Specter's Switch: The Bigger Picture
I'm sure everybody's excited to read more about Arlen Specter. I know I can't wait to keep writing about him. But today's news will have a rather significant impact on a number of the seminal stories and meta-stories that define today's Washington, and it behooves us all to take stock.
Specter, as we've noted a number of times today, could well become the Democrats' 60th senator. But before that can happen, though, Democrats will need to get Al Franken seated, and today's move raises the stakes for both sides of that fight. If you thought Norm Coleman and the national Republican party had little incentive to throw in the towel when Franken represented the Democrats' 59th vote, they have considerably less incentive to call it quits now. If, as is widely presumed, the Minnesota Supreme Court decides in June or July to uphold Franken's victory, the pressure from Washington will be on Gov. Tim Pawlenty to do the unseemly thing and refuse to certify the result.
Maybe he will, and maybe he won't. But all of this means that the progressive groups pushing back on the GOP's attempt to keep the seat vacant will need--or feel the need--to step up efforts like this one.
But let's assume Democrats do get to 60. What then? Well, arguably, it won't necessarily mean a whole lot. It won't mean the President suddenly gets his way all the time. It won't, for instance, mean that major legislation like EFCA or cap-and-trade will suddenly sail through Congress. Those issues have proven intractable even within the Democratic caucus, and the political complications won't go away just because that that caucus is now one member larger.
Sometimes a politician will switch party affiliations and then travel quickly from the center to the party's extreme. That, however, doesn't seem to be Arlen Specter's modus operendi. He said today that he opposes using budget reconciliation to pass health reform. He said, too, that he still opposes EFCA.
Anything can happen, of course, particularly when a politician is faced with a serendipitous combination of low-cost opportunism and high-reward legacy building--the 2010 election and other events may, to some extent, shape Specter's course for him. But unless he surprises everyone and becomes a reliable left-labor Democrat, he'll probably settle in among Democratic conservatives. He could potentially join the so-called Moderate Dem. Caucus. If he does--if he decides he wants to burrow into the niche he carved out for himself during the stimulus debate--that loose group of 15-or-so on the party's right will become that much more power. They'll consider it a vindication of their alliance, and they'll have one more potential vote, if they need it, to water down or thwart the Democratic agenda.
Still, the milestone isn't meaningless. When the Democrats reach the 60-vote threshold, they'll be secure in the knowledge that a supermajorities-worth of senators are vested, to a large extent, in the President's success--that there are diminishing returns to obstruction and that those returns can become toxic if they cause Obama to fail and bring the party down with him. The obvious flip side to that is that Republicans will no longer be able to fall back on party unanimity to thwart the Democrats at all turns. And that can't help but damage the party's psychology and, perhaps more importantly, it's bargaining power. It's easy to overstate things, and there may even be a temptation to do so, but in a lot of ways, it really is (or will soon be) an entirely new playing field.
Josh
Matt
Eric
Brian
Thread drift...
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/04/go_club_go.php
I love it, Josh! Club for Growth = Dem AstroTurf
:)
John
April 28, 2009 7:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, how I wish it were so! That would be beautiful.
April 28, 2009 8:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
This may make it HARDER for Pawlenty to obstruct Franken beyond a MNSC decision -- because obstruction would further endanger the Republican Party in a non-southern state. Franken and the Dems need to keep the focus on what the people of MN need and want for their state: two senators decided by their own voters and courts. Highlight the notion that Republican Party leaders in DC do NOT want what is best for Minnesota.
Also, it seems to me that national Republican leaders will have less sway with folks like Pawlenty, not more. What do they actually have to offer?
April 28, 2009 7:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Only 28% of Minnesotans agree with Norm's appeal to the MN SC.
http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/senate/43699772.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUnciaec8O7EyUsl
April 28, 2009 8:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Theda -- wouldn't national Republicans be able to offer Pawlenty their backing in the 2012 GOP presidential primary if he does his part to keep Mr. "Lying Liars" out of the Senate?
April 28, 2009 10:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Overall, it's unlikely that Specter is going to vote much differently than he would before, but that misses the point. He's going to insist on certain compromises to get his vote, and in return, he'll have to make some compromises of his own. The real effect of the party switch is on just which compromises are made and how far he's willing to bend.
Specter is socially liberal but economically conservative. Looking ahead, most of the big issues coming down the road are a mix of both, so it's not clear how his party switch is going to influence his vote. One thing is for sure - he won't be feeling the pressure from McConnell to maintain party discipline, nor will he be feeling the heat from the CfG, and that can't hurt.
Moreover, the primary threat he felt from Toomey will now be from the other direction. Even if the party supports him, the threat of a grass-roots challenge from the left has to make him more willing to compromise on key issues.
April 28, 2009 7:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're last point is spot on. He actually has to compromise with the left more. If before he was pulled right, it's now the opposite. Sometimes it's just easier to swim with the current of the river that you are swimming in....
April 28, 2009 9:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
sigh. Only "has" should have been italicized.
April 28, 2009 9:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Awesome post!
April 29, 2009 12:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think the biggest impact of today's events will be a psychological one.
The media was focusing on the flu, not the 100 days milestone (fabricated and silly as it may be). This returned the attention squarely to politics, in a big way. And what is the drift that the non-obsessed non-political junkie will pick up? That some very long time Republican Senator decided to switch to Obama's party. It is one more brick in the Obama-may-actually-change-things meme (accurate or not).
I don't think it's going to change the fact that Democrats will still have problems getting legislation passed, at least not for awhile.
April 28, 2009 8:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's a big psychological one--if only to get the media off the one track feeding frenzy that Swine Flu provides.
There's more too, I've been mulling on it off and on throughout the day and just posted it over at the cafe--my first actual researched blog. After reading Brian's post above,though, he's saying something similar: that the Mod Dem caucus just got more powerful.
April 28, 2009 9:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's a hint. Remember hearing about an old radio program from back in the 30's... War of the World ??? The swine flu is the only thing a panicked populace can think about at the moment... and it sells newspapers, magazines, TV and radio time too! It's the best medicine business could get in thid economic downturn - a frightened public looking to the media for guidance and solace instead of their doctors and the government.
April 29, 2009 8:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
heh, that's funny and frightening too.
April 29, 2009 11:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Forget Specter's Party Switch, Norm Coleman Switches Identities http://satiricalpolitical.com/?p=7030
April 28, 2009 10:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Campaign Diaries argues that Democrats are making a mistake by embracing Specter so enthusiastically:
April 28, 2009 10:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, that would be instantly crystalized CW of the people who want to do for the Democrats what the CfG has done for the Republicans.
And then there are those who say Specter looked at the prospect of casting two years worth of votes he didn't want to cast in an effort to appease people who would, in the end, be unappeasable. Worse, even if, by some miracle, they were sufficiently appeased to give him the nomination, those same votes would have alienated everyone else in the state so badly that the two years of kowtowing to the right would be worse than useless.
Specter has freed himself to vote however the hell he wants for the rest of his term and, indeed, for the rest of his career, because the next term would almost certainly be his last. On balance, that's going to be a good thing for us. He'll piss us off sometimes, but not as much as the people who'll vote the same way but have always claimed to be Democrats.
What's far more important, and what the "better Democrats" commisars are missing, is that his move has detonated a high explosive charge in the middle of hardened ferroconcrete of the Villagers' base narrative. As Josh famously noted, thirty years of Republican policy dominance left the DC MSM essentially wired Republican, even as the objective facts made their settled narrative increasingly anachronistic. In the normal course of things, it might have taken six to ten years for them to reorient their narrative so that it aligned with the reality of what could be be a a couple of decades of Democratic policy dominance. And unless and until the MSM narrative matches the leftward realignment of the policy paradigm, it poses a serious danger to it's continued existance. Democrats winning wasn't going to be enough to accelerate that process. People like Specter changing sides can--especially given the bluntness of his explanation--and shows signs of doing so.
I'm pretty sure that this is a big part of why Obama and Biden are making a big enthusiastic public deal of this. The bigger a deal they make of it, the more impact it has on the Villagers.
And, as an added attraction, his departure turns up the amperage on the self-destructive feedback loop that the GOP base and officeholders have been in.
April 29, 2009 9:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree. The biggest benefit of Specter's defection is that it becomes increasingly difficult for the media to portray the current Republican Party as anything other than extreme crazies, more rightwing anarchists than principled opposition (of course, the media is just as likely to focus on Specter's "apostasy" over the years, and conclude that he's just an outlier).
But I also think that this highlights the fundamental problem Democrats have, and that is a lack of party unity. You can mock those who want more cohesion in the party all you want, but there's a real problem when you have a significant minority in the party whose main legislative goal is to obstruct and denude their own party's agenda.
I don't want party unity for party unity's sake. But I also firmly believe that the Democrat's best path to long-term dominance is to actually succeed at governance. The fact that the Bayhs and the Nelsons are intent on obstructing out of some vague ideological preference for "fiscal responsibility" (when they've voted in lockstep for budget-busting after budget-busting programs when proffered by a republican president) is nothing short of infuriating.
I don't understand why you continually insist that the "purists' that comment here are more of a threat to a center-left shift than the Blue Dogs, since the dogs complicate that shift and enable media narratives that continue to paint Obama as a wild-eyed radical. I really think your concern is misplaced.
April 29, 2009 10:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Like it or not, Americans comprise a wide range of viewpoints. You can't be ideologically pure and appeal to a majority at the same time.
April 29, 2009 11:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Most people don't have hard and fast ideological viewpoints. In fact, one of the reasons Obama won was through his ability to elide his ideological leanings. You're setting up a false choice between "ideological purity" and majority appeal.
What people generally want is a government that solves their problems. And right now, ordinary people (or at least those not plugged into Fox News) simply aren't clamoring for, e.g., deficit reduction at their expense.
I don't see how the obstructionism of the Bayhs and Nelsons helps Obama govern effectively, and I don't see what they hope to gain by opposing him on vapid, rhetorical grounds. That is, unless he fails, and they can claim they weren't responsible for his failure.
April 29, 2009 11:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, and not unironically, I tend to be a centrist on the unity and cohesion front. The people who really piss me off are the ones like Nelson and Bayh who are self-aggrandizing camwhores whose obstructionism is so clearly directed to trying to enhance their own power rather than due to any honest ideological concerns or concerns about pissing off the homies so bad that they can't get reelected.
On the other hand, however, I do have a problem with the notion that the left wing gets to make the call on who is a good enough Democrat to be allowed to join our reindeer games.
In a two party system, almost of the party's policies are generated and incubated in the wing away from the middle--i.e. the Democrats' left and the Republicans' right and eventually become part of its platform. Some of those ideas are good and some of them are so bad they harm the well-being of the nation and ruin the party's electoral prospects. Generally speaking, the more control that the idea-generating wing of a party gets over who gets to hold office, the more toxic its ideas become.
The relatively greater heterogeneity of the Democratic Party slows down the migration of good ideas from the wing to the party mainstream but it also either keeps the toxic ideas from gaining currency entirely or, alternately, dilutes them down to something less harmful to the party and the nation. This is really frustrating to the idea guys. It does mean that they never get everything they want, even when that would be a good thing, and often don't think they're getting anything they want.
However, I really think we need to take heed of what's happened to the Republicans. Their greater homogeneity meant there was less resistance to the really, really bad ideas incubating in the right wing and they swiftly moved into the party's mainstream. That, in turn, gave the bad-idea proponents the power they needed to implement the Gingrich-era purity purges, which, in turn, cleared the way for the enthusiastic and unquestioning adoption of the even more ruiniously stupid policies of the Bush years. And now they're on the road to extinction like the Whigs and Federalists before them with no off-ramps in sight.
April 29, 2009 11:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
At the risk of joining an "Amen" chorus, I'm in full agreement. I actually spend more time defending Obama on these discussion threads than a reflexive anti-authoritarian like myself is comfortable with, because I think he is trying to move forward in a sclerotic and toxic political environment in Washington (of which the Blue Dogs are Exhibit A).
I do think there's a lot of frustration because of the overwhelming nature of Obama's victory and the (as of now) half-a-loaf quality of the change we believed in. I would be a little more sympathetic to Nelson, et al. if I thought they were opposing the president out of hard analysis or unyielding principle. But the root of their opposition seems to arise of a desire to curry favor with the MSM and tired Beltway CW, and that is really inexcusable.
April 29, 2009 11:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
the problem with the blue dogs is they refuse to believe that government action is the answer.
if it were merely policy differences it would be easier to live with...
April 29, 2009 1:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not sure if this has been discussed but Steele was on the Sean Hannity radio program this afternoon. His first statement was he gave his party the bird. He said something else that was bizarre but I can't think of what it was. If I remember I'll post it.
April 28, 2009 10:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Santorum believes Specter will be a reliable vote for the Democrats. He said he had to work Specter very hard many time to keep in line when he was in the Republican leadership.
We'll see.
April 28, 2009 11:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Reid's been after Specter for three years, and Biden has been in contact with Specter 14 times since the Stimulus vote. I think both know that if Specter is free to vote his conscience on the issue of the day he likely leans Democrat.
In trying to fight off Toomey, he would have had to veer hard right. Now he's much more likely to vote with the Dems on issues, especially when it comes to the issue of cloture.
April 28, 2009 11:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Does anyone seriously believe that if Specter is re-elected in November 2010 when he's 80 and in bad health that he'll still be in office come November 2016 when he's 86 and in worse health?
Arlen is wrapped up in the egofuck of getting re-elected one last time. His party, his health, his state, his own positions on issues are all secondary to that. He just wants to get re-elected one more time, and seems to be perfectly happy to do anything to help that happen, and seems perfectly happy then to drop dead in office thereafter.
Then again, Arlen has been like that for decades.
John
April 28, 2009 11:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
arlen specter is a democrat?
this is excellent news for john mccain!!!!
April 29, 2009 12:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bush Limpballs has asked Spector if he wouldn't mind taking McCain and his daughter with him on his way to the other side.
April 29, 2009 8:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
But does this end the "Obama isn't really reaching out to Republicans" meme?
April 29, 2009 12:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
The repuglican's will argue Specter wasn't really a true repuglican in the first place.
April 29, 2009 8:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
From the Article:
R.I.P. GOP
April 29, 2009 7:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think this is a lesson for the GOP's rabid right wing who want to run everyone who voted for the stimulus package out of office. They are not providing re-election support and putting new right wing candidates to run against them in the primaries. Did they really think an existing senator was just going to sit there and take it. Olympia Snowe, the future is calling you. Next Ben Johnson of Nebraska may actually become a democrat. Anything is possible.
April 29, 2009 8:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
errr....I believe that's 'Ben NELSON'. You stepped on a great line.
April 29, 2009 10:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, I'm not sure we can rule out Nelson actually becoming a Republican. He might claim it's the only "fair" thing to do, to maintain a proper balance of power.
April 29, 2009 11:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's hard to quantify, but hard to underestimate the effect of having 60 senators which will put a stop to the horrid cloture practice in the Senate. A cloture motion precedes virtually every bill of any significance. The GOP insists on party discipline in each case. The result isn't obvious because in the drafting stages compromises are made up front and out of sight in order to overcome the automatic party line vote
Call for Senator Franken!
April 29, 2009 11:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wild guess but if there are not enough voters to elect you in your party....
We know the iq threshold for the gopthingys is low but he got it!
April 29, 2009 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Come on, Brian, take the pledge. No more behooves.
–verb (used with object) 1. to be necessary or proper for, as for moral or ethical considerations; be incumbent on: It behooves the court to weigh evidence impartially.
2. to be worthwhile to, as for personal profit or advantage: It would behoove you to be nicer to those who could help you.
Yeah, it isn't archaic, but it smells like the 19th century.
You'll feel much better if you give it up.
April 29, 2009 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
What does one make of the "Big Picture" after the 2010 national elections, where 9-10 Republican senate seats appear to be vulnerable to loss, compared to only 2 for the Democrats (Connecticut and Illinois)? Holy-Obliteration Batman!
April 29, 2009 1:09 PM | Reply | Permalink