Word: specters
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...though Specter promised not to be a rubber stamp for his new party, he has since shifted leftward into its mainstream. He went from opposing a government-run public option on health care to supporting one and from voting for the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 to urging for its repeal. Specter has also reversed himself to support the controversial idea of pushing health care legislation through with "reconciliation," a parliamentary process that would get it past a filibuster. "That kind of cynical political opportunism turns people off. It's what people think is wrong with Washington," says Toomey...
Principle - or Opportunism? Ultimately, what is going to save Specter or sink him is his record. It's hard to think of anyone else in politics who has charted a path so quirky and defiant of an ideological label. In fact, last year marked the second time he has switched parties; he started his career as a Democrat but became a Republican when he decided to run for Philadelphia district attorney in 1965. He is pro-choice and pro-gay rights. Conservatives have never forgiven him for sinking Ronald Reagan's Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork in 1987; liberals...
...whether Pennsylvania voters will see those kinds of moments as evidence of principle or opportunism. As I followed the candidates around the Philadelphia area recently, I found both sentiments. "He's an independent voice," insists Charles Johns, an Allentown retiree and lifelong Democrat. Johns says he has voted for Specter ever since watching the Bork hearings on C-SPAN. But for Debbie Goldstein, 54, who changed her registration to Republican to vote for him when she was 18, Specter's party switch was the last straw. "I always thought Specter was good for Pennsylvania. He fought to keep the Navy...
...doesn't help Specter's case that he had been vowing not to switch parties practically right up until the moment that he did. Only weeks before, he had argued that it was vital that he stand as a 41st Republican vote in the Senate: "If there's a Democrat in my place, they'll be able to do anything they want...
...Specter professes that he has found a comfortable home in his new party. "Many, many, many people have told me, 'You're the only Republican I ever voted for. Now it's easier,' " he says. What's happening to him, he insists, is a function of larger forces at work. The Republican Party's "sole calculation is defeating Obama in 2012," he says. "The whole country is caught in the cross fire. I would not say no to the stimulus package when it looked to me that the country was about to slide into a 1929 Depression. After my stimulus...