Politics in PA
Apr. 28th, 2009 01:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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blackpaladin, Arlen Specter will be running as a Democrat in the PA senatorial election next year.
After having been up in Allentown a few times in the past couple of months, and reading the papers from that end of the state, I have to say that I *did* expect this. If Specter had remained in the GOP ranks, there were two possible outcomes with any likelihood of occurring:
1. Specter scrapes by Pat Toomey (and/or whomever else) in the Republican primary and goes on to retain his seat by winning the general election.
2. Specter loses the GOP primary to a conservative Republican, who then gets slaughtered in November. A more left-wing politician takes the seat.
Toomey used to be the House guy from my parent's district (which was once also my district, 20-odd years ago). After a close primary race against Specter in 2004, it appeared he was gaining ground. A lot of Specter's support comes from independents (which outnumber Republicans now in PA) and some Democrats; Specter was likely to beat Toomey in a general election, but maybe not in a closed primary. As it became more and more probable that Toomey (or another hard-right-winger) would win the primary, I knew that Specter's only real chance of retaining the seat -- and indeed, IMO, the only chance for *any* sort of moderate to be holding it -- would be for Specter to spike both of the above scenarios and run as a Democrat. (PA is, to me, too big a state for a "Lieberman strategy" to work unless one has a far bigger cult following than most politicians even dream of having.) Specter apparently feels the same as I do.
blackpaladin, Arlen Specter will be running as a Democrat in the PA senatorial election next year.After having been up in Allentown a few times in the past couple of months, and reading the papers from that end of the state, I have to say that I *did* expect this. If Specter had remained in the GOP ranks, there were two possible outcomes with any likelihood of occurring:
1. Specter scrapes by Pat Toomey (and/or whomever else) in the Republican primary and goes on to retain his seat by winning the general election.
2. Specter loses the GOP primary to a conservative Republican, who then gets slaughtered in November. A more left-wing politician takes the seat.
Toomey used to be the House guy from my parent's district (which was once also my district, 20-odd years ago). After a close primary race against Specter in 2004, it appeared he was gaining ground. A lot of Specter's support comes from independents (which outnumber Republicans now in PA) and some Democrats; Specter was likely to beat Toomey in a general election, but maybe not in a closed primary. As it became more and more probable that Toomey (or another hard-right-winger) would win the primary, I knew that Specter's only real chance of retaining the seat -- and indeed, IMO, the only chance for *any* sort of moderate to be holding it -- would be for Specter to spike both of the above scenarios and run as a Democrat. (PA is, to me, too big a state for a "Lieberman strategy" to work unless one has a far bigger cult following than most politicians even dream of having.) Specter apparently feels the same as I do.
