After 30 Years and Party Switch, Career Curtain for Specter [waaaaaa, waaaaaa]

News York Times ^ | 5/19/2010 | By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

[JohnHuang2]

PHILADELPHIA — Early on, Senator Arlen Specter’s supporters knew that the 80-year-old Republican-turned-Democrat was in trouble.

“Turnout was terrible,” Gov. Edward G. Rendell said less than two hours before the polls closed here.

And just about two hours after they had closed, he blamed the rain and the low turnout in Philadelphia for ending Mr. Specter’s 30 years in the Senate.

[JohnHuang2]

It's tempting to gloat tonight! Very, very. Tempting to talk about how the White House, the entire Pennsylvania Democrat Party establishment (from the governor on down) and the unions -- realizing Joe Sestak is too much of a gun-grabbing wingnut to win in November -- mobilized behind snarlin' Arlen Specter, yet the back-stabbing, double-crossing tawdry turncoat went down in flames anyway (even according to Scottish law!); or how neither Blanche Lincoln nor Bill Halter could win a Democrat primary out-right by clearing the 50 percent plus one threshold, therefore forcing the Arkansas Democrat Party into a costly and damaging runoff; or how Kentucky Republicans gave Rand Paul a landslide victory over a RINO who's too chicken to appear on Fox News; or how Viet Nam war hero Richard Blumenthal fabricated out of whole cloth his service in Viet Nam (claiming he accidentally misplaced a few words), thus putting the Connecticut Senate race in play -- but I'm not going to mention any of this because that would be gloating, and I never engage in that.

Even with the advantage of having a highly competitive state-wide Senate primary going and a 2-to-1 voter registration edge in a district so stupid it voted for John Murtha repeatedly, Democrat Mark Critz still had to run against ObamaCare, Crap & Trade, etc. to win in PA-12. As Sean Trende of RCP points out, "there are over sixty districts represented by Democrats with better Republican performances than PA-12. The Republicans' path to 218 seats doesn't necessarily run through this district . . . the [GOP's] path of least resistance . . . still runs through places like OH-01, NY-29, IL-11, and NM-02: historically Republican districts that voted out GOP incumbents as part of the anti-Republican wave" of '06 and '08. Nuff said.

Anyway, that's...
My Two Cents...
"JohnHuang2"

[ConservativeMind]

Yesterday Arlen was blaming the Tea-Partiers for his problems.

Today, the weather gets the final blame.

Apologists for Arlen really know how to root out the enemy!

[Right Wing Agitator]

Arlen, it wasn’t the weather, it was you. Straight up, definitely you.

[Busta Rhymes]

The smell of victory. Stinks about now huh Arlen ?

You gotta laugh.

Maybe he can spend his free time writing letters to his friend Ira Einhorn. He’s smelly too.

[Roy Tucker]

I’m hoping Arlen runs as an Independent. He certainly is not going to draw from the Republicans.

[piasa]

Early on, Senator Arlen Specter’s supporters knew that the 80-year-old Republican-turned-Democrat was in trouble.

Early on, Senator Arlen Specter’s supporters knew that the 80-year-old Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-Democrat-turned-toast was in trouble.

[Rummyfan]

It’s good to see Fast Eddie squirm too. He should be retired as soon as possible. That way he can devote full-time effort to Eagles’ talk.

[pillut48]

[freekitty]

I suspect the Murtha race had some help. Just think how embarrasing it would be to Obama and the Dems to lose again over the death of a long time criminal dem. Kennedy was one too many. I think they try to control special elections pretty closely too.

[freekitty]

I suspect the Murtha race had some help. Just think how embarrasing it would be to Obama and the Dems to lose again over the death of a long time criminal dem. Kennedy was one too many. I think they try to control special elections pretty closely too.

[matthew fuller]

"the 80-year-old Republican-turned-Democrat "

Did the exalted NY Times miss the fact that Arlen was actually a dimmacrat turned republican turned dimmacrat?

[Salamander]

Um, don’t we *control* the weather?

;-]

[firebrand]

No, they mentioned the party switching. Everything but the rank odor coming off Specter.

[sinanju]

Oh, I beg to differ, I quite well recall him assuring a newsbabe he would go over it line-by-line.

He ended up being bought off by some cancer-research project.

[sinanju]

As for the Murtha succession race—I direct you to the Soros-funded Secretary of State project.

“What matters is who counts the votes” Joe Stalin.

[M. Espinola]

The Magic Bullet is gonzo

[freeangel]

As one democrat put it(on FOX yesterday)—At least they got their money’s worth out of him.

[monocle]

And just about two hours after they had closed, he blamed the rain and the low turnout in Philadelphia for ending Mr. Specter’s 30 years in the Senate.

At least he didn't blame Bush.