The Republicans don't want him. The Democrats do. They would have booted him out. We'll do everything we can to support his re-election. It's a tough day when you leave your party, but being a hero certainly beats being reviled. The truth is that by the time he left the Republican Party, Arlen Specter was a man without a Party. As my friend Brian Goldsmith points out, "forty-nine states do not have a moderate Republican senator." Forty-nine down, one to go, I guess.
My first campaign was for a man who went on to be a moderate Republican senator. Ed Brooke was running for attorney general when I worked for him. It was a long time ago. I was truly a girl. My father had gone to law school with Ed Brooke, and they played hooky together sometimes and went to the track. Brooke was not the machine candidate, which is to say he was a Republican, and my father was not a machine kind of guy, which made him a Republican. Republicans in Massachusetts stood for things like integrity and reform, civic responsibility; they were socially moderate, more conservative when it came to government power or foreign policy. Not many of them were black, like Brooke, but then not many leading Democrats in the state were either.
The Republican Party that my father believed in, that supported Ed Brooke and ultimately helped elect him to the Senate, just does not exist anymore.
Where it does, it is being killed off.
The way to recover after a defeat is not to begin by shooting some of those on your own ship. That strategy leaves you both more outnumbered than before and less appealing to the people who don't already agree with you on everything — which is to say, the majority.
If conservative Republicans were trying to reinforce the message that there is no place for anyone other than conservative Republicans in the Republican Party, they couldn't have done better than they did Tuesday in responding to Specter's announcement. No big tent for this crowd.
The Republicans have lost what little leverage they had in the Senate. They have put out the sign for "true believers only." Facing a mid-term election in which unemployment is likely to be firmly in double digits in much of the country, they have neither a message nor a messenger, except on the subject of who isn't welcome. If you were scripting this on the Democratic side, you couldn't ask for more.
But it really is a sad day for anyone who has fond memories of a Grand Old Party that had room for a Rockefeller and a Scranton and a Henry Cabot Lodge, for Ed Brooke and for my dad, and even for a kid marching as a "Brooke girl" at the Topsfield Fair in my first campaign.
I got lost, but he won. That party is history.
To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
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7 Comments | Post Comment
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Before everybody begins shouting and celebrating, we should remember Senator Specter's age. Who knows, considering his recent bout with cancer if he will be alive in 2010, let alone for the next six years. The other problem is that if and when Al Franken is certified as the winner in Minnesota, the democrats should have that magic 60 needed to run any sort of legislation through the congress. That means total blame for anything that goes wrong and minimal credit for anything that goes right. so let's not celebrate just yet.
Anotheer thing to consider is that the Democrats did have a few good candidates to go up against the Santorum clone Toomey and would have beaten toomey handily in the general election. Joe SESTAK comes immediately to mind. Mayor Nutter of Philadelphia is another prime candidate who would have smeared Toomey with numbers close to the Casey over Santorum smashing victory.
The Dems may have shot off their long-term foot for a short-term gain.
The only thing certain about this is the death of the Republican party in the northeast states. The republicans have just not realized that northeastern citizens do not take their marching orders from beat your kids into submission advocates like Dr. James Dobson and that far right crowd.
Comment: #1
Posted by: robert lipka
Wed Apr 29, 2009 7:13 AM
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Spectre was pro abortion, pro taxes voted for the alleged stimulus bill. He was not really a Republican. But he ran as a Republican, tokk Republican money and support. He now thinks he won't win so he leaves for himself not for any moral reason. As far a being a big tent since when can a Democrat run as a pro life candidate. If your not pro abortion you are not accepted by any Democrat. I belive that abortion is murder(unless to save the mother's life).
I would want the Republican party to disband before they become the party that supports the sucking out of a baby's brains.
Comment: #2
Posted by: david
Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:41 AM
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Ma'am;... Specter is a party animal, but he is right to jump ship when the party turned on him... Too bad all the people cannot figure out that when the party turns on them, that they should jump ship... What the parties do, and to an extreme in this instance, is to divide the country... They do not look for common ground, or consensus...They look for issues upon which people are divided and make the situation worse...If every representative of the people had to stand alone, and make the argument for the best interest of his voters, we would all be better off...Parties are not constitutional, after all, but extra constitutional....In France, Napoleon Bonapart found he could ban parties... They have them back; but is it right that the people in order to reach their government should have to push parties to push government??? It is possible that if we did not have a partocracy that individuals might have the courage to tell their constitutents what is the proper roll of government... Government exists to defend rights, and if you think you have the right to attack individual rights on the basis of a good idea or a mere majority, government should put you in your place.... Parties trade on our rights, and do not defend them... They divide the people, and give the people to understand that the rights of their neighbors are fair game...They are not... We all need rights, and we all need good government, and some times if you have a good moral argument that is what you have to settle for... So Specter is right and we should join him in abandoning our party....Unlike him, we should abandon all parties....They are the enemy, even while they do all to convince us that our neighbor is the enemy... Those who divide us are traitors... Do not believe them when they say you can steal your neighbor's rights...Demand good from government and demand that parties get out of the way... Thanks....Sweeney
Comment: #3
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Wed Apr 29, 2009 1:08 PM
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Ms. Estrich I thought that you were smarter than that. Every time a Democrat wins an election, we hear the same thing. "The Democrats have found the magic elixer and will never lose another election." "If the Republicans don't act more like Democrats, they will never win another election." We heard it when Jimmy Carter won and we heard it when Bubba Clinton won. The pendulum swings back and forth and it isn't going to quit swinging just because the Democrats finally won an election.
Comment: #4
Posted by: Kenneth Breeden
Wed Apr 29, 2009 1:51 PM
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Re: david Not only that, but they are going to take away all of your guns!
Comment: #5
Posted by: Paul M. Petkovsek
Wed Apr 29, 2009 2:05 PM
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Susan, I grew up with Specter on my TV Set and he has always been a democrat in a republican suit. No one wanted him LOL come on. Arlen only cares about himself and now he knows he is going to lose this battle with a republican opponent so he bails out to your party. I am glad to get him off the republican ticket so a person true to our values can be elected. He is like Ted Kennedy, meaning someone who gets elected out of habit I believe. I still can not understand how both of them are still in office. Talk about values and morals LOL. As far as I am concerned you can have him.
Comment: #6
Posted by: Kathaleen McCausland
Thu Apr 30, 2009 5:16 AM
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Estrich said: "But it really is a sad day for anyone who has fond memories of a Grand Old Party that had room for a Rockefeller and a Scranton and a Henry Cabot Lodge, for Ed Brooke and for my dad, and even for a kid marching as a "Brooke girl" at the Topsfield Fair in my first campaign."
Turna says: But it really is a sad day for anyone when the democrats elected a moron that wanted to pass legislation to allow a baby born alive to die in a dirty close hamper. And a lot worse day when the cheerleaders such as Susan Estrich will overlook any and all of Obama's transgressions against America because "the left has to win at all cost". But you are part of the baby killing cabal and helped write the laws. I take it you are not a Christian. Are you Muslim or Atheist? Christians do not kill or support the idea of killing unborn children.
Comment: #7
Posted by: Turna
Thu Apr 30, 2009 11:45 AM
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