29 April 2009

Specter Defector!

I’m sure you have heard by now that Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) is no longer a Republican, having deserted the GOP in favor of the Democratic Party. His defection seems to have raised the ire of a few GOP stalwarts because there are a lot of opinions being thrown about on the web. It seems to me that the most interesting article is an opinion piece in the Christian Science Monitor.

Publicly, the Dems are welcoming Senator Specter with open arms, ecstatic that now they are within one seat of a filibuster-proof majority. All they need now is Stewart Smalley…ummm…I mean Al Franken to win the court battle raging for the last Senatorial seat in DC. I wonder, though, what they are thinking in private; you know…when the doors are closed so nobody else can see or hear what’s really going on? Folks, he didn’t switch sides because of his ideology, he switched sides because he wants to be reelected in 2010. Not too hard to see, is it? Even the CSM article mentions that. So, I have to sit here and wonder what the Dems are thinking right about now. I hope they are trying to figure out if they can trust him…which they can’t; as soon as the GOP regains the majority, he will most likely switch sides again, ala Lieberman.

The biggest question in the piece is this; how did the GOP lose its vast majorities in formerly red states? The writer, John Pitney Jr., opines on the GOP’s situation but does not look at what has to be the biggest problem in the GOP. For me, a former Republican who switched sides in 2004, the answer is simple.

The GOP stopped being the working man’s party when Reagan was elected in 1980. Back then, good old Ronnie gave us “trickle-down economics”, better known as “Reaganomics”. The GOP now stands for the richest of the rich; they stopped working for the middle class working man way back when.

Now we have President Obama and it sure looks to me like he is desperately trying to right the ship. The man has been in office all of 100 days and the GOP along with the three stooges Limbaugh, Coulter and Hannity are up in arms attacking him at every turn. He’s not coming after our guns, he’s not cow-towing to any of our adversaries and he most definitely is not selling out our country. Sure, he’s done a couple of things that I don’t like but the definition of intelligence and rational thought is the ability to look past personal prejudices and see the bigger picture…but I don’t trust Senator Specter…I think he’s going to end up doing the Dems the way Hussein and the mujaheddin did us.

3 comments:

  1. I trust Obama about as much as you trust Spector. Now that Obama has the opportunity to nominate a Supreme Court justice, let's see just who he nominates. My bet is that it's gonna be an unber-liberal, anti-gun zealot; after all, look who he's got as Attorney General - one of THE most anti-gun zealots in Washington! Also, just take a peek at his voting record while in Congress - lots of answers there.

    I've pretty much stopped considering myself a Republican with all of the stupid shit the GOP has done in the past few years. Bush did a lot of good, but he did more bad than good. And since the election, the GOP has done nothing but make fools of themselves with the help of The Three Stooges - none of whom I like, either.

    But as bad as Bush and the GOP have been, I just don't see Obama being any better; after all, the idea of "redistribution of wealth" - which, in layman's terms means taking the money that you and I earn through hard work and dedication, and giving it to those lazy, useless members of society who refuse to work for a living - is no way to improve America. Socialism didn't work in Russia, it isn't working in Cuba, and it barely works in China, so why should it work here?

    As for Spector, I think you're right about his motives. And honestly, the thought of a "filibuster-proof" Democratic Congress scares the crap outta me for one reason: as the old Peter Principle says, "Absolute power corrupts - absolutely!"

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  2. I think you are worrying too much about the Supreme Court my brutha...Justice Souter is a fairly liberal justice anyway so it is unlikely there will be much change no matter how liberal his nominee may be.

    I still can't see your viewpoint on taxes...he is removing the exemption for those who make $250,000 or more a year...that doesn't affect you or me, does it? I am sticking by what I predicted before the election results came out...Obama is not going to go as far left as you think. He's been in office for barely a hundred days yet he can't catch a break from either side. The far right calls him a socialist and the far left calls him a capitalist puppet...to me that says he's in the middle which is right where he should be.

    A filibuster-proof majority on either side scares me and you are right about absolute power.

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  3. I hope you're right about him, I really do. If you are, I'll be the first to admit it. Time will tell, I guess.

    I think I'd rather worry about nothing in regards to the Supreme Court than NOT to worry and get a nasty surprise. Maybe Obama will surprise us; again, time will tell.

    I read about the tax break cut for big business yesterday, and I'll freely admit that I agree with what he's proposing. "Big Business" got waaaaay too big and prosperous under GWB, and I'm glad to see that's going to change.

    On the other hand, we've just had it shown to us that the bailout of the Big Three automakers was a mistake since Chrysler has announced it will NOT be repaying the money given to it during the bailout since they're under bankruptcy protection. We threw good money after bad on that, and now it's come back to bite us in the wallet.

    I'll give credit where credit is due - as I have with what's been done about stem cell research and Cuba - and honestly, I truly hope I'm wrong about the man, I really do. But at this point, until he's been in office longer than 100 days and has the chance to prove what he's capable of, all I have to go on is his past record in Congress and what he said during his campaign.

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