I lived in Philadelphia and surrounding counties for about six years a while back, and so what happened today looked kind of ominous, though it is the culmination of a trend for the GOP in the northeast.
Arlen Specter's defection to the Democratic party today appears to mark a significant moment in the political future of the state for the forseeable future. While everyone is focused for the moment on how Specter will vote, whether the Dems will get 60 in the Senate for the next year and a half, is clouding out what will happen in the state.
Specter will be a problematic Democratic candidate in 2010, since 15% of Pennsylvania voters are union members and he will have a hard time getting them to come out for him, and there will be a lot of very angry Republican moderates who will vote for Toomey to strike back at Specter's breech of loyalty. So, the PA Senate race in '10 will be, to say the least, interesting.
But, in the long run, the loss of a moderate Republican senator looks to me like looming, long-term misfortune in the state for the GOP. Half of the voters in Pennsylvania self-identify as moderates on both sides of aisle, large numbers of Democrats now populate both the Philly suburbs in the southeast and a string of counties on the entire east side of the state, Democratic registration is up and so all the Democrats have to do is run relatively centrist candidates for the Senate and for the presidency and run up big numbers in the east and in Pittsburgh and they will have a lock. (Democrats currently hold an 11-8 lead in state House representatives). In the next few election cycles, it looks to me like Pennsylvania will move from being "the reddist of the blue states" to a pretty safe blue state, and those are two significant Senate seats and a big basket of electoral votes to just cede on purpose.
Pennsylvania looks to me like a pretty clear clarion call to the GOP to make more room for moderates again or suffer pretty dire political consequences in the next several years.
Agree or disagree?
100% true. The GOP must be something more than a Party of extremists and ideological purists, just as the Democrats must be.
