Public Policy Polling has a new survey out on the Pennsylvania Senate campaign between Pat Toomey and Joe Sestak. The poll shows the campaign knotted up at 415 for each candidate.
First, and less interestingly, this poll shows the White House job "scandal" has had no negative impact on Sestak. The Admiral up 6% on Toomey from the previous PPP poll of Pennsylvania. It was never clear what type of voter pays close enough attention to political news to not only have actually heard about the "scandal," but also to think less of Sestak because of it. The way the political media acted as though the American public were all neophyte, wide-eyed children about politics on this story was embarrassing.
Second, and more interestingly, this poll suggests that the only reason Toomey is in this campaign at all is because of a massive enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans. According to the poll, Sestak is holding Obama voters just as well as Toomey is holding McCain voters, but McCain voters actually outnumber Obama voters in Pennsylvania by 1%. This is even though Obama won the state by over 10%:
This race is a vintage example of where the enthusiasm gap is giving Democrats problems. Sestak is winning 74% of the vote from people who supported Barack Obama in 2008. That's actually a tad higher than the 73% Toomey is getting from McCain voters. This is not a race where the Democratic candidate is struggling because folks who voted for Obama last election are supporting the GOP in droves. But the poll's respondents went for John McCain by a point in 2008 when Barack Obama actually took the state by 10. The only reason Sestak's not ahead in this race is that Republican voters are much more motivated to go out and vote in the fall than Democrats are.
Now, this is just one poll result, so it should not be taken as an article of faith. There is no doubt voter turnout patterns mean Democrats face a more difficult electorate in 2010 than they did in 2008, but for there to be a 10% swing due entirely to voter enthusiasm seems quite extreme. There will be at least a 2-3% swing due to age differences in the Democratic and Republican coalitions, but 10% would be mind-blowing.
Also, before people chime in with claims that a 10% swing is actually entirely understandable given how terribly disappointed and upset the base is with Obama, keep in mind this finding from PPP last month:
On our last national poll among the people who said they were only 'somewhat excited' about voting or 'not very excited' about voting Obama's approval was a 58/35 spread, much better than his overall numbers. Those folks also said they supported the health care bill by a 50/38 margin, again much better than we're seeing among all voters.
There is no singular explanation for the voter turnout problem Democrats face in the fall. Undoubtedly, there are a decent number of ideologically left voters, who usually break Democratic, who feel frustrated enough with the lack of progressive accomplishments by the Obama administration that they will not be active this cycle. However, available polling does not support that thesis as the majority cause for struggles in voter turnout.
The majority of unlikely voters approve of the health care bill and of President Obama. As such, the primary motivating factor in the lack of engagement among unlikely voters is not disgust with the administration or its accomplishments. The former fact disproves the latter thesis. There are certainly some progressives who have dropped out of voting or electoral activism, or who have perhaps even shifted their efforts to third-party candidates, but they are not the majority of 2008 Obama voters who are unlikely to vote this time around. And this PPP poll is not the first poll offering such evidence, either.
Democrats face a real voter turnout problem. However, its exact size, and exact causes, remains relatively unexplored by public pollsters.
KY-Sen: Rand Paul flips on discrimination in private hiring: A spokesperson for Rand Paul has confirmed to Greg Sargent that Paul thinks the federal government should ban private businesses from discriminating on the basis of race in their hiring practices. This is the exact opposite of what Paul has stated in the past, not what he has said in the past, and just last night he said that the federal government did not have the right to prevent private businesses from refusing to serve people on the basis of race. So much for Rand Paul at least being principled.
Meanwhile, Rasmussen shows Rand Paul ahead by 25%. Their polling in Kentucky has been particularly henke, to the tune of a 14% house effect so far this year. Non-Rasmussen polling in Kentucky current shows Paul ahead by only 1%
NV-Sen: Angle takes the lead among Republicans: A new poll shows wingnut fave Sharron Angle ahead in the Republican primary for Nevada Senate. Tomorrow, a Rasmussen poll will show her beating Harry Reid by 22 points in the general election.
PA-Sen: Sestak takes the lead: The first post-primary poll in Pennsylvania shows Joe Sestak ahead of Pat Toomey, 46%-42%. And its from Rasmussen. Don't get too excited though, because next week Rasmussen will show Toomey ahead by 18%.
Also, according to Rasmussen polling, you trail your Republican neighbor by 37%, even though you have higher name ID in the neighborhood. Other polls show it to be a toss-up. Discuss.
While David Brooks and David Broder will undoubtedly deliver stern lectures to the country tomorrow for its refusal to be all centrist, really there is no reason to sweat the national media narrative tonight at all.
We don't run primaries to win a few news cycles. We don't win them to persuade pundits, or get the same level of media play as the teabaggers. We run primaries to send a message to Democratic elected officials.
Tonight, for the first time ever, two incumbent Democratic Senators failed to win primaries in a single day. That has never happened before, and is greater than the number of incumbent Democratic Senators who lost primaries over the past decade combined. Further, both challengers had little to no establishment support (especially Sestak), and one was in a red state (Halter). Most importantly, both challengers took on the incumbents from the left.
The bottom line from all of this it that Democrats have to answer to the grassroots everywhere now.
That is the message tonight, and we were delivering it to Senate Democrats, not to the media. Both in the short term as fights Wall Street reform unfold, and in the longer term as the party reconsiders its modus operandi, it is a message we are going to keep delivering, over and over again, until they finally frakking hear it.
Primaries matter--that's damn right. Click on the banner below to check out Open Left's sponsor, Democracy for America, and join the ongoing fight to reform the Democratic Party.
It is raining today here in Philadelphia. Doubtful Specter will get the turnout he needs. The 15-day average is used in this election because of dramatic recent trends, and the high volume of polling on the campaign.
If no candidate reaches 50%, there will be a June 8th run-off. That's the goal today. On the Republican side, John Boozman could well reach the 50% threshold. He is polling at 46%, with 15% undecided.
While I don't feel quite as good about using the snarky blue-red coloring on this campaign, there it is anyway. On the Republican side, Rand Paul leads by 16.3%.
****
Polls in Kentucky start closing at 6 pm, and completely close at 7 pm. In Pennsylvania, polls close at 8 pm. In Arkansas, polls close at 8:30 pm. All times listed here are eastern.
Got any last minute predictions? The polls suggest Sestak, Critz, Lincoln (just over 50%, that is) and Mongiardo all win squeakers. However, primary polling and House polling really does not have a very good track record, so it's all up in the air.
Wall Street reform: Reid sounds ready to file cloture: Reid on the Senate floor about 30 minutes ago:
Sen. Reid ready to pull the cloture trigger on financial overhaul: "This cannot be delayed any longer," he said as the Senate opened today.
This would mean the first cloture vote is Wednesday. After that fails, the second will be on Thursday. And then the next day, and the next, until it passes.
2010 elections: No Democratic Senate candidate receiving 10% of the vote among Obama disapprovers: Public Policy Polling has some eye-opening numbers with huge relevance to the 2010 elections. No Democratic Senate hopeful is receiving even 10% of the vote among people who disapprove of Barack Obama's job performance. If this holds, Democrats will need Obama's approval to stay positive through November, and even then will have a difficult time winning in red states.
the combination of Wall Street reform and the May 18th primaries reaching a climax will have big implications on the 2010 elections. I will be following these stories closely as they unfold this week.
The final Quinnipiac poll of the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate primary shows Jose Sestak leading Arlen Specter by a single point. While a one point lead is far from a blowout or a sure thing, what is significant about this poll is that there are now exactly zero polling firms showing Arlen Specter ahead. Here are the final polls from the six pollsters to conducts surveys of this campaign in May:
Across these six polls, Sestak leads by 3.2% on the mean, and 2% on the median. The 15-day average I use for other forecasts shows Sestak up 2.6%.
None of those leads make Sestak anywhere close to a sure thing. However, Specter is only competitive in this primary due to his ongoing advantage in name ID, an advantage which averages 20% across five of these six polls (excluding F & M). That means Specter still has a big advantage among low information voters (who have still never heard of Sestak), and as such will need high Democratic turnout to win (since these low-information voters are less likely to vote). With Democratic turnout sharply down in primaries do far this year, that ain't too bloody likely.
I expect Sestak to win as this point, and to become the first Democrat to defeat an incumbent backed by Obama in a primary. Admittedly, Specter's party switch made this campaign far more winnable than any of the other primary or legislative campaigns when progressives staked out a position to the left of the administration, so it may not really be a breakthrough moment yet. From the very beginning of the campaign, Sestak was always ahead among Pennsylvania Democrats who had heard of both candidate, and he held a 2-1 lead among Pennsylvania Democrats who thought Arlen Specter switched parties to win re-election. In the environment, Sestak did exactly what he had to do to win: run a grueling slog of retail politics and fundraising to gather up just enough ground supporters and resources in order to raise his name ID and run ads of Specter saying he switched parties to win re-election. It wasn't easy to do that with the entire Democratic establishment working against him, but on the eve of the primary it seems likely that he has pulled it off.
(Note: While Lincoln leads, if neither no candidate reach 50%+1, there will be a June 8th runoff. With a third candidate close to 10%, that is very possible)
On April 28th, 2009, the day he left the Republican Party, Arlen Specter was losing the Republican primary to Pat Toomey. The three most recent polls showed Toomey ahead by an average of 6.7%, and the two most recent polls showed Toomey ahead by an average of 17.5% (Franklin and Marshall, showing Specter up 15%, is a sucky pollster).
If there were some sort of Independent primary, Specter would also be losing that. Specter's favorable ratings among Independents in Pennsylvania are 30% favorable, 58% unfavorable. Pat Toomey is at 32%--9%, and Joe Sestak is at 31%--18%.
There is talk about this being anti-incumbent year, rather than just a pro-Republican year.. Well, there is no possible better test of that thesis than this primary. Arlen Specter is the ultimate incumbent, but the people of Pennsylvania don't much like him anymore. If the establishment, including Organizing for America, can pull this off for him anyway, then maybe this is just a pro-Republican, pro-conservative year, and not an anti-incumbent one.
Last night on Hardball, Arlen Specter said that he knew his days in the republican party were numbered after his stimulus vote:
"When that vote came up on the stimulus, I knew it was the end of my association with the Republican Party. "
This is a flat-out lie. Far from demonstrating a principled or conclusive break with the Republican Party, Arlen Specter's actions from his stimulus vote until his party switch demonstrate par excellence that Specter acts based on polling and to save himself, not on principle..
Specter stuck around in the Republican Party for eleven weeks after the stimulus (stimulus first passed on February 10th, Specter switched on April 28th). After the vote, he went out of his way to try and appeal to Republicans by qualifying his support of the stimulus and shifting hard to the right on a variety of issues. It was only after polling revealed none of those efforts would save him in the Republican primary that he switched the the Democratic Party. And, even before he switched, he secured a promise of support from the Democratic leadership in the event of any possible primary challenge.
None of this is hard to prove. Specter's own statement on switching parties said that he talked to Republicans and watched polls for weeks after the stimulus vote, and only later concluded that a schism had occurred (emphasis mine):
Since [voting for the stimulus package], I have traveled the State, talked to Republican leaders and office-holders and my supporters and I have carefully examined public opinion. It has become clear to me that the stimulus vote caused a schism which makes our differences irreconcilable.
At his press conference the day he switched, Specter reiterated that his decision to switch was gradual, not a schism, and it was based on polls (emphasis mine):
"The decision has been reached gradually as I have traveled the state in the last several months," Specter said. "And specifically, I got my own poll results back last Friday--late last week, [Specter switched the next Tuesday] and consulted with my campaign managers, and had a long discussion with Joan and my son Shanin over the weekend, and came to a decision over this past weekend."
Specter is flat-out contradicting himself when he says that he knew his days in the Republican Party were over when he voted for the stimulus. He stuck around for eleven weeks, looking at poll numbers, and only "gradually" came to that conclusion.
During those eleven weeks, switching parties was not the only decision Specter made based on polls. As he saw polls coming in showing him well behind Pat Toomey for the Republican nomination, his voting habits shifted hard to the right in a last ditch effort to appeal to Republican voters. Last year, Nate Silver showed that Specter shifted from voting with Democrats 58% of the time in 2009 before a March 25th Quinnipiac poll showed him trailing Pat Toomey in the Republican primary. After the poll, Specter only voted with Dems 16% of the time:
And then, lest we forget, even after his vote in favor of the stimulus, Specter bragged about cutting $100 billion from it, and said he wished the entire package had just been tax cuts. This is all still on his website.
We were able to cut out $100 billion from the package and include 35% in tax relief in the overall bill. My preference would have been John McCain's proposal, which I voted for, to have the stimulus package of $421 billion in tax cuts alone. I voted for the Reagan tax cuts back in 1981 and that would be the best course, but in a legislative body you don't have exactly your own choice.
"I was impressed with the position of the United States Chamber of Commerce which was for the bill very solidly. The Chamber of Commerce, obviously, is a very conservative, Republican organization which has its hands on the economy and what's happening to many, many businesses and they were for it. All factors considered, I thought that action had to be taken.
"I voted for it with reservations, as I have commented."
Specter went on to bend over backward to trying to qualify his position the stimulus to Republicans. He emphasized that he cut money from it, would have preferred all tax cuts, that he supported the Reagan tax cuts, sides with the Chamber of Commerce, and still had reservations anyway.
Finally, even when none of these efforts worked,, and Specter still trailed Toomey by gaping margins, before he switched parties Specter first secured a promise from the Democratic leadership that they would support him in any potential primary challenge he might receive:
Specter was promised that the Democratic Party would fully support his candidacy as a Democrat and would not back any other Democrat seeking the seat. "In money and message," the party will be behind Specter. Any other Democrat who intends to run will "not have the blessing of the party."
None of this is really a surprise from a Senator who, back in 2006, did this:
Prior to the vote on the Military Commissions Act of 2006, he [Specter] went to the floor of the Senate and said what the bill "seeks to do is set back basic rights by some 900 years" and is "patently unconstitutional on its face." He then proceeded to vote YES on the bill's passage.
Arlen Specter is one of the most all-time self-serving politicians. Even his claim that he was the deciding vote on the stimulus ignores that there were 61 votes for the stimulus when it first passed the Senate, which allowed Ted Kennedy to stay in the hospital during the vote on the conference report.
If Democrats were to nominate this man, it would reflect extremely poorly on our own party. Surely, Democrats stand for more than just staying in power. Hell, by nominating Specter, Democrats would show they aren't even very good at staying in power, since Joe Sestak performs 5% better against Pat Toomey than Arlen Specter. This is hardly a surprise, since Specter's self-serving actions are now on display for the whole state of Pennsylvania to see, and voters do not typically react well to politicians who only look out for themselves.
Between now and June 22nd, progressive pose a real threat to House Blue Dogs and Senate ConservaDems in at least six primary campaigns. Five of these primary campaigns feature incumbents, and in all six campaigns the Democratic Party machinery is backing the more conservative candidate. Sometimes, as is the case in the Pennsylvania Senate primary, this support means several hundred thousand dollars of paid advertisements.
There is no better way to get Democratic members of Congress to listen to you, than by defeating, or even by coming close to defeating, incumbent Democrats in primary elections. If you can beat the party, or at least make them sweat, then they have no choice but to take you, and your concerns, seriously. These are six campaigns where the party machinery is already sweating.
So, today I a asking you to join up with all six of these primary campaigns. Follow the links below, and sign up to their email lists. If you want abetter Democratic Party, this is the best possible way to make that happen:
Primaries on May 18th
Join Joe Sestak, running for Pennsylvania Senate against ConservaDem Arlen Specter
Join Bill Halter, running for Arkansas Senate against ConservaDem Blanche Lincoln
Join Shelia Dow Ford, running for Pennsylvania's 17th Congressional district against Blue Dog Tim Holden.
Primaries on June 8th
Join Marcy Winograd, running for California's 36th Congressional district against Blue Dog Jane Harman
Primaries on June 22nd
Join Elaine Marshall, running for Senate in North Carolina, and facing a run-off with future ConservaDem Cal Cunningham
Join Claudia Wright, running for Utah's 2nd Congressional district against Jim Matheson.
There will be more primaries over the summer, and lots of general elections to focus on as well, but right now these are the campaigns we need to support. So, sign up and get your primary on! The Democratic Party won't represent you just to be nice,or if you just stamp your feet--this is something we have to fight for.
Three new polls this morning show, on average, the Pennsylvania Senate primary exactly tied. Quinnipiac shows Specter up 2%, F & M shows Sestak up 2%, and Muhlenberg shows an exact tie.
Worth noting about these polls:
All are among likely primary voters. Quinnipiac has the largest sample size, with 945. Muhlenberg 407, and F & M has only 150. No matter the differences in sample size, the similarity between the three polls suggests the campaign is a toss-up.
Sestak has the strongest support, according to Quinnipiac:
Specter's support is slightly weaker than Sestak's as 34 percent of the incumbent's voters say they might change their mind, compared to 25 percent of the challenger's backers.
Specter would benefit from higher turnout, as he leads among all registered Demorats, according to F & M:
But the poll also shows Mr. Specter ahead 38 to 29 percent among all 404 adult Democrats surveyed if the likeliness of their voting was not considered.
While the trend in the ttacking poll suggests that Specter has stemmed the Sestak surge, Sestak still has room to grow:
Specter remains better known than Sestak, with a 50 - 33 percent favorability. By comparison, Sestak gets a 42 - 10 percent favorability, with 46 percent saying they don't know enough about him to have an opinion.
Sestak will surely become better known over the final week. It will, however, be difficult for him to maintain his better than 4-1 favorability rating. Those two trends--likely rising name ID, but a lower favorable ratio--might cancel each other out.
Polling over the next few days will provide further clarity, or lack thereof, on the campaign. One thing is for certain, however: there is no way that Specter could have won this campaign without all the endorsements from party officials and establishment progressive institutions. In a straight up match against Sestak, without any endorsements, Specter loses. This campaign is struggle between the rank and file of Pennsylvania Democrats, and their "leaders."
Wall Street reform news the Audit the Fed amendments were voted on this morning. The Sanders amendment conducting a one-time audit to make the Fed bailout recipients known passed 96-0. The Vitter amendment requiring all Fed monetary movements, past, present and future, to be made public was defeated 37-62.
Senators are currently in their weekly caucus lunches. At the Democratic caucus lunch, Dems will decide whether or not to file cloture on the overall bill today.
More Pennsylvania Senate polls coming Franklin and Marshall, which has consistently produced some really suspicious polls featuring 40-50% of the electorate undecided in general elections, will release a poll tomorrow showing Joe Sestak ahead of Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania. For whatever F & M polls are worth, and I don't think they are worth that much, they do confirm the Rasmussen and Muhlenberg polls showing Sestak up 5% and 4%, respectively.
Quinnipiac will also release a poll tomorrow morning. Research 2000 will release one on either Thursday or Friday.
Post-primary, North Carolina Senate competitiveThe first two general election polls in North Carolina to be released following the May 4th primary show Elaine Marshall within 4.5% of Republican incumbent Richard Burr, on average. Marshall's opponent in the June 22nd runoff for the Democratic nomination, Cal Cunningham, is further back, but still within 9.0% of Burr.
Before the primary, those same two pollsters (PPP and Rasmussen), showed Marshall down by an average of 12.0%, and Cunningham down by an average of 15.0%. effectively, the competitive primary gave Democrats a chance in this campaign. This is why having a June 22nd run-off between Marshall and Cunningham is actually a very good thing--it keeps Democrats in the news, and allows them to strengthen their campaigns.
First poll on Kagan In its typically quick fashion, Rasmussen pumped out a poll on Elana Kagan already. The polls shows 33% in favor of confirming Kagan, with 34% opposed. Last year, Rasmussen's first poll on Sonia Sotomayoor showed 45% in favor of confirmation, and 29% opposed, although they did eventually produce a poll showing 37% in favor, and 39% opposed. As is always expected with Rasmussen, no other polling outfit even came close to these kind of negative numbers on Sotomayor, and so it is reasonable to expect that no other pollster will even come close to these negative numbers on Kagan.
But really, polling does not matter much in these fights. Opposition to any recent Supreme Court nominee, including Harriet Miers, has never risen above 43%. Support does not usually run very high either, usually hovering either just below, or just above, 50%. The truth is that because the public is generally disengaged and apathetic on this matter, no Senator will probably pay any general election price for voting for or against Kagan, or any other Supreme court nominee, like ever. Republicans may be able to scare their own Senators into opposing Kagan through the threat of primary challenges (similar to the success they had on Miers), and the Clarance Thomas fight became a big enough story to have consequences in the 1992 election, but typically that the public is too disengaged on this subject for it to have electoral consequences. Very hard to imagine Kagan becoming a big fight.
Kerry-Lieberman climate bill to be released tomorrowLooks like climate and energy legislation is the next big Senate fight after Wall Street reform. The Kerry-Liberman bill will be released tomorrow. Dave Roberts provides some good context on what to look for.
This is an open thread. What stories are you following?
Today in Pennsylvania Senate news, Arlen Specter has gone on the air with an ad featuring President Obama:
The deciding vote, eh? This ad reminds me of the ones that Specter ran six years ago. Rick Santorum also liked Arlen Specter, when he cast the deciding vote on the Bush tax cuts:
And, Specter ran an ad nearly identical to the one he is now running with Obama, featuring George W. Bush:
The Pennsylvania primary is an interesting test case that will help provide answers to many political questions:
Can the powers that be can hoist any candidate they want onto their constituents? Really, its pretty impressive to get the entire political establishment of both parties to try and defend you from your own constituents. It is doubtful that there is any current member of the U.S. Senate that the institutional status quo loves more, and has done more to support, than Arlen Specter.
Do voters actually like bipartisanship or not? Over the final week, Specter will simultaneously be featured in ads showing him with Bush and with Obama.
How much sway does Obama really have in Democrtic primaries? If Obama really can move votes among Democrats, Specter's ad today really should be a sort of trump card that wins him the primary. But, if Sestak is able to pull it out, don't expect fear of the White House to sway many prospective primary challengers anymore.
The first poll on the Pennsylvania general election for Senate since Joe Sestak began rising in the polls is out. It completely destroys the idea that Arlen Specter is more electable than Joe Sestak:
This campaign is being looped into a general "purge" narrative of hard-core ideologues dumping incumbent Senators in primary (or some such whining). However, on a purely pragmatic level, at this point, it would be electoral suicide for Democrats not to nominate Joe Sestak for Senate in Pennsylvania. If Specter is able to come back and pull this primary out, Democrats will start in a big hole. By comparison, with Sestak, they are only 2% behind in a Rasmussen poll. Given that Rasmussen has had a roughly 6% "house effect" in favor of Republicans this year, it is likely that Sestak is now leading in the general election against Toomey.
Sestak has gained 9% on Toomey over the past month, while Specter has lost 2%. And really, why wouldn't Sestak have also made up ground in the general election during a period when he gained in the primary? His gain has come almost entirely because of positive bio ads (the negative ads have gotten the attention, but the positive bio ads have gotten a lot more airtime) that have significantly raised his name ID and favorable rating in the state. Specter, by contrast, is extremely well known, and people's minds are made up about him.
Returning to whining moderates for a moment, let me get on a rant to the pundits talking about primary "purges": stop pretending that the incumbent Democrats who have found themselves in trouble primaries are principled "moderates" in any way. Could it be more glaringly obvious at this point that Arlen Specter is an opportunist who seeks mainly to save his own job? Can you please try and remember that Blanche Lincoln systematically lied to virtually every Democratic constituency (see here for women, labor and health care advocates, then see here for African-Americans) before those groups started recruiting a primary challenger? And can you recall that Joe Lieberman flip-flopped on perhaps the biggest progressive grassroots advocacy campaign of the past decade just to beat progressives for the sake of it?
The fact is that the progressive base is neither large enough, nor powerful enough, to defeat incumbent Democrats in primaries just on the basis of abstract ideological disagreement. We can only beat conservative and moderate Democrats in primaries when those Democrats also happen to be wankers. And while the Senate is full of wankers, Arlen Specter, Joe Lieberman and Blanche Lincoln have acting in particularly wankerific fashion over the past few years. We progressives wouldn't have a shot in any of these campaigns if we were dealing with principled politicians who let you know where they stand and / or who actually put their constituents above their own careers.
The lies, the flip-flops, the glory-seeking, the vindictiveness, the cynicism--without all that, progressives would not have a chance to beat Democratic incumbents in primaries. At least for right now, we can only beat the wanker conservatives.
No Democrat voted "no" but Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.) who switched from Republican to Democrat roughly a month after the vote cast a "no" on Kagan.
So naturally, when asked about Kagen's confirmation today, Arlen Specter warmed about Republicans obstructing Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court:
Now that President Obama has nominated solicitor general Elena Kagan to the US Supreme Court, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), a longtime member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, believes the Republicans he used to side with might try to mount a fillibuster.
Specter says he expects there will be "a fair amount of Republican obstructionism" to the nomination:
"The atmosphere in Washington is worse than I have ever seen it with gridlock. I think we have to be prepared for a real battle."
Cough.
It is also reported that Arlen Specter did not blink when making this statement. Further, high ranking officials in the Pennsylvania Democratic Party immediately praised Specter's unblinking reversal on Kagan as yet another sign of his political genius and electability. Because, you know, like, voters really dig this sort of thing.
STATE BLOGS
