Friday, January 16, 2009

Poor Arlen Specter

I feel for the guy, I really do. You see, Arlen has a problem. He's perceived by The Republican Base as being far too moderate, on social and economic issues. In reality, he is fairly moderate on economic issues, but on social issues, while nominally, pro choice he never seems interested in doing anything about it. Arlen's moderation came back to haunt him when he came within a hair's breadth of losing primary to Pat Toomey (R-Crazytown) in 2004, forcing the then-formidable fundraising prowess of George W. Bush to come to his resuce. Thus, he's looking to protect his right flank in advance of his 2010 reelection campaign. But having neither ability to tack to the right on economic issues, nor the credibility to tack to the right on social issues, Specter is left descending into the fever swamp at random intervals. His attempt to sound very unhappy about Eric Holder's nomination while noting that confirmation is a near certainty is the latest example. One wonders whether the press would be quite so obsessed with the latest Republican Clinsanity if Specter ignored the issue and left it to real cranks like Tom Coburn.

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