Specter’s defection

Sen. Arlen Specter was faced with the prospect of a strong challenge from conservative Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania's 2010 GOP primary. And the state is now trending Democratic.

What to do?

Not a hard question, if you're as politically "flexible" as Sen. Specter. Tuesday, after 30 years, Arlen Specter came out of the closet. All this time, he now reveals, he's been, yes ... a Democrat.

"I have found myself increasingly at odds with the Republican philosophy and more in line with the philosophy of the Democratic Party," he said at a Tuesday news conference, adding, "I am not prepared to have my 29 years' record in the United States Senate decided by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate."

Just there to serve the people, were we, Arlen?

The switch puts Democrats -- who currently hold 57 seats -- within one vote of a filibuster-proof majority in the U.S. Senate. The Senate's lone independent and its single admitted socialist also typically vote with the Democrats. Republicans have 40 seats.

With Sen. Specter switching sides, Democrats will reach the magical number of 60 if professional comedian Al Franken, who has been entangled in a protracted recount battle with GOP Sen. Norm Coleman, is seated for Minnesota.

Sen. Specter, one of just three congressional Republicans to vote for President Obama's wasteful, inflationary and properly unpopular $787 billion stimulus package, is now likely to face a general election challenge from Mr. Toomey, former head of the conservative Club for Growth, who almost defeated the incumbent in a 2004 GOP primary.

Mr. Toomey was already beating Sen. Specter in public opinion polls of GOP primary voters.

"Let's be honest -- Sen. Specter didn't leave the GOP based on principles of any kind," said Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele. "He left to further his personal political interests because he knew that he was going to lose a Republican primary due to his left-wing voting record."

In the short run, the risk of Barack Obama gaining the ability to bankrupt the nation by pushing through his radical agenda -- complete with "carbon taxes" high enough to vastly degrade the standard of living of the entire middle class -- is a legitimate cause for concern.

In the medium and long run, however, shedding cynical, fake conservatives such as Arlen Specter is precisely what the Republican Party needs to do.

If the Republican Party is to return, it must do so by rediscovering its 20th century roots and principles as the party of less government, lower taxes and more freedom.

Arlen Specter rarely stood for any of those things. If the GOP congressional delegation is now one fewer, it also stands, contradictorily, that much closer to victory.

"Wish not one man more," as Henry the Fifth advised, "Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host, That he which hath no stomach to this fight, Let him depart ... We would not die in that man's company, That fears his fellowship to die with us ... we few, we happy few, we band of brothers. ...

"And gentlemen in England now-a-bed, Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks, That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day."

Henry was outnumbered five to one. All he had was a unified command, a strategy, and a bunch of peasants with longbows. He did OK.