Arlen's desperate ploy.....
Arlen Specter switches to the Democratic party in what can only be presumed to be a reelection motivated act, but I really have to wonder about the backroom side of this.
Presumably, the Democrats agreed to "clear the field" in the Dem primary pretty much guaranteeing Specter reelection and have agreed to "honor" Specter's seniority, guaranteeing him a committee chairmanship starting in the next Congress, but what commitments has Specter made towards the Dems beyond just changing names?
(Conveniently on the 100th day of the Obama administration? ....before the press conference tonight?)
Presumably, the Democrats agreed to "clear the field" in the Dem primary pretty much guaranteeing Specter reelection and have agreed to "honor" Specter's seniority, guaranteeing him a committee chairmanship starting in the next Congress, but what commitments has Specter made towards the Dems beyond just changing names?
(Conveniently on the 100th day of the Obama administration? ....before the press conference tonight?)
posted by mikevotes at
1:24 PM
6 Comments:
This is certainly the "old boy" network at play. Loved to have been a fly on the wall when the what if discussion took place between Specter and the Dem. leader.
Specter got everything and promised nothing. What old friends won't do for each other.
Fine with me, but the Republicans must be livid.
The Democrats will be livid after "Chairman Specter" votes against something they want, like National Health Care.
By
Unknown, at 3:01 PM
Well, we don't know what Specter promised. He may have promised something or maybe not. We just don't know all the elements of the deal.
My guess would be that he's agreed to a certain number of cloture votes on certain things, but not all things with the option to then vote against them on the floor.
By
mikevotes, at 3:19 PM
I think this was a bad move.
The Democrats already have the marginal "Blue Dogs", ever keen to show their "independence" from Obama by voting with the Republicans on crucial issues.
We got another marginal Democrat in exchange for abandoning our efforts to elect an effective Democrat. What's to like about this development?
By
Todd Dugdale , at 3:24 PM
I think the bigger drawback is that, once Franken's seated, they have the 60, so they lose that excuse.
And, it's my assumption that alot of the divergences have already been worked out by both sides.
This will not likely be the public spat with the Blue Dogs. Reid will know where Specter is on everything.
By
mikevotes, at 3:59 PM
I have next to no faith in Reid.
It's my assumption that Reid got nothing out of the deal, especially wrt 'divergences'.
Aside from that, Obama has already decided to go the reconciliation route on the budget, so he only needs 51, not 60.
Obama just decided to do an end run around the Blue Dogs, so why get one more?
The only positive development I can draw from this is that the Republican leadership seems to be losing control of their minions.
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Todd Dugdale , at 5:18 PM
And it exacerbates the sense of civil war and titillates the press.
I'm not so sure on the Specter voting on the budget and other things.
I'm sure they'd rather do it with 60 breaking the filibuster than reconciliation if they could. They set up the budget process before they knew Specter had committed.
That doesn't necessarily mean I'm right on this, I'm just trying to say that it's all still open.
I think we'll have to wait and see what happens going forward to get some sense of Specter's sctions..
By
mikevotes, at 5:38 PM
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