Bush’s betrayal of the Republican party is consummated this day
In 2004, President Bush
campaigned actively to help incumbent liberal Republican Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania defeat conservative challenger Rep. Patrick Toomey in the Republican primary, which Specter did by the narrowest of margins.
And today?
Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania said on Tuesday he would switch to the Democratic party, presenting Democrats with a possible 60th vote and the power to break Senate filibusters as they try to advance the Obama administration’s new agenda.
In a statement issued about noon as the Capitol was digesting the stunning turn of events, Mr. Specter said he had concluded that his party had moved too far to the right, a fact demonstrated by the migration of 200,000 Pennsylvania Republicans to the Democratic Party.
“I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans,” Mr. Specter said, acknowledging that his decision was certain to disappoint colleagues and supporters.
Now that his work as a leftist mole in the GOP is done, Specter can put aside the disguise and help the most leftwing president and most leftwing Congress in U.S. history inaugurate a leftist revolutionary regime in this country.
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Jed W. writes:
The conservative message will never resonate with the public until the “movements” mainstream lights disassociate themselves with Bush. The reason is that defending Bush as a conservative rings false. People can smell a phony and therefore discount your message. It’s like his mantra that “Islam means peace.” That’s bull and people knew it so the arguments for the war on “terror” fell apart.
LA writes:
Apparently the immediate factor that drove Specter to switch parties was polls showing him losing to conservative challenger Pat Toomey next year, the same candidate Bush helped Specter beat in ‘04. By the way, Specter will be 80 years old in 2010.
But the larger factor, according to GOP “moderates” Olympia Snowe and Lindsay Graham, is that the Republicans have become unwelcoming to the “moderates,” as explained at Politico:
Two Republicans blame conservatives
Two leading Republicans say Sen. Arlen Specter’s decision to become a Democrat highlights the hostility moderates feel from an increasingly conservative GOP.
“You haven’t certainly heard warm encouraging words about how [the GOP] views moderates,” said Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, one of the few remaining moderate Republicans in the Senate.
Snowe said the party’s message has been, “Either you’re with us or you’re against us.”
Her frustration was shared by Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.), who slammed right-wing interest groups for pushing moderates out of the party.
Specter switched parties Tuesday after a recent poll showed him badly losing a Pennsylvania Republican primary next year to Club for Growth founder Pat Toomey. Toomey’s staunchly fiscally conservative political action committee backs only those Republicans who support a low-tax, limited-government agenda and comes down hard on those who break with party orthodoxy.
“I don’t want to be a member of the Club for Growth,” said Graham. “I want to be a member of a vibrant national Republican party that can attract people from all corners of the country—and we can govern the country from a center-right perspective.”
“As Republicans, we got a problem,” he said.
The internal criticism came less than an hour before Specter walked into the Republicans’ weekly Senate luncheon, where members discuss strategy, policy and other key items on the party agenda.
Snowe criticized party leadership for failing to change its tone after Republicans lost six Senate seats in the 2006 election.
“I happened to win with 74 percent of the vote in a blue-collar state, but no one asked me, ‘How did you do it?’” she said. “Seems to me that would have been the first question that would have come from the Republican Party to find out so we could avoid further losses.”
“Ultimately, we’re heading to having the smallest political tent in history, the way things are unfolding,” Snowe said.
[end of article]
But of course, our liberal managers have been telling us for 30 years that the Republican party is too conservative.
Joseph C. writes:
It was Bush’s (and Santorum’s) disgraceful support for this Benedict Arnold that turned me away from the party in 2004—probably permanently.
Not only was their betrayal of Pat Toomey bad enough, but even worse was the precedent set—i.e. the GOP establishment encouraging Democrats to cross over and vote in the primary, effectively diluting the GOP base. When traditionalists protested, many GOP figures (including Rush Limbaugh) thought it was fine—the advantages of incumbency. (A small measure of justice was extracted when Republicans refused to support Santorum in 2006, ensuring his defeat). In 2008, we saw Limbaugh urging the same thing—on the Democrat side—as he goosed Republicans to register in the Democrat primary to prolong the Obama/Clinton battle.
In 2012, this may well come back to bite the GOP. Imagine if Obama is vulnerable, but still has the Democratic nomination locked up. What is to stop Democrats from switching affiliations just for the primary? Indeed, why wouldn’t they? By voting for a liberal Republican, they can dispirit the GOP base and ensure a liberal wins in November no matter what. It is perfectly legal. They can even claim that “they are forcing us to take a loyalty test” if Republicans try to exclude them. And the GOP will have no moral ground to claim, given that they started and encouraged this practice.
As a solution, I would suggest having a cut-off, say limiting primary voters to those who register with the party one year or more in advance. Or else, go to the jungle primary system like in Louisiana, where everyone runs at once and the top two vote getters have a run-off. This is also legal, as the First Amendment right of freedom of association allows members of a political party not to admit those who they consider at odds with their views.
Give Specter credit for one thing—he changed now. That traitor McCain will probably wait until after his 2010 re-election to switch.
Barbara V. writes:
A Specter one would like to delete from one’s memory.
James P. writes:
Bush’s betrayal of the Republicans was consummated practically every day from January 2001 to January 2009. Specter’s defection is just one of the many deformed and monstrous offspring of Bush’s protracted congress with the Left.
LA replies:
Hah.
You’re speaking of the daily consummations of the process by which our leaders regularly screw us. I was talking about the overall consummation at the end of this process—the takeover of America by the left, which a filibuster-proof Senate may mean.
April 29
Carol Iannone writes:
Good, and there was this quote of Bush posted at The Corner
“I’m here to say it as plainly as I can—Arlen Specter is the right man for the United States Senate. I can count on this man. See, that’s important. He’s a firm ally when it matters most.”
LA replies:
Well of course. Bush could count on him—to assist in the project of destroying conservatism.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 28, 2009 02:12 PM | Send