Articles RSSOut (even further) in the wilderness
Senator Arlen Spector’s (D – PA) surprise announcement that he was to become only the 21st Senator in the United States’ history to switch parties came as a shock to many people both inside and outside the beltway. It has the potential to change the course of American politics for a decade or more. Spector’s decision to leave the GOP makes him the 57th Democratic Senator in a Congress in which two Independent Senators also caucus with them. When Al Franken of Minnesota is finally seated (expect this to become an even more drawn out legal battle now), the Democrats will have the potential for that all important 60-seat filibuster-proof majority. Politically this is the biggest gift to President Obama imaginable. You have to go all the way back to 1937 to find the last American President who enjoyed what was, in practice, a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate according to Senate Associate Historian Donald Ritchie. This means on the substantial issues of energy, healthcare and education Obama and the Democrats will have the potential to lay out an ambitious timetable for their agenda of change. Come the 2010 midterms Democrats will be able to use this to their advantage, backing up their claims of change with actual, tangible results – something that is often not the case in what is at times the world’s slowest legislature.
the Republican Governor of Texas has recently started throwing around the word ’secession’...
In main street America Spector’s decision will play out as a clear example of President Obama’s bipartisanship going further than merely consulting the other side, it will show that he is prepared to widen his tent. For Republicans everywhere there is clearly much to worry about. This announcement comes hot on the heels of their loss in New York’s 20th, an outwardly Republican congressional district in which an unknown Democrat triumphed, whilst the Republican Governor of Texas has recently started throwing around the world 'secession'. We can expect the attacks to step up about how Spector’s switch has undermined the Founding Fathers’ desires for a system of checks and balances and how the terrors of a Democratic super majority will now become a reality led by an emboldened wicked witch of the (Socialist) West, Nancy Pelosi and her pimp, Harry Reid. Their vitriol will be of little use, however, unless they heed Senator Olympia Snowe’s (R-ME) warning that being a moderate in the Republican Party feels like being a cast member of Survivor. If they do not want to spend the next decade in the wilderness Republicans must stop kowtowing to Rush Limbaugh, tell Dick Cheney to shut up for good, and start offering some practical solutions to America’s problems. With the loss of one of their last moderate senators this job just became a whole lot harder.
Comments in chronological order
Total: 2
Sat 9 May 2009 5:13pm
Ummmm.. wishful thinking on the part of David James. Spector's re-affiliation is linked to the fact that he knew that he stood a good chance of losing in the midterm elections in Pennsylvania. He has betrayed his promises to his constituency in the Republican party, and his presumptive challenger was already far ahead of him in support. What's more, democratic voters in the state will not maintain their party loyalty much longer. Obama having shown himself to have had no intention to honor his promises to the citizenry, already hard pressed by outsourcing, off-shoring and displacement, will vote against those responsible.
To Oliver Hardy, the US MSM promotes disinfo, in much the same way they did when they served George Bush's interests. Whomever serves the corporate elites, they carry water for. As to UK politics, I wouldn't be referring to the Conservatives losses, as NuLabour has shown itself to be corrupt and on it's way to defeat.
In the last election, in the US, we saw a rejection of those who didn't stand up to Bush. When it comes to republicans in congress, the ones who lost re-election/election, were those who who had supported amnesty. The US midterms will show a loss of the majority for democrats in congress, in both houses.
I don't know about republican conferences, I'm not a republican (former democrat, now an independent), but I do know that Bobby Jindal is not a big draw, and it's not because he's not white, but because he's shown himself to be corrupt, and those who voted for him in Louisiana have exposed his hypocrisies. I haven't read a word about Joe the Plumber in a long time, but I don't see where anyone has any right to ridicule him, his supposed great sin, was expressing his opposition to Obama's stated idea of raising taxes on the middle class. Here in the US we still have our rights of free speech. I am aware that the UK has cast aside the Magna Carta, so I'm not a bit surprised by the lack of respect for the truth, but you can't expect idiocy to go unchallenged. I know it's fashionable in the Old World to redefine everything to suit the fascist's agenda, but I reject that.
Olympia Snowe, etc.. are not moderates, she and others like her have shown that they are out of touch with their ever increasingly suffering constituents. As such, they have no idea of the tidal wave of anger that is headed their way come the next election.
Oliver Harvey
Mon 4 May 2009 5:37pm
To draw a dubious analogy, in the same way that the Conservative Party in the UK responded to their election defeat in 1997 by retreating into their shell and maintaining they were right all along, the Republicans cannot seem to deal with their election defeat. The biggest pull at their conferences these days is Joe the Plumber, which really shows how far the party has declined. Perhaps their only hope is Bobby Jindal, but the only difference he has with the republican right is he's not white and not protestant.