in their own cluster fuck confusion.

[Technical]

I'm not worried about the Republicans. It'll go back their way in a few years after people realize Obama is just a man.

[lowtech redneck]

Ok, I'll start. I think it's pretty obvious that the Republican party has been taken over by extreme social conservatives who are making moderate Republicans (like Specter) and libertarian-ish Republicans feel excluded.

Spector's loss of support among the Republican coalition has less to do with social conservatism than fiscal "conservatism" (and federalists like myself already disliked him on the basis of his stances on judicial nominees). As for the libertarian wing, the non-federalists among them have pretty much already made the determination that economic freedoms are a higher priority than social freedoms (though the decline of the militant PC brigade on the left might have shifted those numbers a little more toward the favor of the Democratic coalition).