Sen. Arlen Specter’s switch says more about GOP than it does Obama’s 100 days
April 29, 2009 at 5:46 am by Ben Luongo
The first 100 days of the president’s administration is usually used as a report card to judge its success or gauge where it might be for the rest of its term. However, the closing of President Obama’s honeymoon may not even be the news headline as reports of Arlen Specter switching parties overshadows the president. This completely arbitrary 100th-day-mark might underscore more the status of the Republican Party than anything else.
Watch Arlen Specter’s statement after the jump.
Specter’s decision to switch parties would give the Democrats the 60 potential votes needed to defeat a filibuster. Now, whether the democrats could rely on specter to vote with the party the majority of the time or on the big issues is yet to be seen. His foreign policy views are quite hawkish and may not reflect the views of most democrats but he was in favor of the stimulus which suggests him to be a determining vote in certain domestic policy issues.
However, there is bigger background story going on here. His move to switch parties underscores the bleak status of the Republican Party. The Republican Party was not popular in public opinion polls during the end of the Bush era. In fact, the Bush Administration might be to blame for the dismal state of the GOP. The George W. Bush Administration, especially the Bush Doctrine, was a departure from traditional conservative paradigms. His government spending and international interventionism abandoned core Republican values and left the party bewildered and without focus. The only direction for the Republican Party after Bush was to further differentiate themselves from Democrats. This would ultimately divide the party between the moderates and extremists. Voices like Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh didn’t, and still don’t, speak for every conservative. For months the media has been obsessed with the question of who runs the Republican Party, but no one knows. In the meantime, the RNC has acquired the moniker “Party of No.”
It’s no wonder that more people are moving to the left. Obama’s approval rating is higher than most current presidents after the first 100 days, and most people approve of his job so far. The RNC, on the other hand, is taking harsh measures to form cohesion in its party. RNC Chairman Michael Steele is threatening to withhold RNC funds from Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, two moderates who have sided with the president and backed the stimulus.
Steele playing hardball won’t keep the party together; rather it will probably drive them further apart. Threatening to withhold funds won’t prevent Republican dissenters, but it may give them an incentive to follow Specter’s lead and move to the left.
The Republican Party is in bad shape. It can’t produce any real options for policy to aid in our recession. They’re wandering along without a central figure to provide them with focus. Members are leaving the party and joining the Democrats. This first 100-day mark might be more about the state of the Republican Party than it is Obama.
