Banking On Specter's Lack of Principles

by: Chris Bowers

Wed Apr 29, 2009 at 12:51


A member of Congress once told me that Representatives who consider changing their votes based on only a dozen or so phone calls from constituents are referred to as "bedwetters" by the other members of Congress. I thought it was funny, but in retrospect I should have asked for a list of the so-called "bedwetting" members. After all, knowing who they are would make it a lot easier to influence congressional behavior. "Bedwetters" are useful to activists.

In this light, Nate Silver is right: Specter's obvious lack of principles is best ray or hope in his entire party switch story.  Given that voting data shows Specter has slowly moved to the right in recent years, then our best hope that his party switch will also result in a broad, overall leftward voting switch will have to come from his lack of principles:

But if you're a Democrat, would you really want Arlen Specter to be anything other than a soulless, unprincipled hack? If Specter were more concerned about self-consistency -- and less about self-preservation -- he'd probably still be a Republican right now. Moreover, Democrats had better hope that Specter is as nakedly power-hungry as possible, because his best move from the standpoint of self-preservation is probably not merely to become a Democrat but to become a reasonably liberal one, along the lines of Bob Casey Jr.

Indeed. We better all hope that Specter's obvious lack of principles translates into a massive shift in his voting habits. While Specter has said publicly that there will be no such shift, is there any reason to trust such an obviously unprincipled, power-hungry politician? Further, to help guarantee Specter's leftward voting shift, it is important that Joe Torsella stay in the primary campaign, and that Representative Joe Sestak continue to keep the door open to a primary run as along as possible. Clearly, Specter's behavior can be altered by the presence of real threats to the continuation of his political career.

Specter is an unprincipled wanker. So, let's use that to our advantage.

Chris Bowers :: Banking On Specter's Lack of Principles

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Banking On Specter's Lack of Principles | 29 comments
I Agree That Sestak and Torsella Would Push Specter To The Left (0.00 / 0)
How much?  As you said, all we can do is hope if he is elected.

Does anyone think that his personal bout with cancer will be helpful in decision-making process?

If you listen, they always tell you what you need to know (4.00 / 2)
Specter switched parties to save his senate seat, left many people in the lurch and completely burned his party of XX years to stay in congress.  He is revealed: the most important thing to him is his senate position.   More important than his party, ideology, friends, contacts, or after-congress career.

So influencing him becomes child play.  You threaten his seat and you own the man.  One decent primary challenge and he'll vote for EFCA or whatever else we like, he has already shown his pliability in the face of adversity.

But no primary challenge = no concessions from Specter.  He doesn't care about anything else, he just showed us that.  

Go get him netroots.

Bargaining in perceived good faith (4.00 / 3)
To pressure Specter, he has to believe that progressives will back off a bit if he moves sufficiently leftward.  If progressives signals that Specter can do nothing to satisfy it, then he can ignore the left as a lost cause and instead try to appease groups positioned somewhat to the right of progressives on a lefty-right scale if they will help him stave off a primary challenge from the left.  As long as he believes he can win a free pass in the primary, he has incentive to move leftward.  As soon as that possibility is removed, he has more freedom to do as he wishes.  So, to put maximum pressure on Specter, the left has to be able to threaten Specter with a primary challenge, but also show the ability to pull back on that threat.

My own preference would be to lie to Specter.  Give him conditions that he has to fulfill to avoid a primary challenge, then screw him and primary him anyways even if he caves completely.

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both

The main threat will be from Obama and the democratic party (0.00 / 0)
I don't think progressives should take the bargaining position.  Progressives should take the completely anti-Specter position.  

Leave it to specific individuals to employ complex bargaining tactics.  The same doesn't work for the nebulous left.

http://transgendermom.blogspot....

[ Parent ]
Progressives need someone who can bargain on their behalf (4.00 / 1)
I tend to model the Democratic Party as a sort of de facto multi-party coalition.  Thus, I think that progressives should try to act as a bloc and trade votes in the way that a progressive party would do so in a multi-party system to get its priorities passed in forming a majority coalition.  The lack of progressive leadership in this fashion is one reason why I feel that progressives have political power that is not equal to their numbers.

There's a potential good cop/bad cop routine where progressive politicians do the bargaining with the threat that they'll unleash the netroots if there's no good compromise to be struck.

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both

[ Parent ]
What's the order of the persons in line for the appropriations chair? (0.00 / 0)
I heard specter wants the appropriations chair.

How many democrats are there before him?

[ Parent ]
was supposed to be a standalone message... (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
You've inspired me to write a diary (0.00 / 0)
Researching who is ahead and behind of Specter on various committees.

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both
[ Parent ]
I found a table for the majority on wiki (see below) that seems to be it, but I'm not really sure (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
Voters, not "Progressives" (4.00 / 1)
To pressure Specter, he has to believe that progressives will back off a bit if he moves sufficiently leftward.

While I agree with your general premise that Specter needs to expect good results for moving left, I don't think he needs any agreement with "progressives" in any institutional sense.  Ultimately, it just boils down to the voters.  If Specter can deny whoever runs against him good talking points, voters will probably go with the old guy.  If the primary challenger can prove Specter is blocking important legislation, then Specter will be in trouble.

Specter just needs to make attacks from the left difficult.  To do that, he needs to vote more to the left.

[ Parent ]
isn't this wholly about Obama's legislative agenda, and not Specter's malleability? (0.00 / 0)
and the committees he's on (if he gets to stay on all of them -- like appropriations?)

hasn't the party & administration already got commitments and agreements from him that he will either help -- or not hold up  or kill -- the things they think are most important?

i think they've already made their deals, and neither the DC Dems, state party, or administration give a shit at all about what voters think --

courting Specter as they did, and vowing to put all their resources and support behind him -- and the state party pre-emptively explicitly telling others not to bother primarying at all even before this announcement --

hasn't it been made crystal-clear that what others think and want and can and cannot do are wholly irrelevant to the entire leadership and administration? PA Democrats, primary voters, and outsiders?

this reminds me of what they did with Michigan and Florida's primaries -- decide on their own to ensure the results they wanted.

how can Specter be pushed anywhere when to dare to run against him in a Democratic primary is to explicitly go against all of PA's powerful Democrats -- and all of DC's too?

when voters won't even have a choice on whether to choose him or some other Democrat with different stances on the issues in any direction?

and why would Specter listen now, when DC Dems still aren't, and when he himself never ever has listened to those even a hair's breadth to the left of him (except for campaign lies each cycle)?

what in his record shows that he gives a shit? or ever ever has?

what in this whole thing shows that the views or policy demands and needs of any voter anywhere mattered -- except for the views of the Republicans who were going to force him out of office and the views of party leadership and the administration?

fuck the dc dems (4.00 / 1)
they can say whatever they want. Who's to say if Obama got a deal out of them, Specter won't want to deal with us too, if we make the right noises? Those 200,000 that switched from rep to dem sure change a lot of things, don't they, especially the way PA is trending?
[ Parent ]
PA used to be solid deep blue -- it's actually been trending reddish since 1980, i'd say -- (0.00 / 0)
and Democrats there have always voted for him anyway -- over and over -- even when they had Democrats challenging him in the past as options.
[ Parent ]
Not Really (4.00 / 2)
I checked on this to confirm my gut feeling was right; PA has never been more than 5% more Democratic (in presidential voting) than the nation as a whole, and that was in 1984 when it went to Reagan anyway.  All other elections, going back to 1972, it was either the same or 2-3% more Democratic.  It also voted for Republicans in 80, 84, and 88, and has voted Democratic since then.  The Philadelphia suburbs have also radically changed compared to just a decade ago; while local control still rests in the GOP's hands, they vote reliably dem in all federal and state-wide elections, and that's beginning to trickle-down to more local elections as well.

So your observation doesn't carry water.

[ Parent ]
thanks -- but (0.00 / 0)
 i've always heard that most voters there are D (and have been since the 30s if not earlier) even if they don't always vote D -- that even back in 80 (before too?) there were hundreds of thousands more Democrats than Republicans there --

maybe it depends how you define a blue state? (for instance, NY -- and NYC -- is clearly blue, but we've had GOP Governors and Mayors and Senators, etc -- and GOP Control of Albany for ages and ages and ages)

PA has always been bluer to my knowledge than NJ, which isn't ever called a swing state like PA, but actually swings more, i think.

I wonder how these things get defined? I know it's not presidential voting alone.

[ Parent ]
Don't Know Registration Numbers (0.00 / 0)
But we have a closed primary system, which highly discourages independent registration and also encourages registering as the party with local power in order to actually have an influence on who gets elected (for example, the Philly mayor dem primary is the real election; no republican has come close in a while, and none will in the foreseeable future).

NJ use to be more Republican, up until the 1996 election; since that election, they've voted more Dem than PA.  I think a lot of it has to do with the "Northeast Moderate Republican" that is almost extinct.  Once they're all gone (assuming the crazies continue to run out everyone to the left of Pinochet), PA and company will become very reliable Dem votes.

[ Parent ]
we do too in NY -- (0.00 / 0)
totally closed primaries --

it's interesting - i really wonder how they base blue state red state labels -- it seems to me that once you look at various history/officeholders/races/power/registrations/etc -- it doesn't really hold, no?

and then Philly has "walking around money" and other throwback Tammany Hall-type things too.

[ Parent ]
re: What's the order of the persons in line for the appropriations chair? (0.00 / 0)
wikipedia has this table:

   Majority

   * Daniel Inouye, Chairman, Hawaii
   * Robert Byrd, West Virginia
   * Patrick Leahy, Vermont
   * Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania
   * Tom Harkin, Iowa
   * Barbara Mikulski, Maryland
   * Herb Kohl, Wisconsin
   * Patty Murray, Washington
   * Byron Dorgan, North Dakota
   * Dianne Feinstein, California
   * Richard Durbin, Illinois
   * Tim Johnson, South Dakota
   * Mary Landrieu, Louisiana
   * Jack Reed, Rhode Island
   * Frank Lautenberg, New Jersey
   * Ben Nelson, Nebraska
   * Mark Pryor, Arkansas
   * Jon Tester, Montana

It doesn't say this is the line but it seems so. Leahy was elected to the Senate in 1974, harkin in 1985. So, all that's between specter and the chair is leahy?

I just looked it up (4.00 / 3)
And posted a diary on it.

It's not quite that simple.  Specter actually becomes the most senior member on two of his committees.  The chairs he now outranks are Barbara Boxer on Environment and Public Works and Daniel Akaka on Veterans Affairs.

You also have to consider that Leahy is currently chair of the Judiciary Committee.  If he took over Appropriations (if the quite elderly Inouye died or decided to retire), Specter would be in line for Judiciary instead of Kohl or Feingold.

However, it is possible to bypass seniority, though it is rarely done.  If Specter wants a chairmanship, he still has to please his colleagues.

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both

[ Parent ]
yes, it's not quite that simple (0.00 / 0)
thanks for the explanation and the diary!
[ Parent ]
yup-- thanks -- his history on Judiciary (esp Thomas/Anita Hill) is horrendous -- (0.00 / 0)
he's never gonna retire, so maybe he wants Judiciary (or they told him it'd be his someday)?
[ Parent ]
on seniority - - "Reid's Specter deal stirs senior Dems' anger" -- "could leap past senior Dems" (4.00 / 1)
The Hill -- http://thehill.com/leading-the...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-Nev.) deal to allow Sen. Arlen Specter to retain his seniority after he switches to the Democratic Conference has not been received well by senior senators in the party.

Several Democrats are furious with Reid for agreeing to let Specter (Pa.) keep the seniority accrued over more than 28 years as a Republican senator. That could allow him to leap past senior Democrats on powerful panels - including the Appropriations and Judiciary committees.

...


[ Parent ]
Specter Doesn't Stay "Bought" (4.00 / 1)
Congress is probably the only mob in the world where you can get away with that...

It's a bug or a new app, depending.

Every news report today and yesterday focused on the defection of Specter and the (eventual) seating of Franken gives the Dims a "filibuster-proof" majority.

Which is total codswallop. But it being told and retold, and told and retold, like the Big Lie strategy of which it is a self-evident part, this now will have joined the vocabulary of the 'conventional wisdom.'

The magic of 60 (nominal) votes is a myth. With near-parity in numbers in the last Congress, they couldn't count on defeating even threatened filibusters...

ANYTIME the country's owners and bosses can need to, they can ALWAYS  round up 41 votes to interfere with measures they find objectionable. Why that is is called the "blue dawg" contingent, and it numbers up to about 20-30% of the entire Dim Caucus on any given vote. That's a minimum potential of 7-10 predictable defections, where the loss of even ONE vote is decisive...On any even remotely counter-corpoRat/counter-hegemonic legislation, the CorpoRight can count on enough Dim cross-overs to effectively block dangerous bills...

The Dims have reliably undermined their own position by bestowing on the blue-dawgs even more power than they already had, by creating the magical (albeit mythical) at least in the public mind...

"Lack of Principles" (0.00 / 0)
In a democracy there are worse attributes in a politician than delivering what he thinks the voters want.

Just saying.

If he doesn't change his voting habits... (4.00 / 1)
...then really, what's the point of the party switch?

And more important, why should Obama and Rendell "clear out" the primary field if Specter continues to vote like a Republican? The whole purpose of having a political party is to vote with the party's principles. Having 58 Democrats might sound nice, but what does it matter if one of them votes like Olympia Snowe?

Specter has to start voting more with Democrats if he wants to survive. Look at how many filibusters he supports over the next year. If he is seen obstructing Obama's nominees (see: Dawn Johnsen) and legislation, the glow will quickly wear off and PA's Democrats will demand another choice, no matter what blowhard Rendell says.

Greenwald at NYT -- "been a Republican for nearly 44 years: he affirms most of the defining beliefs of that party." (0.00 / 0)
There is a good reason Arlen Specter has been a Republican for nearly 44 years: he affirms most of the defining beliefs of that party. ...
-- http://roomfordebate.blogs.nyt...

I'm with Greenwald -- it's not that Specter doesn't have principles -- it's that too many people refuse to recognize his very very long voting history as indicative of them.

what's with Torsella? and why hasn't Rendell told his Deputy to drop out? (0.00 / 0)
is this going to be the illusion of a primary choice for voters?

the PA establishment pick (venture capitalist, wife worked for Specter, not liberal at all) who would have been the supported one and would have been Schumer's pick vs. Specter? Torsella is young and can wait his turn, after all.

... Torsella, whose wife once worked for Specter on the Senate Judiciary Committee when the incumbent was its chairman, said in a statement that "nothing about today's news regarding Sen. Specter changes ... my intention to run for the Democratic nomination to the Senate in 2010 - an election that is still a full year away."

Democratic state Rep. Josh Shapiro, who had been weighing a Senate campaign, told the political Web site PoliticsPA that he would not run, saying Specter "is now the incumbent Democratic senator." ...

New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer , who headed the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in the 2006 and 2008 election cycles, said Specter is "very popular in Pennsylvania" and that he expected the senator would win re-election.

"In fact, his greatest problem in terms of popularity has always been in the Republican primary, which obviously he won't have to go through," Schumer said. "You never take anything for granted. But I would suspect that Arlen Specter is going to be re-elected by a wide margin as a Democrat in Pennsylvania." ...


oop -- link -- (0.00 / 0)
Specter's Shift Transforms 2010 Outlook in Pennsylvania -- http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmsp...
[ Parent ]
What a change... (0.00 / 0)
Banking On Specter's Lack of Principles | 29 comments
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