Party Plasticity

Steele Continues to get Pounded, Obama Meets with "New Democrats," Senate Dems Waver in Support of EFCA, and Arlen Specter Might Become a Democrat!

Well, it's for sure been an exciting week for politics. The GOP is not alone in its quest to redefine itself as President Obama finally identifies himself as a New Democrat. This paves the way for unifying a party that has such broad boundary lines, that lying somewhere in the middle will help bring together a party that's definition at this point in time is not the Republicans.

So what else is going on while Obama tries to win over centrist Dems in the House? Centrist Dems in the Senate, not actually paying attention to the legislation that they are debating (like Kent Conrad, Ben Nelson, and Mark Udall) are stalling on legislation like EFCA. EFCA, is good legislation that, while painful for Republicans and union-busting businesses, is good for the working class (see my previous posting on benefits of EFCA). It's a little frustrating when your party has started to ignore its loyalists in pursuit of the middle. It would help if we got that third party now!

But the greatest news of the day comes from a wrap-up put together by DailyKos suggesting that Arlen Specter may switch parties for EFCA. Now, clearly there are places where Democrats and Specter have disagreed in the past, but all-in-all, during the last half of his 28 years in the Senate, Specter has made some bold moves against his own party's stances and if you look at his key issues, he's more liberal than many of our sitting Democrats.

So, on behalf of the Democrats, I welcome you Senator. Please come join us in 2010 and we promise we'll keep you in your seat! You should see what happens when you have Union money behind your campaign! Especially in PA!

Meanwhile, GOP Chairman Michael Steele is getting slammed again. This time for wavering on Abortion (see: Here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here). And of course this posting that covers how the Republicans would oust him, and there are many more. Steele...I think it may be the end of the line for you.

I will be out of town for the next couple of days to return on Tuesday

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Today's Political Thought
Even if Specter moves to the left on EFCA, it will take 60 votes to end a Republican Filibuster...
You do the math on EFCA, here's 2007's votes
Even if we get Franken in MN, look at the 2 Colorado Senators, Conrad and Nelson above. EFCA isn't looking healthy!