Ghosts, Illusions... Specters

Thank goodness we bow have a clear example of how progressive ideas can make a difference; Senator Arlen Specter's realization about the importance of progressive principles and his decision to abandon the failed policies of Republicans...

Oh, heck, who are we kidding?

Well, we're only kidding ourselves. If nothing else, one can at least respect Specter's candid admission of personal success over anything else, principle included: he looked around, saw he would lose the GOP primary in Pennsylvania to Pat Toomey... and realized he was a Democrat. Or at least, that he could win as one.

Thankfully, few people are trying to dress up Specter's choice as an ideological victory (though God knows, someone would, of course), but accepting it on his terms. It's not romance, it's business. And for Specter, and for the Senate Dems, apparently this is good for business.

In some ways this surprising bit of news - I know I never expected it - comes down to semantics - the way words are failing us, just now, to really explain our politics. I've struggled, a lot, with equating "the right" with "conservatives" and "Republicans"... because the reality is that all three are not the same thing. As much as anything, Specter was proof of this, a Republican who was really never part of the Conservative Way, and barely acceptable as right wing. He was "moderate" in polite terms, a "RINO" in less polite ones (and now he's "DINO"... but that just proves how unequal the comparison is... who cares about that label, on our side?).

And still, the fact that Specter fled does raise some interesting questions about how the Republicans - not "the right" - can survive and grow their way out of their current minority status. No one, especially today, may like Arlen Specter. But the kind of politics he's illustrating is why Democrats have the upper hand: until opportunists see real opportunity in the GOP, they can't come back.

The reason we're here, after all, is about a schism that separated the interests of the Republicans from that of the conservative movement, no better exemplified than the 2004 decision by the Bush White House to back Specter over Pat Toomey, a conservative House member. Toomey, who was seen as able to beat Specter then in the primary, was judged too conservative to win the general election. And so the party - led by Karl Rove - stepped on Toomey's bid, taking away endorsements and money, and giving Specter everything he needed to win.

Toomey's simply been biding his time since then, knowing that he'd have another shot. In the meantime, Pennsylvania's GOP became more conservative when thousands of voters jumped to Democratic registrations in 2008 to vote in the Democratic Primary. Long a swing-y state (the urban areas are reliably Dem, rural areas are very Republican, and there's a lot of bouncing around in between), PA has gradually fallen in line with other northeastern states (though its Western edges, like New York's, are probably more politically akin to Ohio, than the coastal states), and few Republicans are even credible possibilities for statewide office.

With the primary set to be a repeat of 2004, Toomey is still the same bag of goods he was then: he would have won (and indeed, is pretty much set to win) the Republican nomination... but it's anyone's guess if he can win the general. Progressives - that is to say, the political folks on the left who prefer Dems to win, not the party itself - saw PA as a very poential pickup in 2010 if Specter got beat by Toomey, and even had hopes of beating a badly bruised Specter, if he could have beaten Toomey.

All that calculus is out the window, and the GOP faces dimmer prospects with Specter already taking the seat to Democrats. The much-noted reality of a "filibuster proof majority" may be mostly talk (at least until we seat Al Franken - Al Franken! - for Minnesota), but Republicans can't realistically consider taking back PA as a solution to their problems. And partly, what's changed is that the kind of sensible Republican realists who understand that you accept Specter (and people like Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins), because their "R" presence bulks up your numbers when it counts. Make "ideological purity" ("RINO") your yardstick, and you may find people who don't measure up... but you will, ultimately, have a small yard.

TThe dismissal of pragmatic political thinkers like Rove is, in some sense, the natural endpoint of the right's anti-intellecual bent. What started as dismissing a certain kind of "liberal learning" has become an all-encompassing dismissal of expertise, experience, and any implication that some people may know more than others. It's not that Republicans are narrowing and narrowing down to a core of "true believers;" it's that, more and more, the only thing that matters is loyalty and groupthink. And yes, the Republican Party is shrinking; but along with it, any coherent explanation of what "conservatism" is also falls apart. Pat Toomey won't lose the Senate race because he's "conservative;" he'll lose because he's mouthing the same incoherent lines as other right wing political types, unhooked from any sense of the real problems we have or any ideas about how to deal with them. That can't help Republicans, and it's a much bigger problem than the opportunism of Arlen Specter (and it will be a bigger problem, soon, if Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins are similarly put out).

Though progressives grumble about Specter, I doubt much will happen; proof, yet again, that the "netroots" also suffers from some political myopia, and makes ideological purity the enemy of political expediency. Don't get me wrong - I was never impressed by Arlen Specter, and this latest move is astonishingly nervy and inappropriate (an opinion I suspect I share with Ann Coulter). But I think probably with age has come a decision to pick the battles worth having, and Specter's deal with the Democratc Party establishment is not going to be undone anytime soon. They made their choice... and if lifelong Dems like me think less of them for it, well, perhaps we need a new establishment. Specter isn't of a poliical party; he's of the political class in DC, which has little use for labels. And for now, Specter makes a better ghost of a Democrat than he did as that illusory RINO, he ultimate of endangered species. Neither one is real... and really, did you need proof that Specter was fake?

Comments

[gary]

Nicely put.