myerstownherald.com

Sen. Arlen Specter has left the Republican Party. Specter has said the reason he left is that the party is too conservative.
However, his explanation is unconvincing. A recent poll showed Specter far behind in the Republican primary poll to former Congressman Pat Toomey. This poll is the reason Specter left the Republican Party. After he voted for President Obama’s stimulus plan, Republicans were infuriated, and the poll likely showed Specter that he would not win the Republican primary. Specter became a Democrat to try to hold onto power.
The Republican Party in some ways benefits by Specter’s departure. He is not conservative at all, and he only was nominally a Republican.
Occasionally, he takes a high profile stand on conservative issues, such as his recent opposition to a measure that would end the secret ballot for union voting. But aside from these issues, Specter is neither fiscally nor socially conservative.
At first glance, Specter’s explanation about the Republican Party becoming too conservative might seem plausible. Specter is one of only a few liberal Republicans left in the Northeast. When people try to portray the Republican Party as being too conservative, this complaint usually means that the party is too far to the right on social issues.
Specter likely is trying to say his liberal stands on social issues are the reason that he had to become a Democrat.
But liberal Republicans do not fail to win seats in the Northeast simply because the party’s base is socially conservative.
These liberal Republicans are not fiscally conservative either. In effect, they do not seem to stand for anything. Specter relied on the fact that people do not often pay close attention to the spending policies of senators. However, his vote on Obama’s stimulus bill was so obvious, especially because he was one of only three Republicans to support the measure.
Specter no longer could pretend to be conservative in any way. Republicans had enough.
With Specter’s departure, however, the Republican Party likely will lose its ability to filibuster the Democratic majority in the Senate to stop legislation. Specter did provide a vote for organization purposes when Republicans had the majority. His occasional conservative stances, such as on the union voting measure, did help the party.
Whatever the positives or negatives of Specter’s departure, however, his move to the Democrats is personally disloyal to all of the voters who voted him into office.
Parties in the United States do not always completely adhere to their stated viewpoint, but they do provide a basic outline and philosophy that candidates need to share.
For instance, if Specter wants to win the Democratic primary, he probably will have to abandon his stance on union voting. Voters thought they were voting for a Republican, but now they discover that they have elected a Democrat. Of course, the Herald would not blast a Democrat who joined the Republican Party, but the principle is still the same. If someone is elected by a party, they should stay with that party.
If Specter believed that the Republican Party was too conservative, he should have fought within the Republican Party for his beliefs. Instead, Specter put his own interests first.