Specter to become Democrat

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Republican Party plans comeback

The initiative, called the National Council for a New America, will send party leaders across the country for a series of town halls on health care, the economy, energy and national security.

The goal is for the council's panel of experts to listen to the American people and report back to House and Senate Republican leaders with new strategies for rehabilitating the party and winning elections in 2010.

"The National Council for New America is not so much a rebranding effort. It is an opportunity for those of us in office to engage in a conversation, a two-way conversation with the people of this country," said Rep. Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House.

"We can begin to lay out the solutions that Republicans have, listen to the American people about the challenges facing this country, and those that they face in the community," said Cantor, who played a key role in developing the effort. Video Watch what Cantor says about defining the Republican message »

Members of the council include Arizona Sen. John McCain, the former Republican presidential candidate; former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush; former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney; Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, GOP sources familiar with the plans told CNN.


GOP finally gets the idea that they are the GM of political parties.

Perhaps they should try and get a bail out from the Administration.
 
WASHINGTON (CNN) — A new poll of Pennsylvania voters suggests that the newest Democrat in Congress, Sen. Arlen Specter, would easily beat his old rival, Republican Pat Toomey, in Specter's battle for re-election next year.

But the Quinnipiac University survey, released Monday, indicates that Specter would have a much tougher re-election fight on his hands if he faces
off in 2010 against former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge.

Last Tuesday Specter, who has represented Pennsylvania in the Senate for nearly 30 years as a Republican, announced he was switching his party affiliation from the GOP to the Democrats.

The longtime moderate Republican said he was "anxious" to stay in the Senate, and didn't want to face a Republican primary in order to keep his seat next year.

"I was unwilling to subject my 29-year record in the U.S. Senate to the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate," Specter said Tuesday. "But I am pleased to run in the primary on the Democratic ticket and am ready, willing and anxious to take on all comers in the general election."

Fifty-three percent of Pennsylvania voters say they would back Specter if their state's Senate race were held today, with 33 percent supporting Toomey. The fiscally conservative former congressman narrowly lost to Specter in the 2004 Pennsylvania Republican Senate primary and decided to take on Specter a second time after Specter was one of only three Republicans in Congress to vote for President Barack Obama's $787 billion stimulus package.

But if Specter faces off against Ridge, a popular former Pennsylvania governor before joining the Bush Administration after the September 11th attacks as the first director and then secretary of Homeland Security, the poll indicates the race, if held today, would be extremely close. Forty-six percent of those questioned back Specter, with 43 percent supporting Ridge.

CNN's Dana Bash reports that Ridge has been formally approached by the Republican establishment in Pennsylvania to try and run in next year's election. A GOP strategist tells Bash that while it would be a struggle to encourage Ridge to run, the former governor did not close the door to the suggestion in his private conversation with top state Republicans.

"Gov. Tom Ridge is probably the only political figure in Pennsylvania who could give Sen. Arlen Specter a run for his money. But even if he gets a strong challenge from a Republican, Specter is still better off for having changed parties because he seemed headed to certain defeat had he stayed a Republican and faced Toomey in a primary," says Clay Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

In the poll, taken after Specter's switch of parties, 56 percent of respondents approve of the job the Senator is doing, 20 points higher than the 35 percent who disapprove.

Eight out of ten Democrats approve of Specter's duties as a senator, with Independents giving him a thumbs up by a 54 to 37 percent margin. Seven out of ten Republicans questioned disapprove of Specter's job as a senator.

Forty-nine percent say Specter deserves re-election, with 41 percent saying he doesn't deserve another term in office. Six in ten feel that the 79 year old Specter is not too old to serve another six year term in the Senate.

Before next year's general election, Specter could face primary opponents. Democrat Joe Torsella, who was already in the race, said last week that he would not step aside following the news that Specter was switching parties. Torsella is the former head of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak told CNN Sunday that he wasn't sure Sen. Arlen Specter is really part of the Democratic Party, the latest in a series of tough comments aimed at his potential Senate primary rival.

"I'm not sure he's a Democrat yet," he told John King on State of the Union.

President Obama said earlier in the week that Specter had his support, with one administration official saying it took the president about "seven seconds" to make that decision.

Those remarks don't faze Sestak.

"The president has said he respects Arlen's independence…" he said. "He'll respect mine if that is the case, I know that."

In an effort to give a boost to any potential Democratic primary challenger, Specter's former colleagues in the Senate GOP launched a new campaign last week designed to highlight the consistency of his Republican record and his ties to President Bush and other party leaders.

Republican Sen. John Ensign vowed Sunday that his party will make sure Specter, the newly-minted Democrat, loses his re-election bid in 2010.

"I know as Republicans that we have some great candidates that we're recruiting out there," Ensign said on Fox News Sunday. "And we want to make sure that Arlen Specter is no longer in the United States Senate after the next election. We're going to work very hard to make sure that happens."

Specter's move could trigger a seismic shift in Washington and could be a major boon for Obama. Specter's switch gives the Democrats 59 votes in the Senate. If Democrat Al Franken wins the Minnesota Senate race, which is tied up in that state's supreme court, Democrats would have a 60-seat filibuster proof majority in the Senate.

The Quinnipiac University poll was conducted April 29-May 3, with 1,120 Pennsylvania voters questioned by telephone. The survey's sampling error is plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.
 
Did you actually try and comprehend what he was saying, or did you just read the headline?

a better way to phrase that, might have been,

did you see this part of the article?

Mr. Specter said on "Face the Nation." "But as a matter of principle, I'm becoming much more comfortable with the Democrats' approach. And one of the items that I'm working on, Bob, is funding for medical research."

Mr. Specter continued: "If we had pursued what President Nixon declared in 1970 as the war on cancer, we would have cured many strains. I think Jack Kemp would be alive today. And that research has saved or prolonged many lives, including mine."

just sayin :shrug:
 
I'm building a sense that this move is solely motivated by the incumbency racket. The one benefit of dropping Specter into the Democratic Party would be to shift the people he needs to shamelessly whore himself to shamelessly whore himself to be far to the left ideologically for the primary.

But if the party establishment tries to clear the field for him and isn't going to press him to change any votes, pragmatically, what's the point of the switch? I don't mind having Specter in the party so much, but this level of defense for him suggests a stronger desire to keep a friend around rather then advance any principles. He's in trouble, see, and those Pennsylvania Democrats (in a state that's gone Gore/Kerry/Obama!) need to get behind this Republican.

I know, politics. Doesn't mean it can't bug me, though.
 
I guess we will see where he stands when it comes down to the GOP going for the filabuster or stopping judicail appointments.

If Spector goes with the Dems like he did on the stimulus package, then he earns his place.


aslo, we have this little bit of GOP "foot in mouth" to narrow the party even more.

Arkansas GOP Senate Candidate Apologizes For Calling Schumer "That Jew"

By Eric Kleefeld - May 14, 2009, 12:19PM
Arkansas state Sen. Kim Hendren, who is currently the only announced Republican candidate for U.S. Senator against Democratic incumbent Blanche Lincoln in 2010, has apologized for referring to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) as "that Jew," at a county Republican meeting last week.

"I don't use a teleprompter and occasionally I put my foot in my month," Hendren told Arkansas blogger Jason Tolbert.

"At the meeting I was attempting to explain that unlike Sen. Schumer, I believe in traditional values, like we used to see on 'The Andy Griffith Show,'" he explained. "I made the mistake of referring to Sen. Schumer as 'that Jew' and I should not have put it that way as this took away from what I was trying to say."
 
Hendren gave a further apology to the Associated Press. "When I referred to him as Jewish, it wasn't because I don't like Jewish people," he said. He also added: "I shouldn't have gotten into this Jewish business because it distracts from the issue."

What an apology. :love:
 
I guess he means " I believe in traditional values like we used to see on 'The Andy Griffith Show" when eveybody used to 'just plain American-American'.
 
No, he's running for the US Senate (in the 2010 elections).

Schumer was right to shrug it off; Hendren's chances of winning that are minimal. It probably won't hurt him in his Arkansas Senate district.
 
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