Redstate

So are you against any effort to topple Spector?  Many people are not suggesting that we try to take him out of office.  The party messed up with Toomey, and now we are stuck with Spector for 6 more years.  But bringing pressure to bear on the party leaders and on Spector -- backed by the threat of losing his chairmanship -- is the only way we have of keeping him in line

I'd prefer to keep Spector as an R.  But we have to be prepared to threaten, credibly, that there are limits to what we will tolerate.

The first rule of effective politics is to know how to reward one's friends and punish one's enemies.  Specter is an enemy.  Pity that the Administration cannot even recognize him as such.

no good deed goes unpunished.

One would think that if Specter was going to be down home disloyal to the guy who saved his Senate seat and chairmanship he'd at least have the common decency to be quiet about it.

I dont think Specter is an enemy.  He may be one of the loosest R's on board, but think about it:   what does our majority look like in the senate?  Which side does Specter vote on?  As a result, who chairs all the committees, and runs the senate?  

Do we kick out any wobbly or centrist R's when they dont tow the line?  We lost Jeffords that way and lost the Senate.  Is Olympia Snowe next?  Have we not learned?

Also, dont forget Specter's role in harpooning Hillary-care.

wc

than I already do, but I believe the word for men like Specter is "mountebank", as in dishonourable and disreputable.  The President injures his ability to pursue his second-term agenda, and the junior Senator of PA just about falls on his own sword to save Specter's worthless hide, and their sacrifices are requited... not at all.  Mocked, in fact.  Three decades of that man's imbecilities, the Thomas hearings excepted, are more than enough.

im sorry i just have to add:

consider the irony of us bashing spector in the very next thread after we sit back and laugh about the left bashing Corn.

wc

No, wait, he's not. He's just a chattering [cl]ass.

One proposes; the other disposes. The latter is fair game for this sort of thing.

everyone is always fair game, right?

then its simply a question of how much wisdom we show when we turn on our own.  are we so intolerant of dissent within our party?  consider our delight in watching the dems do it.

wc

....isn't very big on this site.

There is only one kind of conservative - anyone who strays from that line is fair game -- unless they're not because of other political concerns.

I defended Specter during the primary battle because of the majority argument.  However, he doesn't vote with the Republicans on many issues and he validates many Democratic objections by making them bipartisan.  For example, after the election he came out against any pro-life Supreme Court nominees.  He didn't have to say anything, but he created an internal rift in the party about who the President can nominate.  He almost lost his judiciary chairmanship because of that flap.

I have no problem with Chaffee (more liberal), Snowe, Collins, or McCain.  I agree with the moderates about as often as I agree with the conservatives, but Specter is a backbiting, selfish man who has no loyalty accept to himself.

In hindsight, the President and Senator Santorum should have sat out the primary and let Specter defend himself.  He would have lost.  And either Hoeffel or Toomey would have been a better Senator.

"knave or poltroon" construct, either of which suits Specter and both together describe him to a T

sorry to keep blabbing about this, but think of it this way:  

if some big time dems wanted to switch parties, would we allow it?   what if it would let us break the filibusters of judicial nominees?

would we reject their support because of what they have said in the past, what they have thought and might continue to think on, say, abortion?

or should we allow them to give us our victory?

i think the choice of being a republican is 90%+ of what we need to know that someone is on our side.

"dissent" that hinders the advancement of a coherent agenda, or even the basic functions of the federal bench, for God's sake, then I am afraid the entire concept of the political party must be jettisoned.  If the Party doesn't exist to pursue some programme of action, what the hell good is it?

hate the traitor

good point about the bipartisanization of resistance, i hadnt considered that.

the pro-life sc nominee flap was just that - a flap.  wasnt it?  or was it an indication that he really will block pro-life noms?  i know we dont really think that...

are we demonizing this guy past the point of redemption?  like the dems have done to bush?

wc

Please.  Even within the construct of your comment is a glaring contradiction: "There is only one kind of conservative".

Gee - you think Arlen even describes himself as a conservative? Come now.

but  but   but

the party has pursued a great deal of action, achieved a prodigous amount of action in fact.

we have done this with paper thin majorities.  sometimes cheney has been the tie breaker.

what action has specter impeded, versus that which his R vote has allowed to move forward?

wc

over the judicial nominations, the hints Specter has been dropping - from his diktat against the nomination of any judges who might even opine that Roe is what it is, a farrago of unreason and sheer willfulness, to his hiring of veterans of the democratic filibuster - cannot be plausibly interpreted as anything other than disloyal efforts to impede action on the nominations, by whatever chicanery can be managed behind closed doors.  That is sufficient.  Or does comity somehow entail that only the left can have its way with the judiciary?

Don't peruse the site much, I take it.

Why can't JSixton read, the parents ask?

I think if Lieberman, Nelson, Nelson, Dorgan, or Lincoln wanted to jump ship we would welcome them.  I also think they would vote and act less provocatively than Senator Specter.  I respect the moderate Dems that I have followed because they are standing up for their views.  Specter is merely looking out for himself politically.  He put Specter/Kerry signs outside of Philly in a swing state after the President pulled him over the top in the primary.  That's a lack of integrity.  It's not his moderation/liberalism that bothers me (I think Chaffee is fine), it's him that bothers me.

It was an unnecessary flap.  No nominee had been placed in front of Specter.  He just came out and made a statement "warning" the President from nominating pro-life Justices.  I am not demonizing him.  I don't think he's evil.  I think he's selfish and only self-interested.  When McCain takes positions that upset conservatives, it's because he believes in his moderate stances (i.e. BCRA).  And he has a following because of it.  Can you name any "Specter Republicans."  He inspires no one.

It would not sadden me to see Specter switch parties (which he will never do because it involves giving up power... the one thing he covets).

I remember how in 2000 John McCain almost brought the country together with his straight talk express but the stinking religious right insisted on pushing that godbothering Bush ha Bush I said Bush and the media never gave McCain enough time to express his views and that cut him off which was deadly in the wake of the Bush moneymedia machine and the dirty tricks Bush pulled in the South Carolina primary that should have come back to haunt him because Gore understood the Bull Moose philosophy better than Bush ever will which reminds me the Bull Moose said something really smart the other day he said Bush is wrecking the country and he's right because even though he's a Democrat who used to be a Republican he pretends to be a Republican like I am right now and don't you remember how when Bush didn't invite personally invite Jeffords down to Crawford it meant the GOP lost the Senate which was fine by me but then the ffffaaaarrr right got the Senate back somehow probably dirty tricks and TR wouldn't have done it that way and neither would St. John the Martyr he's a uniter and he cares only about his country and he would never criticize another Republican for breaking the very basic ideals of the Party because he knows that most members of the Party don't even agree with them God knows he doesn't which is also fine by me just fine diddly doodly and I like to troll on sites and pretend to be a Republican but it's not like anyone reads what I have to say anyway because they figured this out about me like four comments ago and the thing that always tips off anyone who bothers to look is that a troll can always be found talking artificially about being a Republican in syntax and grammar sort of like an anthropolgist studying the natives with a constant smirk while not realizing he's speaking a dialect the natives haven't used for a century so he's not fooling anyone but he doesn't realize that until the spears are pointed right at his thorax but also like the anthropologist he never has any idea at all how freaking obvious it all is.

And that's all I have to say about that.

You have too much time on your hands today.  

Thomas is now being given his Flinstones Chewable Thorazine™ for the day and will be back to normal soon...

It's not just a matter of Specter being "a bad Republican."  The problem stems from his attitude - President Bush did him a great favor by helping him in the primary.  He did him another favor by not scuttling his chairmanship.  The least Specter could do is work with the President on the budget.  Instead he makes a public show of sticking his finger in the President's eye for not giving his subsommittee enough money.

That's my problem with the Senator.  He can be left of center.  He can even be against cutting spending - but don't make a public stink over it and side with Sen. Harkin to fight the President's budget.  Call Bush and talk to him.  Talk to the leadership about how to massage the numbers in your favor.  Don't act like a spiteful brat.

any flap is by definition unnecessary (to say the very least)

I continue to think that we are spending way too much energy fighting specter when we dont even have a 60 vote majority in the senate yet.

ok so specter is imperfect, maybe he even sucks.

but is it a good use of our effort to hound him thus, even as the democrats cede their party to the far left?  oughtn't we turn our negative attention to michael moore, kennedy, hillary, dean, mccauliffe, activist hollywood know-nothings, moveon.org, dailykos, everything kerry represents, and kids wearing orange hats?

dont we have more pressing issues than specter?  

isnt it in our interest to lay off him until those are put to bed?

I have found my spear - if I can just locate his thorax...

I'm fine ignoring Specter if he didn't write Op-Eds in the WaPo opposing the President's budget and if he didn't preemptively oppose the President's nominees.  If he shuts up, I'll shut up.

But I think we all have enough breath to berate those on the far left and all politicians who lack integrity.  And FWIW, we have talked about getting 60+ in the senate, winning in 2006, specifically about winning the races against Nelson (D-FL) and for Chaffee (R-RI).  And those races aren't for 2 years.  Specter is a problem now.

Do you have any concept of how the committee system works in the Senate? Specter is orders of magnitude worse for conservatives (and by extension, the GOP) than any single Democrat in that chamber.

Specter is orders of magnitude worse for conservatives (and by extension, the GOP) than any single Democrat in that chamber.

Judging from your title, about three orders of magnitude worse. Jeez, 1 Specter = 1000 Dems... now that would be an interesting committee to sit on.

Although the Senate by sheer size grants more individual power to members than the House, it is still a body with a need to regulate the members' myriad interests.

Specter is like a Democrat sitting in a position of power simply because he wears that R on his chest. He wouldn't be able to throw his two cents into anything if he switched. IN fact, he admitted that during his first campaign in Philadelphia, when he was deciding with whom to affiliate himself, he chose the Republicans simply because they had bigger coffers at the time.

He has no loyalty to the President, to the party, or to the people of Pennsylvania. It's always been about him. Any sense of loyalty to him is strongly misguided.

ok its my first day posting here so forgive my stubbornness on this issue, but I still think it is a mistake to attack specter.  Here's another try at why:

I would never suggest that anyone here is a devious democratic operative.  But if someone was a devious democratic operative, faced with loss after loss and the prospect of long term minority status and irrelevance, I "might" try anything to win.

Specifically, if I were a democratic operative I would see my best bet in an attempt to fracture the republicans.

What better way to do that than to start with some of the more centrist, controversial or maverick R's and go from there.  Demonization works well for winning permanently committed converts  (as the democrats well know) so lets take that tack.

Lets get some allies in some respected conservative forums and really drive home the wedge.  Knocking down the first senator will be the hard part, after that we should be able to cause a schism along any lines we please - perhaps  abortion would be the best target.

Guys, the race is even.  We are barely winning.  Winning is everything unless you want to see our nation destroyed by a bunch of socialist terrorist-appeasing hippies - the only bet is whether we go down to marxism or to external foes first.

Specter chooses to be a republican, and in the bigger picture, that should be enough for all of us.

wc

So are you against any effort to topple Spector?  Many people are not suggesting that we try to take him out of office.  The party messed up with Toomey, and now we are stuck with Spector for 6 more years.  But bringing pressure to bear on the party leaders and on Spector -- backed by the threat of losing his chairmanship -- is the only way we have of keeping him in line

I'd prefer to keep Spector as an R.  But we have to be prepared to threaten, credibly, that there are limits to what we will tolerate.

Yea, I think I am against that.

Specter is well aware of his court gaffe, and he has taken the heat for it.  He must have recovered well enough behind closed doors to reassure the leadership that he will be ok.

Another reason to give him the benefit of the doubt:  the republican leadership is ok with him.  (if nervous)

If Specter blocks any court nominee -  

can you imagine how much heat he will take for that, and how fast?

But he hasn't done that, and he isnt going to.

So lets keep him in our column and fight the liberal hordes together.  Lets hope the center and the right do not split apart until long after the american left is in the dustheap.

So you are saying we should stay mum about Spector now, but unleash the dogs if he interferes with judicial nominations?  

I don't see why he shouldn't take some heat for the stupid things he says.  Its important to remind him that people are watching.  And then, if he really does stab the president in the back, we can go after him full bore.

if specter interferes with judicial noms, it will be the end of him.  (with or without our dogs)

but yea, I guess that would be an appropriate time.  it would be really very unfortunate if that happened.

wc

He did stab the President in the back...

Specter could have done a lot to help the President's razor thin margin in PA during this past razor thin presidential contest.

Instead he posted "Specter/Kerry" signs in Philadelphia, when his Senate race was not nearly so razor thin. It was a nasty move, and ever since I saw those signs I've been convinced the man is a snake. We can use him for whatever he brings to the party, but don't trust the old codger as far as you can throw him. Isn't that the same attitude he has towards the GOP?