Specter jumped parties after all; Newt and some fellow ne’er-dowells put the matter in perspective here.
I made an impulsive prediction that Specter would go Democrat here, then foolishly backtracked in the face of news reports, as seen here.
The Hill tells us:
Reid also pledged to campaign for him, one of several concessions he made to woo Specter.
Getting Harry Reid to campaign for you is a good thing? I mean, I like the guy, but I’m one of the few.
From the same article:
He [Specter] would continue to oppose card-check legislation, a high priority of organized labor, unless it was rewritten, he added.
So we get one used senator who votes the wrong way. Ah well. Still, the turnabout reminds us once again of the O’Reilly principle: nowadays being an anarchist is better for public image than being a Republican. Which is all right by me: anarchists haven’t done all that much harm.
Why do you like Harry Reid?
He called Greenspan a hack and he pulled a parliamentary maneuver to shut down the Senate for 15 minutes or so to protest back when the Republicans had the majority and they didn’t want to investigate whether the Bush administration distorted intelligence findings on Iraq. Also, I read in the New Republic that the caucus puts a lot of trust in him, and it seems like he’s done a pretty good job getting Obama’s legislation passed. Finally, he seems kind of goofy.
Well, that’s reasonable. The big mark against him, though, is that he’s allowed the filibuster to be used in a way that makes it effectively necessary to get 60 votes to pass any legislation. That’s a very recent phenomena…I think like within Bush’s term, essentially. It’s kind of a catastrophic strategic failure, and, given that, it’s hard for me to give him props for anything else.