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Whenever I hear this statement I shudder, as if the citizens of Pennsylvania elected a party rather than a man.  Is betraying your party worse than betraying your constituents?  Is it worse then betraying your own principles?

I'm sure that Sen. Spector is a responsible adult and will ask the questions he wants based on his principles, if he does not, as you imply he should not, the big tent is going to feel a whole lot smaller to pro-choice Republicans.

Specter should just put aside his own far-left views on abortion rights and the Constitution and realize that it was never intended that the Courts be used as a hammer by which to impose that which cannot be won in the proper democratic process.  Even if Alito were to someday cast the decisive vote to overturn Roe, then all that would happen is that the same people who keep sending Specter back to the Senate would also decide on state abortion policy.  What is he so afraid of?

Arlen Specter accepted the Republican Party nomination.  He ran as a Republican, calling himself that to the voters of Pennsylvania.

He didn't claim to be independent of the party.  He voluntary accepted the role as the Republican, which brings with it certain responsibilities.

Further, he made certain promises when fighting to get the Chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee.

So yes, if he betrays his party, he's also betraying the voters of Pennsylvania, and the trust given to him by the elected officials in the Republian caucus of the Senate.

I'm almost certain he has stated in the past he thinks Alito is well qualified.  If he can vote for Clarence Thomas, who is not the scholar that Alito is, barring anything that can betrayed as a rightwing rant in the committee, I expect Specter to vote.  He's prochoice, but I think he knows Bush will never nominate a prochoice justice, so why not vote for the most qualified one available - Alito.

please vote to remove this man from his committee position and replace him with someone in touch with reality?

He voted for the partial birth ban that contained no health exception.  He's voted to confirm every single Bush judicial nominee, even ones other Republicans have opposed such as Leon Holmes.

He ran radio ads against Pat Toomey criticizing Toomey for having once supported lifting the RU-486 ban.

but his reputation as being a maverick on this issue is certainly well known to his constituency and likely won him a good deal of votes.

I'm sure he never declared himself independent of the party, but I'm also sure he never ran as a lap dog for the party leadership either.  PA already has that guy, and I doubt he's going to be returning.

I have no idea what promises he made to get his chairmanship, but if one of them is to lob softballs to nominees than I'm through defending his honor.  This is really the crux of my frustration.  Seeing a senator ask easy questions of nominees tells me that they don't really care, and almost shows contempt for their own role in the entire process and me as a voter.  Unfortunately so much of the population is disengaged from this that they can get away with it without losing credibility.

All this guy has to do is vote no in the committe and Alito is finished. If Spector were to vote "No" on Alito, I believe the Republicans would vote to replace Spector on the Judiciary Committe next year. President Bush saved his butt last year by going into Pennsylvania to seal the deal for him. I would rather have someone like Orin Hatch in there as head  of the committe a solid conservative vote. This would kill Spector politically for him to vote against Alito. The other hand would be if they voted him off there would be a "Moderate" backlash on the Republican side that some might defect to the Democrats and switch the power in the Senate. So it is a slippery slope with this issue.

Your comment serves notice that you didn't pay any attention whatsoever to the election of 2004, at least as far as the PA Senate race was concerned. Specter, perhaps more than any other Republican in the Senate, owes his seat to the party leadership.

In the primaries in 2004, the Republicans in PA were ready to oust Specter, and a formidable primary challenger (Toomey) was ready to do the job. However, Rick Santorum, President Bush and the RNC apparatus came to Arlen's rescue and yet even still he barely squeaked out a 51-49 win over Toomey.

Part of that deal was that in return, he would be faithful on what the party desired most, which was a solid hand on judges. So, if Arlen backtracks on that promise, he will be betraying his party.

I just reviewed your files.  You've been here all of 4 days.

Every single one of your posts is straight out of DNC talking points.

FYI for all posters here, this skewter76 looks very, very trollish.

Feel free to review his files and come to your own conclusion.

The RNC backed the moderate Specter over Toomey and now expect him to behave like the far-right Toomey they worked against.  I guess in that sense he is betraying his party, but why would they have made that deal in the first place?  They bargained with Specter when they could have had everything they wanted with Toomey.  The only reason I can see they would ask Specter to sell himself out is that they didn't think Toomey would win in the general and they were probably right, given Bush's results.  Now Specter is looking back and wondering who he owes his allegiance to.  I guess we disagree on the order of what is most important.

I'm assuming that you mean that Bush consistently outran his congressional counterparts (meaning, he had coattails in 2004?)

Quite apart from your departure with reality, there are a lot of things the Republicans are prepared to accept from a liberal Specter. Not voting against the Harkin amendment? Fine. Borking another SCOTUS judge? Not fine. Especially since the primary area of concern about Specter's re-election was that was next in line for the judiciary chairmanship.

Now Specter is looking back and wondering who he owes his allegiance to.

He doesn't need to spend any time thinking about that. For him (and pretty much everyone else in the Senate) the answer is himself.

All the Republicans ran ahead of Bush, including Fitzpatrick, Weldon and Gerlach, who won districts that Bush lost.

I meant generally and nationwide. Especially in swing elections like SC, OK, NC.

My political views are more in line with those of Specter's conservative challenger, but couldn't it be the case that the RNC and the President thought that the challenger was too far right to win?  I don't remember who the Democrat candidate was, but perhaps the RNC and Bush believed that if they stuck with Specter, they'd be sure to keep that Senate seat Republican.

If I'm right on this, then Specter might feel, and not without reason, that he has already repaid his debt to the RNC and Bush by winning the race.  

Couldn't this be a valid interpretation of events?

If he's a Democrat, we should be glad to hear his arguments, so long as they're not deliberately inflammatory.  

It's not "Republicans Only" here, is it?

But it is useful sometimes to have a liberal Republican as the head of the Judiciary Committee.  For instance, he may make the Democratic members feel as if they're views are being heard, with the result that they are less likely to declare an all-out war on a nominee.

You might respond that Democrats are already fighting the current nominee with irrational zeal.  But the situation is still relatively tame, and it could be a lot worse.

Click on the MISSION link and the first words are:

"Welcome to RedState.org, a Republican community weblog."

That's why some of us are here: to AVOID the aggravation of the annoying left.

I recall reading that alternative viewpoints are welcome, even encouraged.  If that is no longer the case then I think you're doing yourselves a disservice.  I actually hold the discourse on this blog in high regard.  It's more civil than most of the lefty blogs I visit.

and I see your point.

It's certainly the right of RedState to have it that way.

but then again, it's not our blog.

were 53% to 42%.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/elections/2004/pa/

I can't find a poll showing how Toomey might have stacked up against the Democrat (Joseph Hoeffel)

Perhaps I should have been more specific.  Specter has derided Originalism and praised the idea of a 'Living Constitution' which 'evolves' over time.  In that respect, he has embraced a leftist view of constitutional interpretation.

And while I certainly respect the vote against partial birth abortion, it really doesn't matter if he joins in efforts to sabotage the nominations of justices who may actually let stand such perfectly reasonable laws.  Its like saying you think marriage laws should be set by the states, but insisting on the type of leftwing judge who would never support letting the states decide.

Re: The RNC backed the moderate Specter over Toomey and now expect him to behave like the far-right Toomey they worked against.  

What is so "far right" about supporting a judge that the president of your own party has nominated?

He can support him with his vote.  What I'm trying to say is that the Judiciary Committee owes it to the nation to ask the questions they feel are relevant.  Obviously there will be disagreements on what is relevant, but to me, as a voter, to see Senators bite their tongues at such a time makes them look like lazy political hacks.

And now I will stop hijacking this thread.

There are, of course, many conservative Democrats.  This website is for all types of conservatives, Republican, Democrat, or otherwise.

And non-conservatives can post here, too.

But this particular poster, skewter76 seems bent on "spinning" every single time he posts.  Go through his history and tell me whether or not he's trying to inject liberal spin into every diary.

You'll come to the same conclusion I did: he's a troll.

Most likely he's from one of the lefty blogs and he's just trying to sow dissent into redstate.

There's also a good chance he's been kicked off of redstate before but because this site blocks usernames and not IP addresses, he got back in under a different username.

And what I see are arguments.  He's not insulting or mocking.  They are often liberal arguments, but he identified himself as a liberal in one of them, so we shouldn't be too surprised.

Now, if RedState wants only Republican or only conservative folks adding posts, that's RedState's decision.  But I don't see that Skewter is doing anything more than respectfully disagreeing.

I'll stop putting up posts on this issue, though, and let you have the last word, if you'd like it.

think that Santorum doesn't do his job very well because

1. is someone that wants to look important and grandstands to do it. The man is obviously intelligent so instead of looking like a buffoon he comes off as sinister.
   
   
2. as head of the judiciary committee should tow whatever party line is regardless of his personal opinions. In this instance he should be the most reliable vote... instead he is one of the iffiest.
   
   
3. as head of the judiciary committee shouldn't be CREATING controversy and sound bites... he should be squelching them. Any dissent he has should be uber-private.

This is supported by when complaints about his 'erupt'... its always about judges!

only because I refused to chance having Joe Hoeffel the Democrat as a Senator.  Specter is frustrating, but would Toomey have won against Hoeffel?

Yes, Hoeffel was a horrible candidate, and the same people who vote for Santorum would vote for Toomey (don't forget the middle of the state and all those votes in Lancaster County, etc.)

What's making me scratch my head is that Alito and Specter are personal friends--have worked on things together in Philadelphia for years and Specter has voiced public support.  If he pulls back from Alito now it will be a personal as well as a party betrayal--I mean, Alito is okay to work with locally, but not nationally?  What does that say about Specter's principles?

as in the Ruth Bader Ginsburg hearings?  If the court has become politicized, and it has, what do you expect the Judiciary Committee to be?  Party loyalty in the case of court appointments is quite appropriate.  If you have situtions where every Democrat votes against a republican nominee you're left without a choice.  And if the party represents a juducial philosophy that adheres to a connection to the constitution rather than a judges moods why shouldn't you vote with the party.

I don't know whether there is some kind of secret conspiracty between liberal Senate staffers and Democrats to get Specter to press Alito on abortion.

We do know, however that Specter was the one that asked the toughest abortion questions of Roberts.

No need for a conspiracy, we should just expect it from him.

the questions that must be asked in this regard are

1. How many Kerry voters would ahve voted for Toomey?
   
   
2. How many Bush voters would not have voted for Toomey?

Kerry was awarded Pennsylvania, but whether he won it or not is an open question, considering the large number of fraudulent votes from Philly.

Needs to recognize that a conservative President is going to pick conservative nominees.  Alito is incredibly well qualified with a great track record in his history of decisions.  Specter would be crazy to oppose him.

And something else to take into consideration is that Bush lost PA to Gore by 5 points in 2000 and Santorum won that year--he lost PA to Kerry by 2.5 points in 2004, so I think Toomey could have won because of the same voter base that re-elected Santorum.  Also, he's a pretty good candidate in and of himself.

Pronoun trouble:  the first "he" is Bush, the second "he" is Toomey.

of the split within the party.  It is not just over social issues.  Its over

the concept of a party which is run by a few elites, people elected by a very

small % of the total population.  That any other congressman or senator who

ran as an (R) does not fall in lock step with the 'leadership' is considered a

back stabbing betrayal is a problem.

The Dems suffer a nearly identical problem, though aren't quite as public at

slaughtering their own.  We can all point to two political parties in the history

of the world which did not tolerate internal dissent and its sad how ours have

devolved to nearly this level.

The only ones who should hold a politician accountable for his votes are

his constituents.  That is why we have elections.  And if the "party" feels so

betrayed, they are within their rights to withhold any funding the next go around.

Unless of course the candidate can beat the Dem opposition or any other 'loyal'

candidate in which case you can be sure the tap will be wide open.

all the "election fraud" whinery came from the Left. Apparently I am wrong.

Perhaps we should hvae a grand bargain: the sore loser (sore winner?) syndrome of crying "He cheated!" should be forever banned from American politics.

Sadly, snowballs have a better chance rolling around the lower deoptsh of Gehenna.

How about banning the cheater, instead. It seems that it's only the Liberals who refuse to separate the bull from its byproduct.

it seems as if both sides have a serious problem with accepting reality. Each believes that it is vastly more popular with the voters than it is with the result than when election results fail to coincide with expectations (or just plain wishful thinking) the cry of "fraud!" goes up.

Sure there's probably a (very little) fire somewhere under the smoke but it's the size of a candle compared to enough smoke to fog the skies over half the republic.

Maybe you should consider the facts from Philly, like the 110% turnout. Of course, some liberals won't see that as fraud.

in regards to both Florida and Ohio in the 2004 and 2000 elections by liberals. One of the reasons I cannot stand KOS is because I cannot stand endless conspiracy theories by people who just can't accept that they lost and therefore harvest various facts (or "facts") which, presented in isolation, seem to back up their dark and devilish fears.

I truly hope Red State will not descend into those depths. Given that the GOP has (thus far) enjoyed vast electoral success it would be especially bizarre to do so.

you're substantially right, although there is a reasonable minority of folks who post there.  It's good for reminding oneself of the fruitlessness of argument in the face of stubborn, virulent bias, but it's also good for sharpening up one's facts and arguments.  If you post a pro-war argument there, for instance, your words will be scrutinized in a way they are not by those who agree.

Think about these numbers, posted at the official Pennsylvania election returns site: Philadelphia county results - Kerry 80% Bush 20%; while no other county had a Kerry-led result of more than 56% - 44%. Maybe there are just a whole bunch more Democrats in Philly than in the rest of the state, but the results look pretty suspicious to me, especially when you consider that Kerry only won the state by about 100,000 votes.

Hard for some of the thread-posters over there to take debate.  Some can, some can't.

Glad there's room for honest disagreement here at RedState.