Senator Arlen Specter disappoints everyone

I am staying a Republican because I think I have an important role, a more important role, to play there. The United States very desperately needs a two-party system. That’s the basis of politics in America. I’m afraid we are becoming a one-party system, with Republicans becoming just a regional party with so little representation of the northeast or in the middle atlantic. I think as a governmental matter, it is very important to have a check and balance. That’s a very important principle in the operation of our government. In the constitution on Separation of powers.

             →Sen. Arlen Specter - March 17, 2009 

So based on this quotation I was ready to vote for Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania Republican primary and the general election. Truth is I disagree with Specter on a wide range of issues, not least of which is abortion. As a libertarian Republican, I felt there were more important things than these issues. I was convinced that Specter was exactly right that the Republican party is shrinking, becoming a regional party that only represents good old boys, opponents of gay marriage and abortion, and those committed heart and soul to 'drill baby drill." The GOP needs to be bigger, more inclusive than this. There needs to be a place in the party for those who stray from the party line but are still drawn to the core principles of freedom, national defense, and small government. 

Arlen Specter claimed to represent that moderate, more inclusive wing of the GOP. He also claimed to believe in the Constitutional balance of power offered by mechanisms like the filibuster. Now he has abandoned the party which for twenty-nine years has sent him to Washington, DC. Interestingly, on his first vote as a Democrat, he voted just as he would have as a Republican, against President Obama, revealing himself as a political operative with no principle. He left the party that gave him his career, to save his own skin and nothing more. Retire already. I hope Congressman Joe Sestak, retired vice admiral of the US Navy, runs in the Democratic primary against Specter. Then the people of Pennsylvania will have a reall choice between a real Democrat and a real Republican, not someone whose only loyalty is to himself.