I don't get it. I've heard Rush, and I hear what you're saying. I just don't get it.
What is there to lose by knocking off Specter? Coming out of the elections, conservatives have momentum....why water it down by not using it? Is the MSM all of a sudden going to start being nice to us because we're "Reasonable" by not giving in to "Extremism?"...Specter is a liberal. Why can't the GOP get a backbone and start taking a stand for once in their life?
Here we go again. We need 60 votes to break a Senate filibuster of judicial nominees. We will now have 55 GOP senators, all of whom will support the president's nominees -- as demonstrated by their good faith over the past two years. All the GOP moderates voted repeatedly with the President to break the RAT filibusters. We can now get the 5 RAT votes we need to break the logjam.
If we alienate Specter and the GOP moderates, we not only do NOT get the president's judges, but we will never get tort reform, social security privatization, health care saving accounts, permanent tax cuts and more.
Question for the anti-Specter crowd: do you want an ideologically pure GOP caucus that accomplishes nothing, or do you want the President's agenda enacted and his judges confirmed?
The GOP get a backbone? HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.
Oh, that's a good one. No, they make an Olympic sport out of grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory and will do so again in the next two and four years.
Hillary might as well start measuring the drapes in the Oval Office. The GOP House and Senate will water down every agenda to the point it's unrecognizable from the Dems and thus, again, anger enough voters that will stay home instead of vote. All in the name of "bi-partisanship".
On the other hand, if the Dems won 51-48% and had the margins in Congress the GOP has they'd be RAMMING their agenda down our throats crying, "Mandate"! No talk of "bringing us together" or "reaching out to the other side".
That's the whole thing. All this "Wait, let's not get rid of Specter, it would be more strategic to keep him" and the attempt to make cowardice appear to be the triumph of wisdom over 'anger' (by keeping Specter) is meant to do nothing more than instill hesitance in the conservative momentum long term. Don't let it work.
i STRONGLY agree.
What's to be lost? How about 1 person on every single committee!