Game changing. Displays the irrelevance of the GOP. Tea bag parties inspired by Fox News and all that crew coincide with a drop in partisan identification to 25% of the electorate. Etc.
Certainly, the party swap of Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter is a fillip for the Democrats.
Although, those with a long memory for the ‘Clarence Thomas hearings’ might question the elderly gentleman’s progressivism when it comes to issues of concern to women. Anita Hill, wherever she is now, probably isn’t over the moon:
<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/specter.jpg" align=left Though another way of looking at that is that he’s the very model of the Senex – the governing classes of what passes for the Republic these days.
In truth, I’d suggest, Specter’s defection reflects a real ‘partisan realignment’ – the shift of established power bases to the Democrats, uniting around Barack Obama now that he’s proved that his version of “change we can believe in” is softly, softly muted. This, of course, does leave the Republicans as the party of the noise machine, and an increasingly marginalised voter base, but where does it leave progressive politics in the U S of A? If you’re in a kind mood, you might assume that Obama’s natural instincts will be further pulled rightwards… You read the omens!
from another thread, last Thursday ~
Paul Burns said “I’m always casting aspersions at capitalists and 99 times out of 100 I’m right. The one time I would be wrong would be if it was Frederic Engels.”
Latest from Washington, Paul:
* A Specter is haunting US *
Oh I didn’t see that! A few days behind with my puns!
I would say that it leaves progressives in the US pretty happy. The reality of the Democrats is that they are a divided party – look at how close the primary vote was between Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton. While that vote does not neatly divide up into a “right” and a “left”, there is certainly a right on the Democrat side, which is presumably where someone like Arlen Spector would slot in (he’s probably not hanging around too long anyway).
Mike Davis is a Marxist geographer from the US, so no friend of business-friendly Democrats. But he has done the math on the 2008 US Presidential Election result in New Left Review, which captures the dimensions of the voting shift in the suburbs, among Latinos, in the West etc. and suggests that it provides a pretty good base for the Democrats to become the natural party of government in the US for some time – certainly beyond 2012.
http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2769
Now some on the left won’t like this at all – John Pilger goes ballistic every time he writes about Barack Obama – and that’s where I see most of the bloggers you link to coming from. But outside the blogging humidicrib the US is hardly a left-wing country, so angling to the centre on the part of a Democrat administration would not appear to be a novelty, unless people really thought Obama was going to turn back the oceans, have the lion lie down with the lamb etc.
That was an interesting and well argued piece from Davis, Terry, but note also the rather pessimistic conclusion about the significance of it all.
My position has long been that in the US, issue activism – organised around a coherent political position – is the way to go. Obviously it’s better to have the Democrats than the Republicans, but I wouldn’t overestimate the chances of even a lot of relatively mild stuff by Australian standards – ie healthcare and the Employee Free Choice Act (which Specter opposes) making it through Congress in a form that really does resemble something progressive!
More on Specter:
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2009/05/more-specter-weirdness.html
He can now be a Democratic ‘maverick’. And/or join people like Senator Ben Nelson in watering down everything the party leadership proposes or passing it with amendments that defeat the purpose in the name of ‘moderation’ and ‘electability’ – while passing go, and collecting untold amounts of bucks from corporate interests in donations and perks.
Its still the best time for US progressives since the Democrats split between the official party wing and the progressive left in the 60s, and the Republicans dominated electoral politics from 1968 until last year.
It would be surprising to see a Democrat elected US president without the support of some sections of business. What I took from the Davis piece was the rise of the “digital” wing of business as a real political force that aligned with Obama.
Americans for Democratic Action, in its A Newsletter for Liberal Activists, http://www.adaction.org/media/votingrecords/2008.pdf, scores the voting record of every Congressman and Senator.
For 2008, Arlen Specter scored 45%, the same as a certain Democrat Senator from Illinois.
Remember Arlen Specter invented the Magic Bullet Theory.
Obama is an unabashed centrist. The problem isn’t with him, it’s the Republican Party. Through the Bush years, they’ve become a RWDB party. The only people worth a pinch of poop in the GOP are the libertarians. The Christianists are just wacko.
And yes, I do read a bit of Andrew Sullivan.
Hey, I got my picure back!
I was going to make some comment about how holding Specter accountable for his behaviour in the Thomas hearings would be as backwards as the criticism Biden received last year from some feminist bloggers over that same period in history, but a little reading and watching that Youtube video (and others) has changed my mind.
Kim, Specter and the conservatives played the whole thing both very cynically and very skilfully. The ‘electronic lynching’ angle was pure Machiavellian genius. Take a look at the video of Biden questioning Thomas. Joe had both hands tied behind his back. The man who scuttled the confirmation of Robert Bork in ’87 could barely get the questions out about how much access Clarence Thomas had had to Ms Hill as her superior. Perfect use of the race card to silence liberal criticism.
Specter is a douchebag, but these videos show me that his lack of scruples compared to the former senator from Delaware will serve him and his new party well. If anything, reminding him of his role in the whole sorry affair will force him to integrate himself fully into the Clintonian stream of the Democratic Party, which will make it easier for the voters in the PA primary to hold their noses and vote for him.
Nickws, I was glad to find that video on YouTube. I’d read a lot about the behaviour of various Senators – including Specter – during the Thomas hearings, but it does get the point across very powerfully I think!
man and here i was looking for the wall of sound
Yeah, so Arlan’s a complete opportunist. As are rats on sinking ships.
Such a moment tells you more about the seaworthiness of the ship than about the nature of rats.
But for the sake of a healthy democracy I do hope the Republicans get their act together.
Like real old school republicans.
Y’know, the older I get, the more Eisenhower, that sly anf canny old golfing general, starts to look like a really good POTUS. Certainly more so than his hysterical wimp of a predecessor. No one was panicked by maximum income rates of 90% under Ike’s watch.
Also he left his job with the most brillant resignation letter ever for someone in his position.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ike.htm
Specter’s apostacy is simply a case of him moving forward and to the left … forward and to the left … forward and to the left …
The hysterical wimp is Hoover, right?
Or are you saying the man from Independence, the one who put his presidency on the line to fulfill the Nw Deal’s promise to African Americans, he was thus?
Just have to ask, there’s just so much contrarian BS floating around these days (plus the older anxieties from the Cold War eras).