Spector's defection means Public is Rejecting Obama...

[headscratcher4]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_05/018022.php

That would appear to be the take-away message for Sen. Inhofe of Oklahoma.

Crazy, wonderfully, stark-raving mad, bat-**** crazy.

Fraser on Cheers once asked Cliff Claven what color was the sky in his world.

One wonders what color the sky in Sen. Inhofe's world is....

Edited by Tricky: 

Edited incompletely masked profanity.

 

[Praktik]

Heads we win, tails they lose!

 

[Brainster]

Gee, you know, maybe Inhofe is right? Rasmussen polling shows that the general trend has been for fewer people to strongly approve of Obama, and for more to strongly disapprove.

 

[Praktik]

Gee, you know, maybe Inhofe is right?

I heard that the sentence "maybe Inhofe is right" is the runner up for the least-uttered sentence in the english language. Right next to "That was brilliant Dubya!"

 

[CapelDodger]

Gee, you know, maybe Inhofe is right? Rasmussen polling shows that the general trend has been for fewer people to strongly approve of Obama, and for more to strongly disapprove.

Their polling actually shows stable figures since February. If you want to compare to the heady days just after inauguration then I suppose you'll find a life-line. Mostly it's flat-line.

 

[boloboffin]

Word on the street: Specter may have felt a few elbows in his back before he jumped.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Word on the street: Specter may have felt a few elbows in his back before he jumped.

He was, along with Arnold of California, not infrequently chided/excoriated by some of the pundits for "not being conservative/Republican" enough.

I guess they didn't like the cut of his kilt.

DR

 

[leftysergeant]

One wonders what color the sky in Sen. Inhofe's world is....

Is there a word in the English language for the color of an Inhofe sky?

 

[Brainster]

Word on the street: Specter may have felt a few elbows in his back before he jumped.

A lot of folks in the "big tent" camp got burned when Chafee switched parties after losing his general election race in 2006. Which unfortunately left little cover for anybody who wanted to support Arlen over Toomey on the electable argument. I was certainly one of those arguing back then that the GOP wasn't going to get anybody more conservative than Chafee elected in 2006. That argument won the day in the primary battle against Laffee, and then Stinkin' Lincoln thumbed his nose at the party after losing the general.

You can't really make the same argument about Specter's seat; Pennsylvania is a battleground state, not safe Democrat like Rhode Island; clearly Pennsylvania did elect a more conservative Republican in Little Ricky (although they tossed him out on discovering that he was a moron).

The good news for the GOP is we might get Ridge versus Specter and not Toomey versus Specter.

 

[Roadtoad]

Is there a word in the English language for the color of an Inhofe sky?

Sure. !!!

 

[Roadtoad]

A lot of folks in the "big tent" camp got burned when Chafee switched parties after losing his general election race in 2006. Which unfortunately left little cover for anybody who wanted to support Arlen over Toomey on the electable argument. I was certainly one of those arguing back then that the GOP wasn't going to get anybody more conservative than Chafee elected in 2006. That argument won the day in the primary battle against Laffee, and then Stinkin' Lincoln thumbed his nose at the party after losing the general.

You can't really make the same argument about Specter's seat; Pennsylvania is a battleground state, not safe Democrat like Rhode Island; clearly Pennsylvania did elect a more conservative Republican in Little Ricky (although they tossed him out on discovering that he was a moron).

The good news for the GOP is we might get Ridge versus Specter and not Toomey versus Specter.

That may be, but if the Republican elected isn't a good leader, it's an even bigger loss. Specter might not have been Mr. Wonderful, but at the same time, he was at least nominally Republican, which kept things from being an outright lock, in theory. Right now, the Right needs to rebuild, and without strong leadership, they never will.

 

[SezMe]

The good news for the GOP is we might get Ridge versus Specter and not Toomey versus Specter.

That part I can heartily agree with. SpongeBob SquarePants would beat Toomey. Ridge, however, could be a formidable opponent for the Donkeys. I think a lot of those 200,000 Republicans who've taken a powder might well reconsider.

On the other side, it's likely to be Specter but I, for one, would not put it in the bank. If he does not support EFCA and health care reform -as he has promised - he not going to get a freebie in the primary race, no matter what the Beltway Dems say.

 

[Tricky]

A lot of folks in the "big tent" camp got burned when Chafee switched parties after losing his general election race in 2006. Which unfortunately left little cover for anybody who wanted to support Arlen over Toomey on the electable argument. I was certainly one of those arguing back then that the GOP wasn't going to get anybody more conservative than Chafee elected in 2006. That argument won the day in the primary battle against Laffee, and then Stinkin' Lincoln thumbed his nose at the party after losing the general.

Chaffee really was a different case. He didn't even win his first senate seat, he was appointed when his dad died. Obviously he wouldn't have been if he had been in a party other than his dad's.

But pretty much from the beginning, he was against the grain on many conservative issues, being pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-environment, anti-death penalty, and the only Republican to vote against the use of force in Iraq. You could say that for Chaffee, it wasn't a case of the party leaving him behind, but more a fact that he never really belonged there anyway. He was a "legacy Republican".

This is somewhat different from Specter, but really, do you think that parties really embrace their "former foes" that tightly? Do you think the British ever really felt comfortable around Benedict Arnold?

 

[Alferd_Packer]

He was, along with Arnold of California, not infrequently chided/excoriated by some of the pundits for "not being conservative/Republican" enough.

I guess they didn't like the cut of his kilt.

DR

The conservatives called him a RINO

 

[Brainster]

Chaffee really was a different case. He didn't even win his first senate seat, he was appointed when his dad died. Obviously he wouldn't have been if he had been in a party other than his dad's.

But pretty much from the beginning, he was against the grain on many conservative issues, being pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-environment, anti-death penalty, and the only Republican to vote against the use of force in Iraq. You could say that for Chaffee, it wasn't a case of the party leaving him behind, but more a fact that he never really belonged there anyway. He was a "legacy Republican".

This is somewhat different from Specter, but really, do you think that parties really embrace their "former foes" that tightly? Do you think the British ever really felt comfortable around Benedict Arnold?

Good point about him being a legacy Republican. On the question of whether parties embrace their former foes, there was a congressman named Michael Forbes from New York who switched from (R) to (D) a decade ago; he was defeated in the Democratic primary the next time around.

 

[boloboffin]

Side note: This weekend on Bloomberg, Margaret Carlton was talking about Specter and joked that he still believed the Single Bullet Theory. Thank FSM I didn't actually have to caption that show. My chin almost hit the ground.

 

[jj]

Just more of the WIN AT ALL COSTS behavior.

 

[Tricky]

Good point about him being a legacy Republican. On the question of whether parties embrace their former foes, there was a congressman named Michael Forbes from New York who switched from (R) to (D) a decade ago; he was defeated in the Democratic primary the next time around.

Of course, it depends on the situation. When Texas abandoned its Dixiecrat roots, Phil Gramm changed parties and was not only accepted, but became a mainstay of the Republican Right. And a pretty good producer of porno.

 

[Beerina]

Spector's defection means Public is Rejecting Obama...

Kind of like religion, where both mystery and science prove the existence of god.

 

[MattusMaximus]

The good news for the GOP is we might get Ridge versus Specter and not Toomey versus Specter.

Ridge is pro-choice, and the social conservatives went nuts (in a bad way) at the prospect of him being named as McCain's VP pick. Despite what the GOP party ops say, I don't think Ridge will be a good candidate in a Republican primary - the social conservatives will flock to Toomey.

The only way out of this I see for the GOP is for them to convince Toomey to step aside before the primaries. But if that happens it will piss off a lot of the base, who would likely see Ridge as too moderate on social issues.

You also have to remember that a whole bunch of moderate Republicans in Pennsylvania switched party affiliation in 2008 to the Democrats. These people aren't going to suddenly switch back to support Ridge vs. Toomey in the GOP primaries, and the fact that they're gone means what is left to vote in the GOP primary is even more conservative.

The only good thing going for the GOP on this is that Specter is old. But I don't think that's enough - unless he dies before 2010.